The Los Angeles Times
Cort Gets The Keys to “Bates Motel”
June 27, 1987
By Roderick Mannimes

Just when you thought it was safe to go near the Universal Studios Tour again, along comes “Bates Motel,” airing July 5 and using that house.

No question, Universal has had its money worth from the rambling old mansion created by Alfred Hitchcock for his 1960 classic, ”Psycho.” It was used for both sequels and has been a feature of the studio tour. Now, once again, it’s been cleaned up for ”Bates Motel,” starring Bud Cort.

For this two-hour NBC-TV thriller, you have to forget about the sequels. It takes up where the first movie left off—with Norman Bates (played by Kurt Paul) being locked away in an institution.

There he befriends a young man, Alex West (played by Cort), who has been incarcerated since he was 12 for stuffing his unpleasant step-father into a dry-cleaning machine.

“Norman literally helps bring me up,” Cort explained the other day. “And before he dies in the institution [that’s why you’ve got to forget the sequels, which had him released], he wills me the motel. When I leave, I take it over—and, well, you can imagine….”

This NBC network pilot was written especially for Cort by Richard Rothstein, the man behind cable-TV’s ”The Hitchhiker.” He also directed ”Bates Motel.”

“If we get the numbers,” Cort said, mentally crossing his fingers, “we’ll go to series.”

Once he’d signed for the role, Cort telephoned Tony Perkins, who starred in all three of the ”Psycho” movies and directed the last one, which was released last year.

“He knew about the project,” Cort said. “I believe he was actually approached to participate but wasn’t interested. But he was very helpful.”

If ”Bates Motel” goes to series, it will be a big boost for the actor, who is getting rather tired of being labeled Bud ”Harold and Maude” Cort.

It was, of course, in that black-comedy cult classic that he made his mark—as a morbid young man who finds new zest when he meets an eccentric old widow (Ruth Gordon)—but now he wants to be remembered for other things.

A slight, bearded man who arrived to talk accompanied by his Boston Terrier puppy Lilian, Cort, 37, didn’t make another movie for several years after ”Harold and Maude.”

“I turned down everything,” he said. “Most of the stuff I was offered was strange and bizarre and I felt I had to follow that film with something classical and wonderful. In retrospect, I realize that was professional suicide—if I had it to do over again today, I’d say yes to everything.”

During that period he house-guested for five years with Groucho Marx.

“My own father had died,” he said. “I was staying at the Chateau Marmont and was very despondent. The only roles being offered me were nuts. Groucho and I became great friends. And he lived to see me get back on my feet.”

During that time, Cort also spent nine months in Paris, where he sang Gershwin and Cole Porter at the Alcazar Theatre. “At rehearsal, Jean Seberg [who lived in Paris] came up to me and said I had to include ’Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup’ in the program, so I did. I adored her.”

And it was in Paris that Leslie Caron told him, “I know what you’re doing—waiting for something great to come along. Well, don’t. Take everything decent you’re offered.”

Cort, who has a new movie, ”Burnin’ Love,” due for release in August—“It’s a comedy about the Salem witch burnings in which I play a parson”—is soon to begin rehearsals for a one-man show about Truman Capote, written by Lawrence Grobell. Cort hopes to open the show in New York in the fall.

“I was one of the first people offered ’Being There,’” he said. They couldn’t raise the finance because I wasn’t a big enough name. That was long before Peter Sellers got it. I know now that if you want to get good stuff, you’ve got to be in the mainstream and to keep the ball rolling. That’s what I hope to do from now on.”