Mar 24, 2026
The Story: On March 23, 2026, Valerie Perrine died at her home in Beverly Hills. She was 82. The former Las Vegas showgirl had been battling Parkinson's disease since her diagnosis in 2015, a condition that eventually robbed her of her mobility and much of her ability to eat and speak.
Perrine's career was extraordinary. For playing Honey Bruce — Lenny Bruce's drug-addicted stripper wife — in Bob Fosse's Lenny (1974), she won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival, a BAFTA honor for most promising newcomer, and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. She lost to Ellen Burstyn for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. In Christopher Reeve's Superman (1978) and its sequel, her seductive but soft-hearted Eve Teschmacher conspired with Lex Luthor but ultimately rescued the Man of Steel from the villain's trap.
She was widely regarded as a sex symbol during an era of feminist backlash against sex symbols. The New York Times described her as "a sensual Betty Boop, with her cherubic blue eyes, button nose and rosebud lips." She starred opposite Jeff Bridges in The Last American Hero and Robert Redford in The Electric Horseman. Then came Can't Stop the Music (1980) with The Village People — one of the films that inspired the Golden Raspberry Awards. "It ruined my career," she said. "I moved to Europe after, I was so embarrassed."
Her friend and soulmate Stacey Souther, who cared for her for years during her Parkinson's battle, announced her death on Facebook. "She faced Parkinson's disease with incredible courage and compassion, never once complaining," he wrote. "She was a true inspiration who lived life to the fullest — and what a magnificent life it was. The world feels less beautiful without her in it." A GoFundMe page set up for her medical expenses will now go toward burial costs.
We titled this song "The Last Light On" because that's what Valerie Perrine was — a single spotlight still burning in a theater after everyone had left. She won Cannes, saved Superman, and made Hollywood sit up in their seats. Then the industry moved on, Parkinson's took her voice, and the marquee went dark. But the light was still on. It always was. We wrote it as a cinematic torch ballad — organ, jazz piano, cathedral reverb — because her story deserves the kind of farewell that fills a room, even when the room is empty.
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A slow-burning farewell built on organ swells, jazz piano, and cathedral reverb. The arrangement breathes like a curtain call — intimate verses opening into a soaring, reverent crescendo that fills the empty theater. The kind of song that makes you stand up even when you're alone.