NAME: Janet Leigh OCCUPATION: Film Actress BIRTH DATE: July 06, 1927 DEATH DATE: October 03, 2004 EDUCATION: College of the Pacific PLACE OF BIRTH: Merced, California PLACE OF DEATH: Los Angeles ORIGINALLY: Jeanette Helen Morrison
BEST KNOWN FOR: Janet Leigh was an American actress. She starred in the 1960s film Psycho. She was the wife of Tony Curtis and mother of Jamie Lee Curtis and Kelly Curtis.
Janet Leigh (born Jeanette Helen Morrison; July 6, 1927 – October 3, 2004) was an American actress. She was the wife of actor Tony Curtis from June 1951 to September 1962 and the mother of Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Discovered by actress Norma Shearer, Leigh secured a contract with MGM and began her film career in the late 1940s. She appeared in several popular films over the following decade, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and Living It Up (a Martin and Lewis-film from 1954).
From the end of the 1950s, she played more dramatic roles in such films as Safari (1958) Touch of Evil (1958) and The Manchurian Candidate (1962), but she achieved her most lasting recognition for her performance as the doomed Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). For this role she was awarded the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She continued to appear occasionally in films and television, including two performances with her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in The Fog (1980) and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998).
Listen very carefully to the music in the background of this scene, it is the “Psycho Suite”:
Who wouldn’t want a babysitter like Esmerelda or a friend with no social filter like Bernice Clifton? She stole the scene, the focus, and the laughter over and over again on dozens of TV shows. Ladies and gentlemen, Alice Ghostley. Style Icon.
Born: Alice Margaret Ghostley August 14, 1924 Eve, Missouri, U.S. Died: September 21, 2007 (aged 83) Studio City, California, U.S.
Alice Margaret Ghostley (August 14, 1924 – September 21, 2007) was an American actress. She was best known for her roles as housekeeper Esmeralda (1969-72) on Bewitched, as Cousin Alice (1970–71) on Mayberry R.F.D., and as Bernice Clifton (1986–93) on Designing Women, for which she received an Emmy Nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1992. Ghostley was also a regular on the James Garner-Margot Kidder NBC western Nichols (1971–72) and the critically acclaimed variety series, The Julie Andrews Hour (1972-73).
A veteran of early television, Ghostley appeared as Joy, one of the ugly stepsisters in the 1957 musical television production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s Cinderella, which starred Julie Andrews in the title role. The other stepsister was played by actress Kaye Ballard. Twelve years later, Ghostley guest starred as a harried maternity nurse on Miss Ballard’s comedy series, The Mothers-in-Law.
Ghostley portrayed recurring characters on several situation comedies, beginning with Esmeralda, a shy witch who served as a maid and babysitter to the Stephens’ household beginning in season six of Bewitched. Ghostley’s role of Esmeralda was created after the death in May 1968 of Marion Lorne, who portrayed Aunt Clara. (Coincidentally, Ghostley and Lorne shared a brief scene together in the 1967 film The Graduate, a few months prior to Lorne’s death and before Ghostley was cast in Bewitched.)
Ghostley’s “Esmeralda” appeared in 15 episodes between 1969 and 1972. Ghostley had previously guest starred once as a mortal character, “Naomi”, during Bewitched ‘s second season.
After two plus years on “Bewitched” as a semi-regular, she joined the cast of Mayberry R.F.D., playing Cousin Alice after Frances Bavier’s character, Aunt Bee, was written off the series. She appeared in 14 episodes.
In the spring of 1972, Bewitched was canceled by ABC after eight years. In September of that year, Ghostley was hired as a semi-regular for the ABC-TV variety series, The Julie Andrews Hour. In addition to participating in songs and sketches, Andrews and Ghostley were featured in a recurring segment as roommates sharing a small apartment. The Julie Andrews Hour was canceled by ABC in the spring of 1973 having completed a full season of twenty-four episodes.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Ghostley appeared in episodes of situation comedies such as Hogan’s Heroes (playing Gertrude, General Burkhalter’s Sister), Good Times, Maude, One Day at a Time, The Odd Couple and What’s Happening!!.
Between 1986 and 1993, Ghostley portrayed Bernice Clifton, the slightly off-kilter friend of Julia and Suzanne Sugarbaker’s mother, Perky, on Designing Women. She later played Irna Wallingsford in six episodes of Evening Shade. She also had a recurring role of Ida Mae Brindle in the sitcom Small Wonder, which ran from 1985 to 1989. Among many other guest roles, she appeared in a flashback episode as the crazed mother-in-law of Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur) on The Golden Girls. She made a one-time appearance as “Great-Grandma” in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Ghostley also made a few guest appearances on the daytime drama Passions in 2000, playing the ghost of Matilda Matthews.
NAME: Janet Leigh
