Oscar Profile #509: Janet Leigh

Born July 6, 1927 in Merced, California, Jeannette Morrison (screen name Janet Leigh) was an only child. Raised in poverty during the Great Depression in Stockton, California where her family relocated shortly after her birth, she sang in the choir of her local Presbyterian church.

Leigh excelled in academics and graduated from high school at 16. She married eighteen-year-old John Kenneth Carlisle in Reno, Nevada, on August 1, 1942. The marriage was annulled four months later. She enrolled at the College of the Pacific, majoring in music and psychology. While there, she met Stanley Reames, a U.S. Navy sailor taking nearby courses. Leigh and Reames married on October 5, 1945, when she was 18. The marriage ended in divorce in 1949.

In early 1946, former actress Norma Shearer was vacationing at the ski resort in the Sierra Nevadas where Leigh’s father then worked. Discovering Leigh’s picture in a photo album in the hotel lobby, she was struck by Leigh’s smile and asked to borrow it, sending it to agent Lew Wasserman who engineered a screen test for her at MGM. The rest, as they say, is history.

Leigh made her screen debut as the female lead in 1947’s The Romance of Rosey Ridge, quickly followed by a major role in 1947’s If Winter Comes. Subsequent films included Act of Violence, Little Women, The Red Danube, That Forsyte Woman, and Holiday Affair, all released in 1949. She also filmed Jet Pilot opposite John Wayne in December of that year, but the film was not released until 1957.

In 1951, Leigh married third husband, actor Tony Curtis. She had a major hit that year in Angels in the Outfield. Subsequent hits included 1952’s Scaramouche, 1953’s The Naked Spur and Houdini, 1954’s Prince Valiant, The Black Shield of Falworth and Rogue Cop, 1955’s Pete Kelly’s Blues and My Sister Eileen and 1958’s Touch of Evil and The Vikings. Her daughters, Kelly and Jamie Lee, were born in 1956 and 1958, respectively.

The actress had the role of her career in 1960’s Psycho for which she received her only Oscar nomination. During the filming of 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate, Curtis filed for divorce. Leigh married fourth husband, stockbroker Robert Brandt (1947-2009), later that year. They would remain married until her death 42 years later.

Leigh had her last major starring role in 1963’s Bye Bye Birdie, but continued to act, mostly on TV, for the remainder of her life. She had big screen roles in 1966’s Harper, 1980’s The Fog, and 1998’s Halloween H2O: 20 Years Later, the latter two opposite daughter Jamie Lee Curtis. Her TV roles included memorable gust star appearances on Columbo, Murder, She Wrote and Touched by an Angel.

Janet Leigh died of vasculitis on October 3, 2004. She was 77.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

LITTLE WOMEN (1949), directed by Mervyn LeRoy

This was the first version of Louisa May Alcott’s classic shot in color. Based on the 1933 screenplay as opposed to Alcott’s novel, 22-year-old Leigh, 32-year-old June Allyson, 17-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, and 12-year-old Margaret O’Brien play Meg, Jo (based on Alcott herself), Amy, and Beth. Beth is supposed to be older than Amy. They got around that by reversing the ages of the two characters, but they couldn’t do that with sensible Meg and writer Jo, so they just crossed their fingers and hoped you wouldn’t notice that Allyson was ten years older than Leigh who isn’t given much to do.

TOUCH OF EVIL (1958), directed by Orson Welles

Released in a studio re-cut version in 1958, the longer version we are all familiar with did not surface until 1998 when the film was restored thirteen years after Welles’ death according to his wishes as detailed in a letter to star Charlton Heston. Originally Heston was to be an American and Leigh his Mexican bride, but Welles changed the script at the start of filming to reverse their nationalities. Leigh suffered a broken arm just prior to filming; she is filmed with her arm in a hidden cast or with the cast temporarily removed for key scenes. Welles, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff, and “guest star” Marlene Dietrich have memorable supporting roles.

PYSCHO (1960), directed by Alfred Hitchcock

From her first appearance in a white bra in a hotel tryst with John Gavin to her horrendous demise in the shower in her room at Anthony Perkins’ Bates Motel, Leigh is devastatingly brilliant. Always the “nice” girl, Leigh and Vera Miles, initially cast as the “naughty” sister, switched roles with Hitchcock’s concurrence to give us one of the most iconic performances of all time, and the one for which she will always be remembered. The performances of Perkins and Leigh, along with Joseph Stefano’s screenplay, Bernard Herrmann’s score, and Hitchcock’s direction, make this the favorite film of the Master of Suspense for many of his fans.

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), directed by John Frankenheimer

Contrary to popular belief, this film was not pulled form distribution after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, but only after rights reverted to star Frank Sinatra in 1972. It resurfaced in 1988 when it was rereleased theatrically. Leigh’s role as a woman Sinatra meets on a train was a minor one, but she is billed over the top with Sinatra and Laurence Harvey owing to her star status at the time. The film belongs, however, to Angela Lansbury as Harvey’s manipulative mother, a Communist plant who hypnotizes her son to commit murders that will lead her second husband to the presidency.

BYE BYE BIRDIE (1963), directed by George Sidney

Leigh had top billing in the role created on Broadway by Chita Rivera, but she is subverted by a stunt director Sidney pulled six months after filming was completed. He had fast-rising Ann-Margret, whose role was subordinate to Leigh and co-star Dick Van Dyke, provocatively sing the newly written title song as an opening and closing number in a manner completely alien to the midwestern teenager she plays in the film. The result was stardom for Ann-Margret and a virtual end to Leigh’s. Three years later she was fifth billed in the Paul Newman starrer Harper, which also featured Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, and Robert Wagner.