Norman Bates From Psycho Was A Real Person

Did you love the movie, Psycho?  Did you know it was based on a book, and that the book was based on a real person?  Oh Mother.....time for a little history lesson.

Psycho Norman Bates Alfred Hitchcock's murderous motel proprietor is scary enough, but he's
perhaps more frightening when you learn that the Psycho character was based on a real person.

The real Psycho, Ed Gein

The real person was Ed Gein who was convicted of killing two women in the 1950s and was suspected of many more murders around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin.

At the time of the killings, authorities also discovered a collection of human skulls along with furniture and clothing, including a suit, made from human body parts and skin at Gein’s farmhouse.  Gein told police he had dug up the graves of recently buried women who reminded him of his mother.

Robert Bloch, who wrote the novel Psycho, co-opted many of Gein's strange obsessions for Bates, including his morbid shrine to his overbearing dead mother.

Like Bates, Gein came across as polite and almost normal, prompting the head nurse of the mental hospital where he was held to reportedly say, "If all our patients were like him, we'd have no trouble at all." Makes this already scary story a bit more frightening.

Gein’s crimes were beyond belief, but they have certainly been a blessing to filmmakers. They inspired or at least influenced the characters of not only Norman Bates but also Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.

So next time you are watching Psycho remember Norman Bates was real. Scary stuff here, but it made some great movies...and here in Hollywood we always ❤️ a great story.