Frank Albertson as Cassidy

Some years ago, probably at imdb, I did a post which, I suppose was considered a bit distasteful. I think it was removed by an administrator. My working premise at the time was that only three leads from Psycho remained alive -- John Gavin, Vera Miles, and Pat Hitchcock. (Gavin has since passed, leaving only the reclusive Miles and Hitchcock -- in their 80's and 90's.)

My premise was to research when all the OTHER cast members of Psycho passed away. As actors in a 1960 film, most of them made it just fine through the 60s, 70s and 80's. It was in the 90's that we started losing them. Anthony Perkins -- so young in Psycho in '60 (he was 27) died in 1992(at 60), four years before Martin Balsam(1996, at 76). Janet Leigh passed in 2003. So the young lead of Psycho actually passed before the rest of the leads.

I'll leave alone when the Highway Patrolman and California Charlie left us, but my research turned up one surprise: Frank Albertson(Cassidy), passed in 1964, only four years after Psycho came out, the first loss from the cast of this very famous movie.

And I think this rather informs the movie. Because we film and TV watchers got DECADES more to watch Perkins and Leigh and Balsam and Miles work and age, but Albertson seems to have disappeared almost immediately. He's the "unique" player in Psycho, the one with a pittance of other roles to compare his Psycho role TO.

The big one is from way back in 1946 -- It's a Wonderful Life. He's the guy who comes up with the most money to save James Stewart at the end; he's not AROUND at the end, but we meet him earlier in the film. I honestly can't remember how many scenes he has.

A cursory review of his imdb credits show us that he made 194 appearances in film and TV! From 1928 on. A ton of TV shows in the fifties and early sixties. After Psycho, he appeared in Bye Bye Birdie(with Janet Leigh) and the TV show Destry(starring John Gavin) so...a reunion.

He died "suddenly" says imdb, at 55. (I'll guess heart attack.)

And that was it. But Psycho is his big one now, a famous bit of work by a man who, despite 194 appearances, seems pretty mysterious and unknown now (oh, to a younger generation, EVERYBODY in Psycho is mysterious and unknown now, let's face it -- but Albertson was sooner.)

I've always felt that, compared to NXNW on one side of it and The Birds on the other, Psycho begins quite weirdly in its line-up of supporting characters. Even in the "normal" first 30 minutes of this horror movie(before any horror comes), these folks are all out of kilter, oppressive, and very much of their 1959/1960 era. The nervous, rodentoid real estate boss who won't air condition his secretaries' office in Arizona heat; the menacing yet helpful highway cop; the car salesman who doesn't seem like he wants to MAKE a sale -- something a bit off with all of them. But none worse than Cassidy, who, as captured by Frank Albertson, comes on as slimy and lecherous and creepy, with a weirdly handsome Southwestern courtliness to him, too(something about the Stetson and the pencil thin moustache, I suppose.)

There are two things, that I think Cassidy ISN'T, though some writers have accused him of it. One called him "fat." No, actually he's rather slim and reedy, something of the horse riding cowboy to him. And -- despite all his talk of "getting a little drinkin' done" and being "dyin' of thirstiroonie"(heh -- thirstiroonie?) we don't see him as a sloppy, slurring drunk. He's perhaps too demonstrative, and his lecherous looks at Marion seem a little wobbly at times but -- its a good performance. Some lesser actor(for a lesser director) could have played Cassidy as more of a staggering lush and lecher. This guy has a certain amount of control to him, he's a noveau riche boor.

Cassidy takes a position of sitting on Marion's desk and leaning into her while looming over her. Interesting -- 12 years later, Barry Foster's Bob Rusk will assume the same position on the desk of marriage counselor Brenda Blaney -- and I wonder if Hitchcockian fans in 1972 made the connection back to Cassidy. Rusk, of course, will 'go all the way" and assault Blaney. Cassidy - with witnesses all around him(Lowery, Caroline) will settle for unnerving Marion with his invasion of her space (and man, he looks her up and down and clearly undresses her with his eyes -- MORE great acting. You can SEE it.)

What's odd is that Cassidy connects his lecherous domination of Marion's desk with a discussion of his fatherly love for "my baby" the 18-year old (young today, not so much then) who is "getting married away from me" and to whom he is awarding $40,000 for a house(do the inflation math -- this is a rich dad.) Somehow, the mix of Cassidy the Father and Cassidy the Lecher (he nastily notes to Marion that "my baby "is his daughter and NOT Marion) comes out to suggest: The Father as a Lecher to his own daughter! (There's just something not right about it.)