Janet Leigh

Janet Leigh (born Jeanette Helen Morrison; July 6, 1927 – October 3, 2004) was an American actress, singer, dancer and author. She is best remembered for her performance in Psycho, for which she was awarded the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and received an Academy Award nomination. She was the first wife of actor Tony Curtis and the mother of Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis. Discovered by actress Norma Shearer, Leigh made her acting debut on radio in 1946 and secured a contract with MGM the following year. Early in her career, she appeared in popular films spanning a wide variety of genres, including Act of Violence (1948), Little Women (1949), Angels in the Outfield (1951), Scaramouche (1952), The Naked Spur (1953) and Living It Up (1954). She played mostly dramatic roles during the latter half of the 1950s, in such films as Safari (1956) and Touch of Evil (1958), but achieved her most lasting recognition as the doomed Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). Her highly publicized marriage to Curtis ended in divorce in 1962, and after starring in The Manchurian Candidate that same year, Leigh scaled back her career. Intermittently, she continued to appear in notable films, including Bye Bye Birdie (1963), Harper (1966) and Night of the Lepus (1972) as well as two films with her daughter, Jamie Lee: The Fog (1980) and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998). She also wrote four books between 1984 and 2002, including two novels. Leigh died in 2004 at age 77, following a year-long battle with vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels. Among her survivors was her husband of 42 years, Robert Brandt.