September 6

Berry Berenson Perkins
American Airlines Flight 11

Hers was a life of almost fairy tale proportions. She was a granddaughter of the French couturier Elsa Schiaparelli. She was an intimate of Halston; a photographer for Glamour and Vogue; a model with Vermeer- blue eyes and golden hair; an actress; the sister of Marisa Berenson; the wife of Anthony Perkins; the mother of their two handsome boys.

But ask friends and family members what Berry Berenson Perkins was, and the answer comes to one word: angel.

"If there was ever a person who could be called a living angel, I think Berry was," said Gale Parker, a friend. Her sister, Marisa Berenson, used the word, too. "She touched everybody who met her," she said.

Mrs. Perkins, 53, was devoted to her two sons, Oz and Elvis. But she had experienced her share of pain, having nursed her husband for two years before his death in 1992.

In 1994, while visiting Jamaica, she met Albert Parchment, whom friends know as Coot. He was guarding the gate to a party, and she didn't have a ticket. She sneaked by, so he went for her and gave her a ticket. "We stayed up all night talking," he said. Then he took her back to her hotel and went home. "I couldn't wait for daylight to come to get to see her in the morning."

The two fell in love, and soon she was living between homes on Cape Cod and in Jamaica, where they ran a bar in Treasure Beach.


You can view his Legacy guest book here.