Background

Ethnicity: Janet Leigh was of Danish, Scots-Irish, and German ancestry.

Janet Leigh was born as Jeanette Helen Morrison on the 6th of July, 1927 in Merced, California, United States. She was the only daughter of Helen Lita (Westergaard) and Frederick Robert Morrison, a couple who often moved from town to town. Two years later after her birth, the family moved to Stockton, California.

Education

Growing up in Stockton, Jeanette was precocious and talented. She attended Weber Grammar School and later Stockton High School in Stockton, California, skipping several grades and graduating at age 15.

Janet studied music and psychology at the College of the Pacific (now University of the Pacific).

Leigh received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California in 2004.

Career

Discovered in 1946 when a Hollywood agent happened to see Leigh's photograph at a ski lodge, the actress was given a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and had her debut with 1947's “The Romance of Rosey Ridge”.

Among Leigh's most notable early movies are “Little Women” that came out in 1949, “Angels in the Outfield” in 1951, “Scaramouche” in 1952, “Houdini” in 1953 and “The Black Shield of Falworth” in 1954 and “Touch of Evil” in 1958. Janet would appear in a variety of films, from comedies to westerns to musicals to dramas.

After starring in “Psycho” in 1960, Hitchcock refused to direct her again, saying that audiences would forever see her only as Marion Crane, the character who died in the groundbreaking shower scene. After that, and following a divorce from her third husband, actor Tony Curtis, in 1963, Leigh's career in movies started to decline, although she appeared in other notable films such as “The Manchurian Candidate”, in which she starred with Frank Sinatra in 1962 and “Bye, Bye Birdie” in 1963.

In the 1960s, Janet began focusing more on television. In the 1970s she appeared on the small screen in a number of made-for-TV movies. However, she still made occasional movie appearances, such as the 1980 horror film “The Fog”, in which she starred with her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis, later, in “Halloween H20: 20 Years Later” in 1998 and her last film “A Fate Totally Worse than Death” in 2000.

Leigh was the author of two novels, “House of Destiny” that was published in 1995 and “The Dream Factory” in 2001, as well as the nonfiction “Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller” in 1995, written with Christopher Nickens, and the autobiography “There Really Was a Hollywood” in 1984.

Achievements

• For her performance in “Psycho”, Leigh was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. Janet Leigh was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1777 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960. Leigh was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history.
  
  In June 2010, Pacific Theatre, the campus movie theater of the University of the Pacific, was renamed and dedicated as Janet Leigh Theatre.
  
  

Works

More photos

• book

  • House Of Destiny

    (The veteran actress draws on her Hollywood savvy to creat...)

    1995
  • There Really Was a Hollywood

    (The noted actress offers a candid, behind-the-scenes look...)

    1984
  • Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller 1995
  • The Dream Factory 2001

• film

  • Fearless Fagan

    (A man brings his devoted pet with him when he is drafted ...)

    1952
  • Bye Bye Birdie 1963
  • Holiday Affair 1949
  • Confidentially Connie 1952
  • Psycho 1960

Politics

Janet Leigh supported John F. Kennedy at the 1960 Democratic National Convention.

Views

Quotations: "When asked if it was true that she doesn't take showers] It's actually, honestly true. And not because of the shooting of it. It was the seeing of it. It never dawned on me how truly vulnerable we are. But that's what (Alfred Hitchcock) did. A shower. A bird. All these things are absolutely ordinary, he made extraordinarily".

"Psycho gave me very wrinkled skin. I was in that shower for seven days - 70 setups. At least, Alfred Hitchcock made sure the water was warm".

"I don't know what it is I exude. But whatever it is, it's whatever I am!"

"There's a difference in the product. I mean, "Boys Don't Cry" would never have been made when we were younger".

Connections

Janet Leigh was married four times. Her first marriage was with John Carlisle in 1942 and then to Stanley Reames in 1945, but they divorced in 1949. Leigh was married to actor Tony Curtis from 1951 to 1962. They had two children. She gave birth to her first child at age 28, a daughter Kelly Curtis on the 17th of June, 1956 and to her second child at age 31, a daughter Jamie Lee Curtis on the 22nd of November, 1958. Soon after her divorce, she married again in 1962. Her fourth husband was Robert Brandt. They were together until her death.

Ex-husband:

Stanley Reames

Ex-husband:

Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis was born Bernard Schwartz, the eldest of three children of Helen (Klein) and Emanuel Schwartz, Jewish immigrants from Hungary. Curtis grew up in poverty, as his father, Emanuel, who worked as a tailor, had the sole responsibility of providing for his entire family on his meager income. This led to constant bickering between Curtis's parents over money, and Curtis began to go to movies as a way of briefly escaping the constant worries of poverty and other family problems. The financial strain of raising two children on a meager income became so tough that in 1935, Curtis's parents decided that their children would have a better life under the care of the state and briefly had Tony and his brother admitted to an orphanage.

In 1945, Curtis was honorably discharged from the navy, and when he realized that the GI Bill would allow him to go to acting school without paying for it, he now saw that his lifelong pipe dream of being an actor might actually be achievable. Curtis auditioned for the New York Dramatic Workshop, and after being accepted on the strength of his audition piece (a scene from "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" in pantomime), Curtis enrolled in early 1947.

As his career developed, Curtis wanted to act in movies that had social relevance, ones that would challenge audiences, so he began to appear in such movies as Spartacus (1960) and The Defiant Ones (1958). He was advised against appearing as the subordinate sidekick in Spartacus (1960), playing second fiddle to the equally famous Kirk Douglas. However, Curtis saw no problem with this because the two had recently acted together in dual leading roles in The Vikings (1958).

He made a literary cameo in Matt Whyman's debut romantic comedy novel, 'Man or Mouse', in which the main character, Ren, e-mails Curtis with his love-life problems, and finally meets him briefly.

Daughter:

Jamie Lee Curtis

Jamie Lee Curtis was born on the 22nd of November, 1958 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of legendary actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. She got her big break at acting in 1978 when she won the role of Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978). After that, she became famous for roles in movies like Trading Places (1983), Perfect (1985) and A Fish Called Wanda (1988). She starred in one of the biggest action films ever, True Lies (1994), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for her performance. Curtis also appeared on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), and starred in Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story (1981) as the title role. Her first starring role was opposite Richard Lewis on the ABC situation comedy Anything But Love (1989). In 1998, she starred in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) in which she reprised her role that made her famous back in 1978.

Daughter:

Kelly Curtis

Kelly Curtis was born on the 17th of June, 1956 in Santa Monica, California, the USA as Kelly Lee Curtis. She is an actress and director, known for Trading Places (1983), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) and The Sentinel (1996).

husband:

Robert Brandt

Robert Brandt was born on the 27th of October, 1925 in Norrköping, Östergötlands län, Sweden as Helmer Robert Wilhelm Brandt. He was a director and writer, known for Blondin i fara (1957), Hjälpsamma Herrn (1954) and Calle P. (1965). He died on February 28, 2001.

Ex-husband:

John Carlisle

John Carlisle was born on the 6th of September, 1935 in London, England as John Roxburgh Clark. He was an actor, known for The Omega Factor (1979), New Scotland Yard (1972) and Kidnapped (1978). He died on December 7, 2011 in London.

References

• Janet Leigh: A Biography This book reveals and reflects upon Janet Leigh's life and career and also extensively analyzes her films and television appearances.
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