Janet Leigh

Jeanette Helen Morrison, who performed as Janet Leigh, was an American actress, author, and businesswoman active from the 1940s onward. Born July 6, 1927, in Merced, California, to working-class parents, she grew up in Stockton and later attended the College of the Pacific, studying music and psychology. While still a teenager, her photograph caught the eye of actress Norma Shearer at a ski resort where Leigh’s parents worked. Shearer helped her secure a contract with MGM, despite Leigh having no acting experience. Her first film role was in the Civil War drama *The Romance of Rosy Ridge* (1947), and she soon appeared in *Act of Violence* (1948), *Little Women* (1949), *Angels in the Outfield* (1951), *Scaramouche* (1952), and *The Naked Spur* (1953).

Leigh married twice in the 1940s before wedding actor Tony Curtis in 1951. After leaving MGM in 1954, she worked with Universal and Columbia Pictures, starring in *Safari* (1956) and Orson Welles’ *Touch of Evil* (1958). Her most famous role came as Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock’s *Psycho* (1960), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress but did not win, and she did not receive an Academy Award nomination. That same year, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was recognized as an early scream queen. She and Curtis divorced in 1962; she then married Robert Brandt. Later films included *The Manchurian Candidate* (1962), *Bye Bye Birdie* (1963), and *Harper* (1966). She made her Broadway debut in *Murder Among Friends* (1975) and appeared in *Night of the Lepus* (1972) and *Boardwalk* (1979). She also acted alongside her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, in *The Fog* (1980) and *Halloween H20: 20 Years Later* (1998).

Beyond acting, Leigh co-founded Curtleigh Productions with Curtis, which produced several films between 1955 and 1962. She wrote four books from 1984 to 2002, two of them novels. She died on October 3, 2004, at age 77 from vasculitis.