Valerie Perrin, Superman and Lenny actress, dies at 82. Movie

Valerie Perrine, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in Bob Fosse’s 1974 biopic Lenny Bruce and played Lex Luthor’s girlfriend in the Richard Donner Superman films, has died at the age of 82.

Director Stacy Souther announced her death on her Facebook page, saying: “It is with deep sadness that I share with you the heartbreaking news of Valerie’s death.”

He continued by asking readers to donate to the GoFundMe fundraiser to help cover the costs of her funeral. “Her last wish is to be buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery, but after more than 15 years of battling Parkinson’s disease, her finances have been exhausted. Let’s come together to make her last wish a reality – she truly deserves it,” he wrote.

Perrin was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015, and her experience with the condition became the subject of a 45-minute documentary produced by Souther, which premiered in 2019. In the face of the disease, Souther wrote, she showed “incredible courage and compassion, and never complained. She was a true inspiration who lived life to the fullest — and what a wonderful life she had. The world seems less beautiful without her.”

A Hollywood Reporter profile of the star in 2023 expanded further on her illness, and how Souther took on the role of caregiver for both Valerie and her brother Ken, who also suffers from Parkinson’s disease.

Perrin began her career as a showgirl in Las Vegas but left after her gun-importing fiancé accidentally shot himself in the heart. Once in Los Angeles, she had an affair with famous hairdresser Jay Sebring, but was then murdered by members of the “Manson Family” cult at Sharon Tate’s home.

Later, she was spotted by a talent agent at a dinner party in Los Angeles and was cast as a soft porn actress in the film version of Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) and as the girlfriend of race car driver Jeff Bridges in The Last American Hero in 1973. In the same year, she became the first actress to appear on American television intentionally nude after appearing in a PBS play called Steambath.

The scene in which her character emerges from the bathroom has become a lucrative fundraising tool for the non-profit broadcaster.

In 1974, she played stripper Honey Bruce, wife of comedian Lenny Bruce, in the popular Bob Fosse biopic, Lenny, starring Dustin Hoffman. She won the Best Actress Award at Cannes for her performance, and was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award.

In the latter half of the 1970s, Perrine was best known for her role as Miss Tishmancher, Gene Hackman’s criminal mastermind Lex Luthor, in Superman (1978) and its 1980 sequel. She also played W. C. Fields’ mistress in a biopic opposite Rod Steiger, whom she later described as “full of hatred for everything,” and the ex-wife of rodeo champion Robert Redford in The Electric Horseman. (1979).

Other roles included Jack Nicholson’s wife in 1982’s The Border and a recently retired fashion model in Can’t Stop the Music, the Village People’s infamous 1980 semi-autobiography.

The film, which also starred Caitlyn Jenner and Steve Guttenberg, became a cult classic, but at the time Perrin regretted her involvement. “It ruined my career,” she said. “I moved to Europe after that, and I felt very embarrassed.”

She worked less frequently in the last four decades of her life, but appeared in the 1985 film Water, where she described co-star Michael Caine as “the nicest human being I’ve ever worked with”, as well as playing a petty office assistant in the 2000 film What Women Want.