77
Age
101
Movies
29
TV Shows
8.2
Rating
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 working-class parents, Leigh was discovered at 18 by actress Norma Shearer, who helped her secure a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
77
Died at
101
Movies
29
TV Shows
8.2
Avg Rating
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 working-class parents, Leigh was discovered at 18 by actress Norma Shearer, who helped her secure a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Murder, She Wrote
1984
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 working-class parents, Leigh was discovered at 18 by actress Norma Shearer, who helped her secure a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
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 crime-drama 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 Welles's film noir Touch of Evil (1958). With RKO Radio pictures she co-starred in the romantic comedy Holiday Affair (1949) with Robert Mitchum.
Leigh achieved her biggest success starring as Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's 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 pair's 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 year-long battle with vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels.
Gender
Female
Birthday
July 6, 1927
Died
October 3, 2004
Birthplace
Merced, California, USA
Also Known As
Psycho
1960
An American Dream
1966
Three on a Couch
1966
Little Women
1949
Hollywood: The Dream Factory
1972
The Perfect Furlough
1958
Inside the Dream Factory
1995
Hills of Home
1948
Houdini
1953
Jerry Lewis: The Last American Clown
1996
The Fog
1980
The Horror Show
1979
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
1998
Happy 100th Birthday, Hollywood
1987
That Forsyte Woman
1949
The Manchurian Candidate
1962
The Making of 'Psycho'
2005
Touch of Evil
1958
Psycho II
1983
Miss Glucksman Visits Hollywood
1954
+ 81 more movies
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
1962
Columbo
1971
Murder, She Wrote
1984
Golden Globe Awards
1944
The Love Boat
1977
The Twilight Zone
1985
Touched by an Angel
1994
Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre
1963
What's My Line?
1950
What's My Line?
1950
Tales of the Unexpected
1979
Intimate Portrait
1993
Intimate Portrait
1993
The Colgate Comedy Hour
1950
The Oscars
1953
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
1964
Matt Houston
1982
The Ed Sullivan Show
1948
Ghost Story
1972
Family Law
1999
+ 9 more TV shows