Janet Leigh, famed for ‘Psycho’ role, dies at 77
HOLLYWOOD – Janet Leigh, Hollywood’s perfect “nice girl” ingénue who memorably changed her acting image and earned an Academy Award nomination in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic “Psycho,” has died. She was 77.
Leigh, who appeared is more than 60 motion pictures, died Sunday in her Beverly Hills, Calif., home of vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels.
At her bedside were her husband of more than 40 years, stockbroker and producer Robert Brandt, and her two daughters from her marriage to actor Tony Curtis, actresses Kelly and Jamie Lee Curtis. Leigh’s death was announced Monday by Heidi Schaeffer, a spokeswoman for Jamie Lee Curtis.
Of her scores of motion pictures and movies for television, Leigh was proudest of three, all made within four years, she noted in her 1984 autobiography, “There Really Was a Hollywood.”
They happen to be her most critically acclaimed films and a trio often included on lists of the best all-time movies: Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil” with Charlton Heston and Welles in 1958, “Psycho” in 1960 and, in 1962, “The Manchurian Candidate,” which was directed by John Frankenheimer and starred Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey.
But “Psycho,” with its fatal shower scene that tantalized viewers’ imaginations, was unquestionably the zenith of Leigh’s career.
Leigh, offered the script by Hitchcock, was so convinced the role as embezzler Marion Crane would establish her as a major dramatic actress that she agreed to work for one-quarter of her usual $100,000 fee. The gamble paid off.
Her 45 minutes on screen, ending with her dramatic stabbing death in the shower, earned Leigh a Golden Globe award as well as an Oscar nomination and a slot in Hollywood history.
To shoot the scene, Leigh spent seven days in the shower on camera while Hitchcock amassed more than 70 takes of two and three seconds each. The work was easy, she said in her book, until the last 20 seconds when her face had to reflect her realization that her bloody death was imminent.
Once she saw the finished picture, Leigh often said, she abandoned showers for life.
Born Jeannette Helen Morrison in Merced, Calif., on July 6, 1927, she was studying music and psychology at College of the Pacific in Stockton when fate fit for a Hollywood script intervened.
MGM star Norma Shearer saw a photo of the 19-year-old on the desk of her doting father at the ski lodge where he worked. Shearer took the photo to agent Lew Wasserman, who signed her to a contract at MGM – then known for developing actors – for $50 a week.
Louis B. Mayer, impressed with the stunning blonde, renamed her Janet Leigh and set about making her a star.
“I don’t know of anyone who contributed more to the business than Norma Shearer when she discovered Janet and brought her to MGM,” Lyles said Monday.
In addition to her husband and daughters, Leigh is survived by a grandson and a granddaughter.