Janet Leigh

The only child of Helen Lita (née Westergaard) and Frederick Robert Morrison, Leigh was born Jeanette Helen Morrison on July 6, 1927, in Merced, California.[1] Her maternal grandparents were immigrants from Denmark,[2] and her father had Scots-Irish and German ancestry.[3] Shortly after Leigh's birth, the family relocated to Stockton, where she spent her early life.[4] She was brought up in poverty, as her father struggled to support the family with his factory employment, and he took various additional jobs after the Great Depression.[5]

Leigh was raised Presbyterian and sang in the local church choir throughout her childhood.[6] In 1941, when her paternal grandfather became terminally ill, the family relocated to Merced where they moved into her grandparents' home.[7] She attended Weber Grammar School in Stockton,[8] and later Stockton High School.[9] Leigh excelled in academics and graduated from high school at age sixteen.[9] During her final year of high school, Leigh married eighteen-year-old John Kenneth Carlisle in Reno, Nevada, on August 1, 1942.[lower-alpha 1] The marriage was annulled four months later on December 28, 1942.[10] In September 1943, she enrolled at the College of the Pacific (now University of the Pacific), where she majored in music and psychology.[11] While in college, she joined the Alpha Theta Tau sorority,[12] and also sang with the college's a cappella choir.[7] In order to help support her family, she spent Christmas and summer vacations working at retail shops and dime stores, as well as working at the college's information desk during her studies.[7] While a university student, Leigh met Stanley Reames, a U.S. Navy sailor who was enrolled at a nearby V-12 Program.[9] Leigh and Reames married on October 5, 1945, when she was eighteen; their marriage, however, was also short-lived, and they divorced four years later[13] on September 7, 1949.

Leigh pictured at age eighteen; actress Norma Shearer helped facilitate her contract with MGM based on this photo

In the winter of 1945–1946, actress Norma Shearer was vacationing at Sugar Bowl, a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada mountains where Leigh's parents were working at the time.[14][15] In the resort lobby, Shearer noticed a photograph of Leigh taken by the ski club photographer over the Christmas holiday, which he had printed and placed in a photo album available for guests to browse.[9]

Upon returning to Los Angeles, Shearer showed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) talent agent Lew Wasserman the photograph of the then-eighteen-year-old Leigh (Shearer's late husband Irving Thalberg had been a senior executive at MGM). She would later recall that "that smile made it the most fascinating face I had seen in years. I felt I had to show that face to somebody at the studio."[16]

Through her association with MGM, Shearer was able to facilitate screen tests for Leigh with Selena Royle,[17] after which Wasserman negotiated a contract for her, despite her having no acting experience.[18] Leigh dropped out of college that year, and was soon placed under the tutelage of drama coach Lillian Burns.[19]

Prior to beginning her film career, Leigh was a guest star on the radio dramatic anthology The Cresta Blanca Hollywood Players. Her initial appearance on radio[20] at age 19[21] was in the program's production "All Through the House," a Christmas special that aired on December 24, 1946.[22]

Leigh in the trailer for Little Women (1949)

Leigh made her film debut in the big-budget Civil War film The Romance of Rosy Ridge (1947), as the romantic interest of Van Johnson's character. She got the role when performing Phyllis Thaxter's long speech in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo for the head of the studio talent department.[19] During the shooting, Leigh's name was first changed to "Jeanette Reames", then to "Janet Leigh" and finally back to her birth name "Jeanette Morrison", as the studio felt "Janet Leigh" might cause confusion with actress Vivien Leigh.[23] However, Johnson did not like the name and it was ultimately changed back to "Janet Leigh" (pronounced "Lee").[23] Though Leigh initially left college to pursue her film career, she re-enrolled in night classes at the University of Southern California in early 1947.[24]

Immediately after the release of The Romance of Rosy Ridge, Leigh was cast opposite Walter Pidgeon and Deborah Kerr in the drama If Winter Comes (1947), playing a young pregnant woman in an English village.[25] By late 1947, Leigh was occupied with the shooting of the Lassie film Hills of Home (1948), her third feature and the first in which she received star billing.[26] She had a cameo as herself in MGM's all-star musical, Words and Music (1948). In late 1948, she was hailed the "No. 1 glamour girl" of Hollywood, although known for her polite, generous and down-to-earth persona.[27]

Leigh in The Red Danube (1949)

Leigh appeared in a number of films in 1949, including the thriller, Act of Violence (1949), with Van Heflin and Robert Ryan, directed by Fred Zinnemann. Though a financial failure, it was well-received by critics.[28] She also had a significant hit with MGM's version of Little Women, based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott, in which she portrayed Meg March, alongside June Allyson and Elizabeth Taylor.[29] The film was generally well-received by critics.[29] Also in 1949, Leigh appeared as a nun in the anti-communist drama The Red Danube, which earned her critical acclaim,[30] followed by a role as Glenn Ford's love interest in The Doctor and the Girl.[31] Other credits from 1949 include as June Forsyte in That Forsyte Woman (1949) opposite Greer Garson and Errol Flynn, and as Robert Mitchum's leading co-star in the RKO-produced Holiday Affair (1949).[32] In December 1949, she filmed Josef von Sternberg's adventure-drama film Jet Pilot (not released until 1957), in which she starred as the female lead opposite John Wayne.[33]

On June 4, 1951, Leigh married actor Tony Curtis in a private ceremony in Greenwich, Connecticut.[34] Their romance and marriage was a frequent topic in gossip columns and film tabloids.[35] From 1951 to 1954 Leigh and Curtis appeared in numerous home movies directed by their friend Jerry Lewis. Leigh credited the experimental and informal nature of these films for allowing her to stretch her acting ability and attempt new roles.[36]

At MGM she appeared in Strictly Dishonorable (1951), a comedy with Ezio Pinza, based on a play by Preston Sturges.[37] The film received mild critical acclaim.[37] Leigh then appeared in the baseball-themed fantasy farce Angels in the Outfield (1951), which was a significant commercial success.[38] The same year, RKO borrowed Leigh to appear in the a musical Two Tickets to Broadway (1951), which was a box-office success.[39] Back at MGM she was one of many stars in the anthology film It's a Big Country: An American Anthology (1952), and appeared in a romantic comedy with Peter Lawford, Just This Once (1952).[40]

Leigh with husband Tony Curtis at the 25th Academy Awards

Leigh had a significant commercial success with the swashbuckler-themed Scaramouche (1952), in which she starred as Aline de Gavrillac opposite Stewart Granger and Eleanor Parker.[41] Next, she received top-billing in the critically acclaimed[42] comedy Fearless Fagan (1952), about a clown drafted into the military, followed by a role opposite James Stewart in the Western The Naked Spur (1953).[43] The latter, though a low-budget feature, was one of the top-grossing films of the year, and noted by several critics for its psychological components.[44] Less well received was the comedy Confidentially Connie (1953), in which Leigh starred opposite Van Johnson as a pregnant housewife who helps trigger a price war at a local butcher shop.[40] Paramount borrowed Leigh and Curtis for the biographical feature Houdini (1953)–the couple's first film together–with the two appearing as Harry and Bess Houdini, respectively.[45] The couple also appeared as guests on Martin and Lewis' Colgate Comedy Hour before Leigh was loaned to Universal to appear in the musical Walking My Baby Back Home (1953).[46]

In early 1954, Leigh was cast as Robert Wagner's love interest in the Fox-produced adventure film Prince Valiant (1954), a Viking-themed feature based on Hal Foster's comic of the same name.[47] Also in 1954, Leigh had a supporting role in the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy Living It Up (1954) for Paramount,[48] followed by Universal's swashbuckler film The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), in which she appeared opposite Curtis, marking their second feature together.[49] Leigh also starred opposite Robert Taylor in MGM's film noir Rogue Cop (1954), portraying a femme fatale lounge singer.[50] Variety deemed her performance in the film "satisfactory," but faulted the screenplay for being illogical.[50] Following Rogue Cop, Leigh ended her contract with MGM after eight years.[51]

Leigh in Touch of Evil (1958)

In April 1954 Leigh signed a 4-picture contract with Universal, where her husband was based.[51] She also signed a contract with Columbia to make one film a year for five years.[52] Leigh appeared in Pete Kelly's Blues (1954) with Jack Webb (who also directed), and subsequently starred in her first feature under the deal with Columbia: the title role in the musical comedy My Sister Eileen (1955), co-starring Jack Lemmon, Betty Garrett and Dick York, and based on a series of New Yorker stories about two sisters living in New York City.[53]

Columbia cast Leigh in Safari (1956) opposite Victor Mature, shot in Kenya for Warwick Pictures.[54] The same year, Leigh and Curtis gave birth to their first child, daughter Kelly.[55] She subsequently made her television debut in an episode of Schlitz Playhouse, "Carriage from Britain". In 1957, the film Jet Pilot, which Leigh had filmed in 1949, was finally released.[33]

In 1958, Leigh starred as Susan Vargas in the Orson Welles film noir classic Touch of Evil (1958), done at Universal with Charlton Heston, a film with numerous similarities to Alfred Hitchcock's later film Psycho, which was produced two years after Touch of Evil; in it, she plays a tormented newlywed in a Mexican border town.[56] Leigh would later describe shooting the film as a "great experience," but added: "Universal just couldn't understand it, so they recut it. Gone was the undisciplined but brilliant film Orson had made."[14] Next, Leigh co-starred in her fourth film with Curtis, The Vikings (1958), produced by and co-starring Kirk Douglas, and released in June 1958.[57] Distributed by United Artists, the film had one of the most expensive marketing campaigns of the 1950s.[58] It was ultimately a blockbuster, grossing over $13 million internationally.[58]

On November 22, 1958, Leigh gave birth to her second daughter with Curtis, Jamie Lee.[59] Leigh's next film, The Perfect Furlough, was released in early 1959, in which she again co-starred with Curtis, playing a psychiatrist lieutenant in Paris.[60]

Leigh filming the shower scene in Psycho, with Alfred Hitchcock

Leigh and Curtis next co-starred in the Columbia Pictures farce Who Was That Lady? (released in early 1960), in which Leigh portrayed a wife who catches her professor husband (Curtis) cheating on her, triggering a series of mishaps.[61] The same year, Leigh was cast in her most iconic role, as the morally ambiguous murder victim Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, co-starring with John Gavin and Anthony Perkins, and released by Universal.[62] Leigh was reportedly so traumatized by filming her character's shower murder scene that she went to great lengths to avoid showers for the rest of her life.[63] Released in June 1960, Psycho was a major critical and commercial success.[64] For her performance, Leigh received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.[65]

Leigh's role in Psycho became career-defining,[66] and she later commented: "I've been in a great many films, but I suppose if an actor can be remembered for one role then they're very fortunate. And in that sense I'm fortunate."[63] Her character's death early in the film has been noted as historically relevant by film scholars as it violated narrative conventions of the time,[67] while her murder scene itself is considered among both critics and film scholars to be one of the most iconic scenes in film history.[68][69]

Leigh and Curtis both had cameos in Columbia's all-star Pepe (1960), marking their last film together. In 1962, while Leigh was filming the thriller The Manchurian Candidate, Curtis filed for divorce.[70][71] The divorce was finalized in Juarez, Mexico on September 14, 1962; the following day, Leigh married stockbroker Robert Brandt (1927–2009) in a private ceremony in Las Vegas, Nevada.[72][73] Leigh would later comment that their divorce was the result of "outside problems", which included the death of Curtis's father.[74] Next, Leigh appeared in the musical comedy Bye Bye Birdie (1963), based on the hit Broadway show.[75] She was also in the comedy Wives and Lovers (1963) for director Hal Wallis at Paramount.[76]

After 1963, Leigh took a break from her acting career and turned down several roles, including the role of Simone Clouseau in The Pink Panther, because she did not want to go on location and be separated from her young daughters.[77] She returned to film in 1966, appearing in multiple films: first, the western Kid Rodelo (1966),[78] followed by the private-detective story Harper (1966), in which she portrayed Paul Newman's estranged wife opposite Lauren Bacall.[79] She next portrayed a psychiatrist opposite Jerry Lewis in the comedy Three on a Couch,[80] followed by a lead role in An American Dream, based on the Norman Mailer novel of the same name; the latter film received critical backlash, with a review in The New York Times deeming it the worst film of the year.[81]

Leigh worked frequently in television from the late 1960s onward. Her initial television appearances were on anthology programs such as Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre and The Red Skelton Hour, and later, Tales of the Unexpected. She also starred in several made-for-TV films, most notably the off-length (135 minutes instead of the usual 100) The House on Greenapple Road, which premiered on ABC in January 1970 to high ratings.

In 1972, Leigh starred in the science fiction film Night of the Lepus with Stuart Whitman as well as the drama One Is a Lonely Number with Trish Van Devere. In 1975, she played a retired Hollywood song and dance star opposite Peter Falk and John Payne in the Columbo episode Forgotten Lady. The episode utilizes footage of Leigh from the film Walking My Baby Back Home (1953).

Janet Leigh in 1998

Her many guest appearances on television series include The Man from U.N.C.L.E. two-part episode, "The Concrete Overcoat Affair", in which she played a sadistic Thrush agent named Miss Dyketon, a highly provocative role for mainstream television at the time. The two-part episode was released in Europe as a feature film entitled The Spy in the Green Hat (1967).[82] She also appeared in the title role in "The Men From Shiloh" the rebranded name of The Virginian episode "Jenny" (1970), the Murder, She Wrote episode "Doom with a View" (1987), as Barbara LeMay in an episode of The Twilight Zone (1989) and the Touched by an Angel episode "Charade" (1997). She guest-starred twice as different characters on both Fantasy Island and The Love Boat. In 1973, she appeared in the episode "Beginner's Luck" of the romantic anthology series Love Story.

Leigh made her stage debut opposite Jack Cassidy in the original Broadway production of Murder Among Friends, which opened at the Biltmore Theatre on December 28, 1975.[83] The play ran for seventeen performances, closing on January 10, 1976.[83] The play received varied reviews, with some critics from preview screenings disliking the show.[84] In 1979, Leigh appeared in a supporting role in Boardwalk opposite Ruth Gordon and Lee Strasberg, and received critical praise, with Vincent Canby of The New York Times lauding it as her "best role in years."[85]

Leigh subsequently appeared opposite her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, in John Carpenter's supernatural horror film The Fog (1980), in which a phantom schooner unleashes ghosts on a small coastal community.[86] Leigh would appear opposite her daughter once again in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998), playing the secretary of Laurie Strode.[87] Her final film credit was in the teen film Bad Girls from Valley High (2005), opposite Christopher Lloyd.[66]

Leigh was a lifelong Democrat and appeared alongside Tony Curtis at the 1960 Democratic National Convention in support of John F. Kennedy.[88] She also served on the board of directors of the Motion Picture and Television Foundation, a medical-services provider for actors.[89]

In addition to her work as an actress, Leigh also authored four books. Her first, the memoir There Really Was a Hollywood (1984), became a New York Times bestseller. In 1995, she published the non-fiction book Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller. In 1996, she published her first novel, House of Destiny, which explored the lives of two friends who forged an empire that would change the course of Hollywood's history. The book's success spawned a follow-up novel, The Dream Factory (2002), which was set in Hollywood during the height of the studio system.