Product Code Database
Jeanette Helen Morrison (July 6, 1927 – October 3, 2004), known professionally as Janet Leigh, was an American actress. Raised in Stockton, California, by working-class parents, Leigh was discovered at 18 by actress Norma Shearer, who helped her secure a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. With MGM, she appeared in films such as the drama The Romance of Rosy Ridge (1947), the crime drama Act of Violence (1948), the adaptation of Little Women (1949), the comedy Angels in the Outfield (1951), the swashbuckler romance Scaramouche (1952), the Western film drama The Naked Spur (1953).
Leigh was married to actor Tony Curtis from 1951 to 1962. After leaving MGM in 1954, she starred in films such as Safari (1956) and Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958). She then achieved her biggest success playing Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's horror film Psycho (1960), winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In her most enduring role, Leigh was established as one of the earliest Scream queen and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that same year.
After marrying Robert Brandt in 1962, Leigh starred in the political thriller The Manchurian Candidate (1962), the musical film Bye Bye Birdie (1963), and the thriller Harper (1966) before scaling back her career. She made her Broadway theatre debut in a production of Murder Among Friends (1975) and appeared in the horror film Night of the Lepus (1972) and the thriller Boardwalk (1979). She later starred with her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis, in the horror films The Fog (1980) and (1998).
Leigh amassed several screen and stage credits in a career spanning five decades. In addition to her work as an actress, she wrote four books between 1984 and 2002, two of which were novels. She died at the age of 77 after a year-long battle with vasculitis.
Leigh was raised Presbyterianism and sang in the local church choir throughout her childhood. In 1941 when her paternal grandfather became terminally ill, the family relocated to Merced, moving into her grandparents' home. She attended Weber Grammar School in Stockton and later Stockton High School. Leigh excelled in academics and graduated from high school at age sixteen. 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.
Upon returning to Los Angeles, Shearer showed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) talent agent Lew Wasserman the photograph of the then 18-year-old Leigh (Shearer's late husband Irving Thalberg had been head of production 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.""'Luckiest' Photograph Changed Whole Life for a College Girl", Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 16, 1947, p. 1 Through her association with MGM, Shearer was able to facilitate screen tests for Leigh with Selena Royle, after which Wasserman negotiated a contract for her, despite her having no acting experience. Leigh dropped out of college that year and was soon placed under the tutelage of drama coach Lillian Burns."A Fairy Tale That Came True" by Victor Gunson, The Daily Times, October 3, 1946, p. 14
Prior to beginning her film career, Leigh was a guest star on the radio Radio drama anthology The Cresta Blanca Hollywood Players. Her initial appearance on radioDunning, John. (1976). Tune in Yesterday: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio, 1925–1976. Prentice-Hall, Inc. . pp. 283–284. at age 19Molyneaux, Gerard (1995), Gregory Peck: A Bio-bibliography. Greenwood Press. . p. 214. was for the program's production "All Through the House," a Christmas special that aired on December 24, 1946. She made her film debut in the big-budget Civil War film The Romance of Rosy Ridge (1947) as the romantic interest of box-office star 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. During the film shoot, 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. However, Johnson did not like the name and it was ultimately changed back to "Janet Leigh" (pronounced "Lee").
Immediately after the release of The Romance of Rosy Ridge, Leigh was cast with Walter Pidgeon, Deborah Kerr, and Angela Lansbury in the drama If Winter Comes (1947), playing a young pregnant woman in an English village. By early 1948, 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. She played the young wife of composer Richard Rodgers in MGM's all-star musical, Words and Music (1948). In late 1948, she was hailed the "No. 1 glamour girl" of Hollywood, even though she was known for her polite, generous, and down-to-earth persona.
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. 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. The film was also generally praised by critics. Then Leigh appeared as a nun in the anti-communist drama The Red Danube, which earned her critical acclaim, followed by a role as Glenn Ford's love interest in The Doctor and the Girl. Other credits from 1949 include the role of 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). That December, she started work on Josef von Sternberg's adventure-drama film Jet Pilot as the female lead opposite John Wayne. Producer Howard Hughes' constant re-editing would cause the film to be delayed almost eight years before being released.
Paramount borrowed Leigh and Tony Curtis for the biographical feature Houdini (1953) the couple's first film together with the two appearing as Bess Houdini and Harry Houdini, respectively. 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). 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 Prince Valiant. Also in 1954, Leigh had a supporting role in the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy Living It Up (1954) for Paramount, followed by Universal's swashbuckler film The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), in which she performed opposite Curtis for a second time. Leigh also starred opposite Robert Taylor in MGM's film noir Rogue Cop (1954), portraying a femme fatale lounge singer. Variety deemed her performance in the film "satisfactory" but faulted the screenplay for being illogical. Following that film, Leigh ended her contract with MGM after eight years.
In April 1954 Leigh signed a four-picture contract with Universal, where her now husband Tony was based. She also signed a contract with Columbia to make one film a year for five years. 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. In early 1955, Leigh and Curtis formed their own independent film production company, Curtleigh Productions. Columbia cast Leigh in Safari (1956), opposite Victor Mature and shot in Kenya for Warwick Pictures. The same year, Leigh and Curtis gave birth to their first child, daughter Kelly Curtis. 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.'' (1958)|200x200px]] In 1958, Leigh starred as Susan Vargas in the Orson Welles film noir classic Touch of Evil (1958), made at Universal with Charlton Heston a film with numerous similarities to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which was produced two years later. In it, she plays a newlywed tormented in a Mexican border town. 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." 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. Distributed by United Artists, the film had one of the most expensive marketing campaigns of the 1950s. It was ultimately a blockbuster, grossing over $13 million internationally. 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.
Also in 1960, 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. 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. Released in June 1960, Psycho was a major critical and commercial success. For her performance, Leigh received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Leigh's role in Psycho became career-defining 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." 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, while her murder scene itself is considered among both critics and film scholars to be one of the most iconic scenes in cinematic history.
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. The divorce was finalized in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on September 14, 1962; the following day, Leigh married stockbroker Robert Brandt (1927–2009) in a private ceremony in Las Vegas. Leigh would later comment that their divorce was the result of "outside problems", which included the death of Curtis's father. Next, Leigh appeared in the musical comedy Bye Bye Birdie (1963), based on the hit Broadway show. She was also in the comedy Wives and Lovers (1963) for director Hal Wallis at Paramount.
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. She returned to film in 1966, appearing in multiple projects: the western Kid Rodelo (1966), and the private detective story Harper (1966), in which she played Paul Newman's estranged wife opposite Lauren Bacall. She 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.
Leigh made her stage debut opposite Jack Cassidy in the original Broadway theatre production of Murder Among Friends, which opened at the Biltmore Theatre on December 28, 1975. The play ran for seventeen performances, closing on January 10, 1976. The play received varied reviews, with some critics who attended preview performances disliking the show. 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".
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.
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. Leigh would appear with her daughter once again in (1998), playing the secretary of Laurie Strode. On television Leigh acted in the Murder, She Wrote episode "Doom with a View" (1987), as Barbara LeMay in an episode of The Twilight Zone ("Rendezvous in a dark place", 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, as well as Tales of the Unexpected.
Leigh continued to grant interviews and appear at red carpet events through the early 2000s. Her final film credit was in the teen film Bad Girls from Valley High (2005), opposite Christopher Lloyd.
On June 4, 1951, Leigh married actor Tony Curtis in a private ceremony in Greenwich, Connecticut. Their romance and marriage were frequent topics in gossip columns and film tabloids. 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 different roles. On June 17, 1956, Leigh gave birth to her first daughter, Kelly Curtis. On November 22, 1958, Leigh gave birth to her second daughter with Curtis, Jamie Lee Curtis. Curtis and Leigh divorced in 1962. She married stockbroker Robert Brandt later that year.
A lifelong Democrat, Leigh supported John F. Kennedy in the 1960 U.S. presidential election, Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 presidential election and Robert F. Kennedy in the 1968 presidential election.Jet, October 1, 1964 She also served on the board of directors of the Motion Picture and Television Foundation, a medical-services provider for actors.
In 2003, she received the Ted M. Larson Award at the Fargo Film Festival for her contribution to cinema.
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, Leigh's health was compromised by vasculitis, and she delivered a speech at the ceremony from a wheelchair. On October 13, 2006, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kelly Curtis unveiled a bronze plaque of their mother to honor her early life in Stockton. The memorial is located in the downtown Stockton plaza adjacent to the City Center Cinemas, since renamed "Janet Leigh Plaza".
Leigh was honored posthumously by University of the Pacific with the naming of the "Janet Leigh Theatre" on the Stockton campus on June 25, 2010. The plaque at the theatre reads:
Pacific's Janet Leigh Theatre - Made possible by a generous gift from the Robert Brandt and Janet Leigh Brandt Estate. The Janet Leigh Theatre was created to bind the experiences and friendships that Janet Leigh valued while a student at Pacific. This memorial is a tribute to her life and career in the Stockton region as well as her magnificent contributions to the Hollywood film industry as an actress, wife, mother and humanitarian. Dedicated Friday, June 25, 2010.
| + | |||
| Laurel Awards | Pepe | ||
| Laurel Awards | Who Was That Lady? |
|
|
