FilmFan Remembers

MoPo Remembers

Janet Leigh 1927-2004

Janet Leigh made 63 films, but will forever be linked to the silver screen's most memorable murder, the infamous shower scene in 1960's Psycho (co-starring Anthony Perkins). Her 45-minute on-screen portrayal of doomed thief Marion Crane won her a Golden Globe award and an Academy Award nomination, not to mention cinematic immortality.

Janet Leigh began her Hollywood career in 1947 after then-retired screen legend Norma Shearer saw her photograph at a ski resort and recommended the 19-year-old to talent agent Lew Wasserman. Wasserman negotiated an MGM contract for $50 a week. California-born Jeanette Helen Morrison then became starlet Janet Leigh.

Her first film, The Romance of Rosy Ridge paired her with Van Johnson in 1947. Her career took off and by 1949 she was hard at work, appearing in 6 films, including Little Women (with Elizabeth Taylor, June Allyson and Peter Lawford), The Doctor and The Girl (with Glenn Ford) and Holiday Affair (with Robert Mitchum).

In 1951 she married actor Tony Curtis. The couple appeared together in 4 films, including Houdini (1953) and The Vikings (1958). Their marriage produced 2 children, actress Jamie Lee Curtis and Kelly Curtis. The so-called "perfect couple" divorced in 1963. Leigh, in her 1984 autobiography, There Really Was a Hollywood, refrained from criticizing her marriage with Curtis.

Leigh worked with some of Hollywood's greats during the peak of her career, including
James Stewart in The Naked Spur (1953), Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in Living it Up (1954), John Wayne in Jet Pilot (1957) and Dick Van Dyke in 1963's Bye Bye Birdie.

Other memorable films include 1958's Touch of Evil (with Orson Welles and Charlton Heston), 1962's The Manchurian Candidate (with Frank Sinatra), and The Fog (1980) where she appeared with daughter Jamie Lee Curtis. Leigh appeared on-screen again with Jamie Lee in 1998's Halloween H20: 20 Years Later.

Leigh's final film appearance was in Fate Totally Worse Than Death in 2000.

Janet Leigh died on October 3, 2004 in Beverly Hills, California. She had been suffering from vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels, for the past year.