Janet Leigh

Janet Leigh was the only child of a couple who frequently relocated. Growing up in apartments, she was an intelligent child who skipped several grades and graduated from high school at age 15. She often spent time at movie theaters, as she was a lonely child. She was a student of music and psychology at the University of the Pacific until she was "discovered" while visiting her parents in Northern California. Her father worked at the desk of a ski resort where her mother was a maid. Retired MGM actress Norma Shearer saw a picture of Janet on the front desk and asked if she could borrow it. This led to a screen test at MGM and a starring role in *The Romance of Rosy Ridge* (1947). MGM was looking for a young, naive country girl, and Janet fit the role perfectly. She would play the young ingénue in a number of films and work with such stars as Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Orson Welles, and Judy Garland. She appeared in a number of successful films, including *Little Women* (1949), *Angels in the Outfield* (1951), *Scaramouche* (1952), *Houdini* (1953), and *The Black Shield of Falworth* (1954), among others. Janet would appear in a variety of films, from comedies to westerns to musicals to dramas. Of her more than 50 movies, she would be remembered for the 45 minutes she was on screen in the small-budget thriller *Psycho* (1960). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this 1960 classic included the shower scene that would become a film landmark. Even though her character is killed off early in the picture, she was nominated for an Academy Award and received a Golden Globe. Her next film was *The Manchurian Candidate* (1962), in which she starred with Frank Sinatra. For the rest of the decade, her film appearances were rare, but she worked with Paul Newman in *Harper* (1966). In the 1970s, she appeared on television in a number of made-for-TV movies. In 1980, she appeared alongside her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in *The Fog* (1980), and later in *Halloween H20: 20 Years Later* (1998). Janet Leigh died at age 77 in her home in Beverly Hills, California, on October 3, 2004.