Perrine was born in Galveston, Texas, as the daughter of Winifred "Renee" (nee McGinley), a dancer who appeared in Earl Carroll's Vanities, and Kenneth I. Perrine, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army.[citation needed] Kenneth I. Perrine was the grandson of Alfred Perrine of Wallkill, N.Y., a descendant of Staten Island Huguenot Daniel Perrin. The Perrine family dates its ancestry to the French family of Perrin, which intermarried with other Normans dating back to William the Conqueror in 1066.[2] Her mother was Scottish (of Irish descent), from Helensburgh in Dunbartonshire.[3]
Owing to her father's military career, Perrine lived in many locations as the family moved to different posts.
She played soft-core pornography actress Montana Wildhack in the film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five (1972). Perrine was photographed nude for a pictorial layout in the May 1972 issue of Playboy, later appearing on the cover in August 1981. She then became the first actress to appear nude on American network television by intentionally exposing her breasts during the May 4, 1973, PBS broadcast of Bruce Jay Friedman's Steambath on Hollywood Television Theater. Only a few PBS stations nationwide carried the program. Later in 1973, she appeared in the episode "When the Girls Came Out to Play" of the romantic anthology television series Love Story (1973).
In the years since then, Perrine has worked in lower-profile projects, although she did have a small supporting role in the 2000 Mel Gibson film What Women Want. In 1995, Perrine made a guest appearance on the series Homicide: Life on the Street, playing an ex-wife of Richard Belzer's character, Detective John Munch.
Stacey Souther directed and produced Valerie, a 45 minute documentary about Perrine's career and her experience with Parkinson's disease.[10]Valerie was screened at the Edmonton Film Festival in 2020.[11]
Personal life
In 1969, Perrine began dating Hollywood hair stylist Jay Sebring. He invited her to a dinner party in Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles. She found someone to work for her that night, but at the last minute that person got sick, and Perrine had to show up for work. It turned out that the party she missed was the night when the Manson Family murdered six people at Sharon Tate's home, including Sebring.[12]
Perrine was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2015 and underwent dental surgery in 2017 to restore her teeth after they became damaged due to the medications she had been taking for her illness.[13]
^Perrine, Howland Delano. Daniel Perrine, "The Huguenot," and his descendants in America: of the surnames, Perrine, Perine, and Prine, 1665-1910, entry 1579.
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