Berry Berenson: Her Life, Work, Family and Lasting Legacy

Berry Berenson was an American photographer and actress, a member of the Berenson family, and the wife of actor Anthony Perkins. Born Berinthia Berenson, she built a professional photography career, appeared in films, and was the mother of Oz and Elvis Perkins. She was killed aboard American Airlines Flight 11 on September 11, 2001, when the hijacked plane was flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Berenson was the sister of model and actress Marisa Berenson and the maternal granddaughter of Italian-born fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli. Those family connections provide context, but they do not account for her own work in editorial photography and film.

Who was Berry Berenson?

Berry Berenson was an American photographer and actress. Her given name was Berinthia Berenson, though she was known publicly and professionally as Berry. She worked behind the camera, appeared in films, married Anthony Perkins, and raised two sons within a well-known artistic family.

Photography was her principal creative profession, not a side interest attached to a famous surname. Her work appeared in Vogue, Life, Glamour, and Newsweek, and her subjects included fashion, public figures, and everyday scenes. Editorial photography required practical skill as well as an eye for personality and composition. Her 1984 book, Berry Berenson’s Great Photographs, collected a selection of her images.

Berenson also acted in Remember My Name (1978), Winter Kills (1979), and Cat People (1982). Her screen career was selective rather than extensive, but it placed her in front of the camera as well as behind it.

She died on September 11, 2001, at age 53. That event is central to many accounts of her life, but it should not eclipse her work as a photographer and actress or her life as a mother, sister, and member of an artistically connected family.

What did Berry Berenson do before she became widely known through her family?

Before later attention tied her name closely to Anthony Perkins and the Berenson family, Berry Berenson worked in fashion and photography. She began as a model when she was young, gaining familiarity with editorial production, clothing, lighting, and the visual language of magazines. She later moved behind the camera and made photography her principal creative profession.

Her work appeared in Vogue, Life, Glamour, and Newsweek, magazines that covered fashion, culture, and public life. Magazine photography is collaborative: photographers work with editors, stylists, art directors, and subjects while making choices about framing, tone, timing, and visual emphasis. Berenson worked within that professional world in her own right.

Her photographs also reached readers in book form. Berry Berenson’s Great Photographs, published in 1984, presented her work beyond individual magazine assignments. The collection reflected a period when photographers’ books often served as visual records of people, style, and contemporary life.

Acting was another part of her working life. In Remember My Name, a 1978 drama directed by Alan Rudolph, she appeared alongside Geraldine Chaplin and Anthony Perkins. She later appeared in Winter Kills and in Paul Schrader’s 1982 film Cat People. Photography remained the steadier thread of her career, while acting gave her a smaller but visible body of screen work.

Her marriage to Anthony Perkins and their sons

Berry Berenson married Anthony Perkins in 1973. Perkins was already internationally known for playing Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and for a long career in film, television, and stage work. Their marriage joined two people working in creative fields, although their public profiles were very different.

They had two sons: Osgood “Oz” Perkins, born in 1974, and Elvis Perkins, born in 1976. Oz Perkins became an actor, writer, and director, known especially for horror films including The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Gretel & Hansel, Longlegs, and The Monkey. Elvis Perkins became a singer-songwriter and has released music under his own name and with the band Elvis Perkins in Dearland.

Anthony Perkins died in 1992, leaving Berenson a widow while their sons were still young adults. It was one of two devastating family losses they would face within a decade. Berenson remained the boys’ surviving parent until her death in 2001.

Accounts of the marriage sometimes focus on later revelations about Perkins’s private life and health. Those details can be historically relevant, but the basic family facts remain: Berenson and Perkins were married for nearly 20 years, raised two sons, and worked in adjacent creative industries. Berry Berenson was Anthony Perkins’s wife, and Oz and Elvis Perkins were their children.

How was Berry Berenson related to Marisa Berenson and Elsa Schiaparelli?

Marisa Berenson was Berry Berenson’s older sister. Like Berry, Marisa worked in fashion and film, first gaining wide recognition as a model and later becoming known for roles in Cabaret and Barry Lyndon. The sisters were often discussed together because both worked in highly visible creative fields.

Elsa Schiaparelli was their maternal grandmother. The influential Italian-born fashion designer was known for surrealist collaborations and imaginative designs that challenged conventional ideas of dress. She was the mother of the sisters’ mother, Maria Luisa Yvonne Radha de Wendt de Kerlor.

This family background placed the sisters near art, fashion, and international social circles, but it did not predetermine Berry’s career or make her photography an extension of Schiaparelli’s fashion house. Berry and Marisa’s father, Robert L. Berenson, was an American shipping executive. Their background combined ties to European fashion, American business, and the arts.

Online descriptions sometimes compress these relationships into the vague statement that the sisters were “related to Schiaparelli.” The direct relationships are clearer: Marisa Berenson was Berry’s sister, and Elsa Schiaparelli was their grandmother.

What happened to Berry Berenson on September 11, 2001?

Berry Berenson was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11 on September 11, 2001. The plane departed Boston for Los Angeles that morning. Terrorists hijacked it, and it became the first aircraft used in the September 11 attacks. At 8:46 a.m., it was flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Berenson was killed along with the other people aboard the flight and many people in the tower. She was 53 years old. Her death was widely reported because of her marriage to Anthony Perkins, her sister Marisa, and her family’s public prominence, but she was one individual among the victims of an attack that caused immense loss across many families and communities.

She was traveling as a commercial airline passenger, not in New York by choice that morning. Flight 11’s passengers and crew had no ordinary opportunity to understand or prevent what was being done to the aircraft. The known facts are sufficient; there is no need to speculate about her final moments.

Her sons, Oz and Elvis Perkins, had already lost their father in 1992. Their mother’s death nine years later was a defining private loss within a highly public national tragedy. Marisa Berenson also lost her sister in the attacks.

Why Berry Berenson is still remembered

Berry Berenson is remembered as a photographer whose work appeared in major publications, an actress with a small but real screen career, and the mother of two sons who became artists in their own right. She was also Anthony Perkins’s wife, Marisa Berenson’s sister, and Elsa Schiaparelli’s granddaughter.

Her death aboard American Airlines Flight 11 places her name in memorials and histories of September 11. Naming individual victims matters because it restores a person to an event often remembered through images of buildings, aircraft, and casualty totals. Berenson was one of the people whose ordinary plans for the day were interrupted by violence.

A fuller remembrance begins before September 2001. Her photographs reflect her work as a visual artist attentive to people and style, and her acting credits show another part of her creative life. Her relationships with Anthony Perkins and their sons are important, but they do not erase her independent professional identity.

Two shortcuts leave out too much: treating her only as part of a glamorous family or only as a September 11 victim. Both are true parts of her story, but neither is a complete account of her life. Her legacy remains in her photographs, film work, family memories, her sons’ lives and careers, and the continuing effort to remember the people killed in the attacks.

Conclusion

Berry Berenson was a professional photographer and actress with work of her own, not simply Anthony Perkins’s wife or Elsa Schiaparelli’s granddaughter. Her marriage to Perkins, their sons Oz and Elvis, and her relationship with Marisa Berenson are important parts of her life, but they belong alongside her photography and film work. She also deserves to be remembered plainly and respectfully as one of the people killed aboard American Airlines Flight 11 on September 11, 2001. Her death was part of a national tragedy; her life was broader than the event that ended it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Berry Berenson married to?

Berry Berenson was married to actor Anthony Perkins from 1973 until his death in 1992. Perkins was widely known for playing Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s *Psycho*.

Were Berry Berenson and Marisa Berenson sisters?

Yes. Berry Berenson and Marisa Berenson were sisters. Marisa was a model and actress, while Berry worked primarily as a photographer and also appeared in several films.

Was Berry Berenson related to Elsa Schiaparelli?

Yes. Fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli was Berry Berenson’s maternal grandmother. She was also the grandmother of Berry’s sister, Marisa Berenson.

Did Berry Berenson have children?

Yes. Berry Berenson and Anthony Perkins had two sons, Oz Perkins and Elvis Perkins. Oz became an actor, writer, and film director, while Elvis became a singer-songwriter.

How did Berry Berenson die?

Berry Berenson was killed on September 11, 2001, while traveling aboard American Airlines Flight 11. The hijacked plane was flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks.