JANET LEIGH - #76 AUGUST/2024 BHC

The Shower Scene From Hitchcock's 'PSYCHO' Changed Leigh's Life FOREVER..

The Old Hollywood Newsletter

Aug 02, 2024

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Hello Body House Members;

For the last and often hottest month of the summer we have the glorious beauty of JANET LEIGH.

Leigh was married 4 times. She had two daughters with 3rd husband Tony Curtis who Leigh was married to for 11 years.

Her daughters both became actresses. Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis; the latter of which achieved huge fame as the star of the Halloween franchise.

One of Janet Leigh's best known performances is as Marion Crane in Psycho (1960).

She was nominated for an Academy Award for this performance and won a Golden Globe for it.

Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. was a masterpiece of its time. It's gone on to become an iconic movie that has defined the thriller/horror genre.

See the clip below...

HERE IS A CLIP FROM THE ICONIC 'SHOWER SCENE' IN PSYCHO

Click the Pic to Get Janet’s Screaming Face on a Coffee Mug!

This scene not only impacted Janet Leigh's career, but the way she bathed forever after. The shower scene put such a terror in her that she could no longer take showers in a normal way.

Here is a quote on how this scene affected her:

"I don't take showers. Or, if there is no other way to bathe, I make sure all of the doors and windows in the house are locked, and I leave the bathroom door and shower curtain open so I have a perfect, clear view."
--Janet Leigh in People, August 1, 1995

BELOW is an interview with Janet Leigh and other crew members talking about what it was like to shoot that shower scene.

Celebrate vintage sensuality with us on Substack here…

Early Life & The Big Break For JANET LEIGH!

Janet Leigh was born Jeanette Helen Morrison on July 6, 1927 in Merced, California and passed on October 3, 2004 in Beverly Hills, California, U.S. She was raised in Stockton, California, by working-class parents.

INTERESTING FACTS...

Leigh was discovered at the age of 18 by actress Norma Shearer, who helped her secure a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. What follows in quotes is the stuff that dreams are made of;

"In February 1946, actress Norma Shearer was vacationing at Sugar Bowl, a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada mountains where Leigh's parents were working at the time. In the resort lobby, Shearer noticed a photograph of Leigh taken by her father over the Christmas holiday, which he had printed and placed in a photo album available for guests to browse.
Upon returning to Los Angeles, Shearer showed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) talent agent Lew Wasserman the photograph of the then, eighteen year old Janet Leigh. Norma Shearer's late husband Irving Thalberg had been head of production at MGM so she had connections.
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." 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."
As A Side Note On Leigh's Acting Coach Lillian Burns...
Burns was the in-house acting coach for MGM from 1937 to the early 1960s. Her trademark was to coach aspiring actors and actresses who had little to no experience.
Lillian Burn's students throughout the years included: Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, Esther Williams, Donna Reed, Arlene Dahl, Cyd Charisse, Debbie Reynolds, Kathryn Grayson, Pier Angeli, Margaret O'Brien, Nancy Reagan, George Hamilton, Yvette Mimieux, Vic Damone, Connie Francis, Marilyn Maxwell and Lucille Bremer.

Janet Leigh As Author

Leigh had an amazing and long lived acting career which spanned over five decades. In addition to her work as an actress, Leigh also wrote four books between 1984 and 2002, two of which were novels.

They are as follows;

There Really Was a Hollywood
Psycho: Behind the Scenes
The Dream Factory - novel
House Of Destiny - novel

Quotes By Janet Leigh

[on working with Alfred Hitchcock] "Hitch relished scaring me. When we were making Psycho (1960), he experimented with the mother's corpse, using me as his gauge. I would return from lunch, open the door to the dressing room and propped up in my chair would be this hideous monstrosity. The horror in my scream, registered on his Richter scale, decided which dummy he would use as the Madame."
Janet Leigh
"In order to dream, you need to have a springboard which is the facts… It gives it that touch of reality, and I think that's quite important… truth with fiction."
Janet Leigh
[Her life with Tony Curtis in 1961:] "We were beginning the climb to a higher plateau. Acceptance. Recognition. Status. Security. We only had to hold on and hope the thin air didn't make us dizzy and cause a tumble. We also needed to remember that the inside had to ascend together with the outside."
Janet Leigh

PHOTO GALLERY OF JANET LEIGH

JANET LEIGH'S LOVE LIFE

While in high school, Leigh married eighteen-year-old John Kenneth Carlisle in Reno, Nevada on Aug. 1, 1942. The marriage was annulled five months later on December 28, 1942.

While Leigh was a university student she met Stanley Reames. He was a U.S. Navy sailor who was enrolled at a nearby V-12 Program. She then married Stanley Reames in 1945 and divorced him in 1948. She was just eighteen at the time.

Then Along Came Tony...

Leigh married fellow actor Tony Curtis in 1951. The pair's highly publicized union ended in divorce in 1962. Apparently Curtis had divorce papers served to Leigh while she was working on the set a The Manchurian Candidate.

The Final Man...

Later that same year (1962), Leigh remarried again. This time to stockbroker Robert Brandt. Then scaled back her career.

Janet Leigh & her 4th and last husband Robert Brandt. They were married (from 1962) until her death in 2004.

Janet Leigh with her husband Robert Brandt

Below are Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis

Pictures of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis with their 2 daughters - Kelly (the oldest) and Jamie Lee

Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh and their daughters Kelly Curtis and Jame Lee Curtis

Thank you for your interest in The Body House Chronicles and vintage sensuality.

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