A farewell to Valerie Perrine

Today we lost the iconic Valerie Perrine, an American actress and model best known for her work in film during the 1970s and 1980s. She rose to fame with her breakout role as Montana Wildhack in Slaughterhouse-Five, based on the novel by Kurt Vonnegut. Her performance earned critical acclaim and established her as a rising star.

Perrine is perhaps most widely recognised for playing Miss Eve Teschmacher in Superman and its sequel Superman II, starring alongside Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman. Throughout the 1970s, she built an impressive body of work with notable performances in The Last American Hero and W.C. Fields and Me. Moving into the early 1980s, she continued to appear in a range of interesting projects, including Agency, The Cannonball Run, and The Border alongside Jack Nicholson.

One of her most notable performances came in Lenny, where she portrayed Honey Bruce opposite Dustin Hoffman as comedian Lenny Bruce. Her role earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and a win at the Cannes Film Festival.

In addition to acting, Perrine was also known as a model, famously becoming one of the first actresses to appear nude on the cover of Newsweek in 1973, which sparked significant attention at the time.

In later years, she stepped away from the spotlight to live a more private life, while also raising awareness and speaking candidly about her experience living with Parkinson’s disease for over 15 years.