Today is the 95th birthday of the actress Janet Leigh. She is one of the eight women that is known as a Hitchcock Blonde. The world is a better place because she was in it and still feels the loss that she has left.
NAME: Janet Leigh
DATE OF BIRTH: July 6, 1927
DATE OF DEATH: October 3, 2004
EDUCATION: College of the Pacific
PLACE OF BIRTH: Merced, California
PLACE OF DEATH: Los Angeles
ORIGINALLY: Jeanette Helen Morrison
REMAINS: Cremated; Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
HUSBAND: John Carlyle (m. 1942, div. 1942)
HUSBAND: Stanley Reames (m. 1946, div. 1948)
HUSBAND: Tony Curtis (actor, m. 4-Jun-1951, div. Jun-1962, two daughters)
DAUGHTER: Kelly Curtis (actress, b. 17-Jun-1956)
DAUGHTER: Jamie Lee Curtis (actress, b. 22-Nov-1958)
HUSBAND: Robert Brandt (m. 1962, until her death)
GOLDEN GLOBE – Best Supporting Actress – Psycho
HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME 1777 Vine Street
BEST KNOWN FOR: Film actress Janet Leigh, once Tony Curtis’s wife, is best remembered for her shower scene as Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller, ‘Psycho.’
Screen actress Janet Leigh was born Jeanette Helen Morrison in Merced, California, on July 6, 1927. Leigh attended grammar school and high school in Stockton, California, skipping several grades and graduating at age 15. She studied music and psychology at the College of the Pacific. She was married twice at a young age, first in 1942 to John Carlyle (annulled), and then to Stanley Reames in 1946 (they divorced in 1948).
Leigh was discovered by retired MGM actress Norma Shearer who saw a picture of her at a ski resort and recommended her for a screen test. Leigh landed an MGM contract, and her first film was The Romance of Rosy Ridge (1947), with Van Johnson.
Leigh was cast in ingenue roles in a number of films in the late 1940s and early 1950s and worked with many leading stars of the time. In 1951, she married actor Tony Curtis and had two daughters, Kelly Lee (1956) and Jamie Lee (1958). Leigh and Curtis appeared in five films together, most notably Houdini (1953). In 1962, she divorced Curtis and married director Robert Brandt.
Leigh’s most successful movies include Little Women (1949), Angels in the Outfield (1951), Scaramouche (1952), The Black Shield of Falworth (1954) and Orson Welles’s film noir Touch of Evil (1958). However, she is best known for her shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960)—one of the most terrifying moments ever committed to film. For her performance, Leigh won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award (best supporting actress).
Leigh’s career began to wane in the 1960s. She co-starred opposite Frank Sinatra in The Manchurian Candidate (1962), and with Paul Newman in Harper (1966). She then appeared in a series of made-for-television movies and minor feature films.
Leigh died at the age of 77 in her Beverly Hills home in October 2004 after suffering for a year from vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels.
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Bad Girls From Valley High (13-May-2004) as Mrs. Witt
Hitchcock: Shadow of a Genius (13-Oct-1999) as Herself
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (27-Jul-1998) as Norma
In My Sister’s Shadow (1997)
The Fog (8-Feb-1980) as Kathy Williams
Boardwalk (14-Nov-1979)
Night of the Lepus (4-Oct-1972)
One Is a Lonely Number (19-Jun-1972)
House on Greenapple Road (11-Jan-1970)
Hello Down There (25-Jun-1969)
Grand Slam (28-Sep-1967)
An American Dream (31-Aug-1966) as Cherry McMahon
Three on a Couch (Mar-1966) as Dr. Elizabeth Acord
Harper (23-Feb-1966) as Susan Harper
Kid Rodelo (1-Jan-1966) as Nora
Wives and Lovers (28-Aug-1963) as Bertie Austin
Bye Bye Birdie (4-Apr-1963) as Rosie DeLeon
The Manchurian Candidate (24-Oct-1962) as Rose Chaney
Pepe (21-Dec-1960) as Herself
Psycho (16-Jun-1960) as Marion Crane
Who Was That Lady? (8-Apr-1960)
The Perfect Furlough (21-Jan-1959)
The Vikings (11-Jun-1958)
Touch of Evil (21-May-1958) as Susan Vargas
Jet Pilot (Oct-1957) as Lt. Anna Marladovna Shannon
Safari (20-Jun-1956) as Linda
My Sister Eileen (22-Sep-1955) as Eileen Sherwood
Pete Kelly’s Blues (31-Jul-1955) as Ivy Conrad
Rogue Cop (17-Sep-1954)
The Black Shield of Falworth (2-Sep-1954)
Living It Up (23-Jul-1954)
Prince Valiant (5-Apr-1954)
Walking My Baby Back Home (6-Dec-1953)
The Naked Spur (3-Aug-1953) as Lina Patch
Houdini (2-Jul-1953) as Bess
Confidentially Connie (13-Mar-1953) as Connie Bedloe
Fearless Fagan (15-Aug-1952) as Abby Ames
Scaramouche (8-May-1952) as Aline de Gavrillac
Just This Once (17-Mar-1952) as Lucy Duncan
Two Tickets to Broadway (20-Nov-1951) as Nancy Peterson
It’s a Big Country (20-Nov-1951) as Rosa Szabo
Angels in the Outfield (17-Oct-1951) as Jennifer Paige
Strictly Dishonorable (3-Jul-1951) as Isabelle Perry
Holiday Affair (23-Nov-1949) as Connie
That Forsyte Woman (3-Nov-1949) as June Forsyte
The Doctor and the Girl (29-Sep-1949) as Evelyn Heldon
The Red Danube (22-Sep-1949) as Maria Buhlen
Little Women (10-Mar-1949) as Meg March
Act of Violence (21-Dec-1948) as Edith Enley
Words and Music (9-Dec-1948) as Dorothy Feiner
Hills of Home (1948) as Margit Mitchell
If Winter Comes (31-Dec-1947) as Effie Bright
The Romance of Rosy Ridge (4-Aug-1947)
Waldina 