Asked in 1975 whether it bothered her that she was frequently called upon to be “sexy”, the actor Valerie Perrine said: “It’s not something I mind like being bitten by a mosquito.” On the contrary, she often revelled in it, considering herself “the 1970s version of Mae West”.
Perrine, who has died aged 82 after suffering from Parkinson’s disease, was blissfully unselfconscious, entirely untrained and claimed never even to have read a script before making her screen debut as the porn star Montana Wildhack, who is abducted by aliens in the 1972 film of Kurt Vonnegut’s book Slaughterhouse-Five. “There’s nothing so mysterious about acting,” said Perrine. “You’re either good at it or you’re not. I happen to be good at it.”
