THE PLAYER
Ron Perlman


By Veena Trehan

Plastic surgeon to politicians, beauty pageant winners and mere mortals Long Island native Dr. Ron Perlman has had a colorful life. Tony Danza stepped up to act as an informal body guard to Perlman, the highschool basketball player, and even lost a girlfriend to the sports star. Perlman then followed in the footsteps of a relative who was a pioneer in plastic surgery. While the surgeon admits “there’s a lot of psychology” involved in his field, we guess he disarms his patients with his charming accent, humorous stories and mastery of his field.

A Difficult Choice

The only thing that really interested me [in medical school] was plastic surgery but I was very nervous in the operating room. I would say, “Who would put themselves under this tension on a daily basis?” I decided to give it a try but didn’t know if I could do it.
I applied for general surgery at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. It’s very intense program, it’s really like the knife-and-gun club. For six months when I would scrub I would have butterflies in my stomach. Then I was scrubbing one day and I just realized it was gone, I didn’t have butterflies anymore.

Watching the New Shows (or Not)
People are always asking me, “Do you watch Nip/Tuck?” and I say, “I don’t want to see my life on TV.”

Doing More
When I trained you’d get one procedure and that was it. If they wanted their eyes done, you’d tell them to come back next year. Now I’m doing the face, eyes, liposuction and breasts all in one sitting on somebody. Everybody wants it done all at once…

Can He Fix Your Marriage?

People come in and want to do their breasts because they want to have a better relationship with their husband. You pretty much know that you can make her look better but you’re not going to be improving her relationship with her husband.

An Older Look

When I started practicing I had this young look. People would come in to my office and ask, “Excuse me, can I ask you something? How old are you?" I was like the Doogie Howser of plastic surgery back then.

People ask me, “Why don’t you get Botox here and there?” “Cause you’ve been asking me to look old for so long. Now you want me to get rid of it?”

Second Chance

I am CEO of a nonprofit organization called Second Chance [Employment Servies] that gets jobs and training and clothes for abused women. I do a lot of basically pro-bono surgery for these women to make them feel better about themselves.

I Want Those ….

A lot of people come in with noses they want or breasts. In the operating room, believe it or not, I will sometimes have the centerfold in Playboy up there. That’s what she wanted so I’ll try to match it. Of course, I’ll cut the bottom half off. [laughing]

Everything to Me

Sports are really my main focus – tennis, golf, skiing – other than my kids and work. Sports was everything to me then and it still is. I love being active, I have energy to burn.

To Sum Up

I think that I’m at the perfect point for a plastic surgeon. I’m not too young where things are new and not too old. So I’m kind of peaking right now. I’m going to enjoy it, the next fifteen years, and take that with me.

Veena Trehan writes the Players column. She is pursuing her Masters at the University of Maryland as the Reuters Fellow and has reported for Reuters.