Janet Leigh

Janet Leigh born Jeanette Helen Morrison July 6 1927 October 3 2004 was an American actress singer dancer and author Her career spanned over five decades Raised in Stockton California by workingclass parents Leigh was discovered at 18 by actress Norma Shearer who helped her secure a contract with MetroGoldwynMayer Leigh appeared in radio programs before her first formal foray into acting making her film debut in the drama The Romance of Rosy Ridge 1947 With MGM she appeared in many films which spanned a wide variety of genres which include the crimedrama Act of Violence 1948 the drama Little Women 1949 the comedy Angels in the Outfield 1951 the romance Scaramouche 1952 and the western drama The Naked Spur 1953 She played dramatic roles during the late 1950s in such films as Safari 1956 and Orson Welless film noir Touch of Evil 1958 With RKO Radio pictures she costarred in the romantic comedy Holiday Affair 1949 with Robert Mitchum Leigh achieved her biggest success starring as Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcocks psychological thriller Psycho 1960 For her performance Leigh won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Intermittently she continued to appear in films including Bye Bye Birdie 1963 Harper 1966 Night of the Lepus 1972 and Boardwalk 1979 She made her Broadway debut in 1975 in a production of Murder Among Friends She would also go on to appear in two horror films with her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis The Fog 1980 and Halloween H20 20 Years Later 1998 In addition to her work as an actress Leigh also wrote four books between 1984 and 2002 two of which were novels Leigh had two brief marriages as a teenager one of which was annulled before marrying actor Tony Curtis in 1951 The pairs highly publicized union ended in divorce in 1962 and after starring in The Manchurian Candidate that same year Leigh remarried and scaled back her career She died in October 2004 at age 77 following a yearlong battle with vasculitis an inflammation of the blood vessels Description above from the Wikipedia article Janet Leigh licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia