Educational Media Reviews Online

Valerie presents the life and career of actress and model Valerie Perrine, best known for playing Honey Bruce in Lenny and Miss Teschmacher in Superman, now in her late 70s and struggling with chronic illness that doctors identify as severe essential tremor or Parkinson’s Disease. Perrine’s indomitable spirit is bracing, as is her lack of self-consciousness as the camera captures her struggling to speak and to use knife and fork, then being fed and cared for as her condition deteriorates. These scenes are juxtaposed with glamorous photographs and footage of her throughout her life and career as friends, co-stars, relatives, and doctors speak to her kindness, vivaciousness, and innate talent. The film covers her 1960s career as a Las Vegas showgirl that ended in devastation after her boyfriend Jay Sebring was murdered by the Manson Family. Jumping to Hollywood she won the role of the seductive Montana Wildhack in Slaughterhouse-Five in 1971 after auditioning in a bikini bottom, then set Hollywood on fire in Lenny in 1974, for which she won best actress awards from the Cannes Film Festival, the National Board of Review, and the New York Film Critics Circle. After winning more kudos for Superman and Superman II her career imploded in 1982 after the disastrous disco musical Can’t Stop the Music (now a cult film). She continued acting, primarily in television, and while she never regained her initial stardom, she remains a legend. Known for her luminous beauty and lack of inhibition, she is refreshingly wry and straightforward about her life and career, noting that she never took acting too seriously, instead identifying her time in Vegas as “the best years of my life.”

Valerie is a powerful short film about a strong woman facing the loss of physical control and a life dependent on caregivers, years after a meteoric Hollywood rise and fall. Featuring interview clips with Jeff Bridges, George Hamilton, Angie Dickinson, Howard Hesseman, David Arquette, and others who speak movingly to and about Valerie, it touches on a unique career. She starred in major studio films opposite Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford as well as acting in lower profile television roles, she was nominated for Oscar, Golden Globe, and BAFTA awards as well as a Razzie for worst actress, and she appeared in the first nude scene on American television and in two Playboy spreads, all in only a decade.

With a running time of 36 minutes, the filmmakers focus on Valerie Perrine in her courageous fight for her health rather than lingering on her storied career. She undergoes brain surgery and the doctors struggle to diagnose her with severe essential tremor or Parkinson’s Disease. She receives in-home care seven days a week. She describes her philosophy as taking things day by day, citing her childhood as an army brat growing up with “no sense of tomorrow.” Surrounded by friends and caregivers, she celebrates her birthday and hopes for a cure.

Valerie would be well-suited for courses in film and media studies, allied health and human services, gerontology, women’s and gender studies, and other disciplines. It is an intimate portrait of a resilient women balancing past glamour and present pain. Richard Donner captures her infectious spirit when he says, “If you can describe Valerie in one word? It’s Valerie!”

Awards:
Youth Jury Award Best Documentary Short, Rhode Island International Film Festival 2019; Best Short American Documentary, AmDocs 2020

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