61 Facts About Janet Leigh

Jeanette Helen Morrison, known professionally as Janet Leigh, was an American actress.

Janet Leigh was married to actor Tony Curtis from 1951 to 1962.

Janet Leigh then achieved her biggest success playing Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's horror film Psycho, winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Janet Leigh made her Broadway debut in a production of Murder Among Friends and appeared in the horror film Night of the Lepus and the thriller Boardwalk.

Janet Leigh later starred with her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, in the horror films The Fog and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later.

Janet Leigh amassed several screen and stage credits in a career spanning five decades.

Janet Leigh died at the age of 77 after a year-long battle with vasculitis.

Janet Leigh 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.

Janet Leigh was raised Presbyterian and sang in the local church choir throughout her childhood.

Janet Leigh excelled in academics and graduated from high school at age sixteen.

In February 1946, actress Norma Shearer was vacationing at Sugar Bowl, a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada mountains where Janet Leigh's parents were working at the time.

Janet Leigh dropped out of college that year and was placed under the tutelage of drama coach Lillian Burns.

Janet Leigh made her film debut in the big-budget Civil War film The Romance of Rosy Ridge as the romantic interest of box-office star Van Johnson's character.

Janet Leigh got the role when performing Phyllis Thaxter's long speech in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo for the head of the studio talent department.

Immediately after the release of The Romance of Rosy Ridge, Janet Leigh was cast with Walter Pidgeon, Deborah Kerr, and Angela Lansbury in the drama If Winter Comes, playing a young pregnant woman in an English village.

Janet Leigh played the young wife of composer Richard Rodgers in MGM's all-star musical, Words and Music.

Janet Leigh appeared in a number of films in 1949, including the thriller Act of Violence with Van Heflin and Robert Ryan, directed by Fred Zinnemann.

Janet Leigh then appeared in the baseball-themed fantasy farce Angels in the Outfield, which was a commercial hit.

Janet Leigh was one of many stars in the anthology film It's a Big Country: An American Anthology and appeared in a romantic comedy with Peter Lawford, Just This Once.

Janet Leigh had another significant commercial success with the swashbuckler Scaramouche, in which she starred as Aline de Gavrillac opposite Stewart Granger and Eleanor Parker.

Less well received was the comedy Confidentially Connie, in which Janet Leigh starred opposite Van Johnson as a pregnant housewife who helps trigger a price war at a local butcher shop.

The couple appeared as guests on Martin and Lewis' Colgate Comedy Hour before Janet Leigh was loaned to Universal to appear in the musical Walking My Baby Back Home.

Janet Leigh was cast as Robert Wagner's love interest in the Fox-produced adventure film Prince Valiant, a Viking-themed feature based on Hal Foster's comic of the same name.

Also in 1954, Janet Leigh had a supporting role in the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy Living It Up for Paramount, followed by Universal's swashbuckler film The Black Shield of Falworth, in which she performed opposite Curtis for a second time.

Janet Leigh starred opposite Robert Taylor in MGM's film noir Rogue Cop, portraying a femme fatale lounge singer.

Janet Leigh signed a contract with Columbia to make one film a year for five years.

Janet Leigh subsequently made her television debut in an episode of Schlitz Playhouse, "Carriage from Britain".

In 1957, the film Jet Pilot, which Janet Leigh had filmed in 1949, was finally released.

Also in 1960, Janet Leigh was cast in her most iconic role as the morally conflicted murder victim Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, co-starring with John Gavin, Vera Miles, and Anthony Perkins, and released by Universal.

Janet Leigh was reportedly so traumatized from watching her character's shower murder scene that she went to great lengths to avoid showers for the rest of her life.

In 1962, while Janet Leigh was filming the thriller The Manchurian Candidate, Curtis filed for divorce.

The divorce was finalized in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on September 14,1962; the following day, Janet Leigh married stockbroker Robert Brandt in a private ceremony in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Janet Leigh was in the comedy Wives and Lovers for director Hal Wallis at Paramount.

Janet Leigh took a three-year 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.

Janet Leigh returned to film in 1966, appearing in multiple projects: the western Kid Rodelo, and the private detective story Harper, in which she played Paul Newman's estranged wife opposite Lauren Bacall.

Janet Leigh next portrayed a psychiatrist opposite Jerry Lewis in the comedy Three on a Couch, 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.

Janet Leigh starred in several made-for-TV films, most notably the off-length The House on Greenapple Road, which premiered on ABC in January 1970 to high ratings.

In 1972, Janet 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.

Janet Leigh appeared in the title role in The Virginian episode "Jenny".

Janet 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.

In 1979, Janet 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".

Janet Leigh's first, the memoir There Really Was a Hollywood, became a New York Times bestseller.

In 1995, Janet Leigh published the non-fiction book Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller.

Janet Leigh subsequently appeared opposite her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, in John Carpenter's supernatural horror film The Fog, in which a phantom schooner unleashes ghosts on a small coastal community.

Janet Leigh would appear with her daughter in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, playing the secretary of Laurie Strode.

Janet Leigh guest-starred twice as different characters on both Fantasy Island and The Love Boat, as well as Tales of the Unexpected.

Janet Leigh continued to grant interviews and appear at red carpet events through the early 2000s.

When she was still in high school, Janet Leigh married 18-year-old John Kenneth Carlisle in Reno, Nevada, on August 1,1942.

On June 4,1951, Janet Leigh married actor Tony Curtis in a private ceremony in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Janet Leigh credited the experimental and informal nature of these films for allowing her to stretch her acting ability and attempt different roles.

On June 17,1956, Janet Leigh gave birth to her first daughter, Kelly Lee Curtis.

On November 22,1958, Janet Leigh gave birth to her second daughter with Curtis, Jamie Lee Curtis.

Janet Leigh served on the board of directors of the Motion Picture and Television Foundation, a medical-services provider for actors.

Janet Leigh died at her home in Beverly Hills on October 3,2004, at age 77 after a protracted battle with vasculitis.

Janet Leigh was survived by her daughters Kelly and Jamie and her husband of 42 years, Robert Brandt.

Janet Leigh was cremated and her ashes were entombed at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in the Westwood Village neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Janet Leigh has a ski trail named after her, Leigh Lane, at Sun Valley Resort's Bald Mountain skiing area in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Janet Leigh kept a second home there for more than 30 years.

Janet Leigh was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, on May 14,2004, where she had attended college.

At the time, Janet Leigh's health was compromised by vasculitis, and she delivered a speech at the ceremony from a wheelchair.

The Janet Leigh Theatre was created to bind the experiences and friendships that Janet Leigh valued while a student at Pacific.