She seemingly could do anything they asked her to do as an actress. She excelled in dramas, was a delightful comedienne and sang and danced. She was a sweet-faced brunette in her early days but when she became a beautiful blonde, she acquired the look she was meant to have. She also had one of the most voluptuous figures in all of Tinseltown and her ever-present sexuality was never vulgar. In 1995 she was voted by Empire Magazine as one of the 100 sexiest stars in Hollywood history.
She would go on to work with some of the biggest names (actors and directors) in Hollywood and appear in some important films. To say that she played one of the most iconic roles of all-time is an understatement. Oddly, she never appeared in a movie that was nominated for Oscar's best picture, although, as often is the case, that says more about the Academy that it does about Leigh's choices.
She was born Jeanette Morrison in 1927 in Merced, California, the only child of a teenage couple. As a youngster she was shy and sensitive and very bright. She skipped a couple of grades in school. She also felt a great deal of loneliness, chiefly due to her parents moving around so often. The movies became her babysitters... she saw more of them than she could count.
Despite all that movie-going, it didn't particularly occur to her to become an actress. What it did do was put her in a romantic haze that lasted throughout the remainder of her young years. At 14 she and a fellow teen ran off and got married. Her parents had it annulled and she never saw the boy again. She suffered terribly because of the shame her parents instilled in her and she had to live with the guilt of the secret.
That knockout figure, however, kept her in the forefront of a lot of young men's minds and at 18 she was married again, this time to a musician in a small band. This union would last for four years.
Her parents were both working at a ski lodge. Her father was a front desk clerk and had a photo of young Jeanette nearby. It was noticed by former MGM actress Norma Shearer who thought Jeanette had the physical attributes to be an actress. Shearer gave the photo to MGM and within no time someone from the studio called. She took a screen test and was soon in her first film, The Romance of Rosy Ridge (1947).
It is a Civil War drama in which she and her boyfriend are from families on opposite sides. It would be the first of four films in which she would appear with Van Johnson. They were ideally matched on the big screen and in real life she and the gay actor became good friends. He is the one responsible for giving her a new name.
MGM used her effectively in a series of films such as If Winter Comes, Hills of Home, Words and Music, The Red Danube, That Forsyte Woman, Holiday Affair, Angels in the Outfield, Two Tickets to Broadway and more. They kept her working and in the public eye and although all were colorful entertainments, none were outstanding. They were to come.
Her most demanding early role came with the film noir, Act of Violence (1949), in which Leigh is married to Van Heflin who is being stalked by vengeful POW Robert Ryan. Fred Zinnemann's taut direction brought the best out in Leigh who surprised herself with her convincing portrayal.
She obtained a divorce and began serial dating. It's no wonder that eligible bachelors wanted her on their arms. Movie magazines were full of photos of Leigh and some handsome man. She had even considered marriage to one or two but she also had her hands full of one and she couldn't seem to make him go away.
Howard Hughes, playboy extraordinaire, had taken a liking to the shapely Leigh and cast her as a German pilot (!!!) in Jet Pilot opposite John Wayne. Wayne told the press then and later that he never worked with an actress with a better figure. Hughes pestered Leigh until she could hardly stand it. He tinkered with the film for so long that it wasn't released until 1957 with the odd thing being that Leigh no longer looked like she had in 1949. It also wasn't a very good film.
It proved a coup that she was cast as one of the title stars in Little Women (1949) alongside June Allyson, Elizabeth Taylor and Margaret O'Brien. The casting of these four actresses as the March sisters (Leigh plays Meg) proved a financial boon to MGM. To this day it is one of Leigh's most visible movies.
Also in 1949 she met handsome, brash and conceited Tony Curtis at a party. Soon they were deliriously in love. Those movie magazines couldn't get enough of them. She quickly changed from a winsome ingenue to sexy blonde chick and became one of the most photographed women in the world. If one didn't read these movie magazines throughout the entire decade, one simply has no idea how inundated we were with the comings and goings of Leigh and Curtis. Their fans went bonkers after they married in 1951. The only couple who ever gave them a run for their money in magazines was Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. Actually, it was pretty nauseating. One scribe called the Curtis-Leigh articles over-eager, over-nice, over-everything.
With and without Curtis, Leigh signed up for silly costume pictures that were far beneath her talents. We won't discuss The Black Shield of Falworth or (gulp!) Prince Valiant but you may already know I have a fond place in my being for Scaramouche (1952). Eleanor Parker, never more sexy, had the female lead but it is Leigh who ends up with Stewart Granger at the finale.
If one were to mention the 10 best westerns ever made, Leigh's next, The Naked Spur (1953), should be among them. Anthony Mann's gritty thriller-western concerns a bounty hunter (James Stewart) who must accept the help of two shifty strangers (Ralph Meeker and Millard Mitchell) to bring in a crazed killer (Robert Ryan) who has his girlfriend (Leigh, in a new curly-topped hairdo) in tow. She is the only woman in the picture and her role is less-defined than the others. Stewart and Ryan are nothing short of sensational.
She was not given a lot to do in Rogue Cop (1954) but it was significant to her because it was her last film under her MGM contract and she loved working with Robert Taylor.
She went immediately into Pete Kelly's Blues (1955), directed by and starring Jack Webb. I never liked his wooden acting but this is the best thing he ever did. The plot concerned the Prohibition Era and a crime boss who tries to wriggle in on the profits of a small band. Leigh was not bad at all but the part was unnecessary and distracted from the film. Acting plaudits went to Edmond O'Brien and Peggy Lee but everyone hit the high notes.
A wonderfully happy experience for Leigh came with the musical remake of My Sister Eileen (1955). The romantic adventures of two sisters in an underground flat in New York gave further evidence of Leigh's musical talents. The fact that she could keep up in the dancing department with Bob Fosse and Tommy Rall says a great deal. Jack Lemmon was a perfect leading man and Betty Garrett a perfect sister.
Leigh was very involved in the charity SHARE and both she and Curtis, avid Democrats, hopped on the Kennedy bandwagon. They would campaign and party with him and do everything they could to get him elected.
The magazines continued to show the Curtises as a very happy couple but the truth is, away from the flashbulbs and bright lights, they fought like cats and dogs. She must have known he was a cheater but did she know he was a serial cheater?
Leigh and Curtis, by the way, made six films together. I outlined them in an earlier piece. I had a fondness for Houdini (1953) but the only truly good one of the entire bunch was The Vikings (1958).
That same year Leigh made Touch of Evil, Orson Welles' noir about a murder in Tijuana that gets a Mexican cop there on his honeymoon reluctantly involved. It was a resounding flop when it first came out and for years afterward. But then critics took a second look and declared it one of Welles' great gems. I have tended to agree with that although I found Charlton Heston (who never caught much of a break from me) miscast as a Mexican.
I loved how Welles worked Marlene Dietrich, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Mercedes MacCambridge and good pal Joseph Cotten into fascinating cameos. Character actor Joseph Calleia is a most sinister villain. Leigh, with a hidden broken arm throughout the entire shoot, delivered a new eroticism that audiences hadn't really seen from her before. Her acting in the famous motel room scene told me she had truly arrived as an actress.
Everyone knows that Janet Leigh is Marion Crane, the woman who was stabbed to death in the shower scene from Psycho (1960), providing one of the indelible images of gore and horror in film history. Well, ok, not everyone knows that so let's just say the woman never had a role for which she is more famous. A little-known fact is that Leigh was originally hired to play the role of sister Lila and Vera Miles was going to play Marion.
It turned out to be another role touching on eroticism for Leigh in the opening motel room scenes with John Gavin where she is seen in her bra. Leigh brought a needed cheerlessness to the part and she would put the emotion to use in two roles in future films. Seeing usually sunny Janet Leigh viciously murdered was a smart bit of casting (and role-shifting). She would receive her only Oscar nomination.
It's too bad that after basking in the glow of happy professional times things turned dark for Leigh, especially in 1961. It was a devastating blow for her to learn that her father committed suicide. Later the Curtis family (by now including two daughters) were off to Argentina where he was to play Yul Brynner's son in the Cossack epic, Taras Bulba (1962). After she returned to the states, Leigh learned that Curtis and his love interest, German actress Christine Kaufmann, were doing a little too much practicing off screen. Curtis asked for a divorce. The public was shocked since they were portrayed as the Prince and Princess of Fairyland.
Curtis married Kaufmann (and had two more daughters) and Leigh married stockbroker Robert Brandt in 1962 and they lasted until her passing.
After a two year absence from the screen, she returned for The Manchurian Candidate (1962), a thriller film for which I have high regard. She gave it all she could muster to play the cheerless role of Frank Sinatra's girlfriend. The thing is her part had nothing to do with the main thrust of the piece, that of a brainwashed, former POW who is being groomed to become an assassin. Her costars, Sinatra, Laurence Harvey and Angela Lansbury all had far meatier roles. Nonetheless, Leigh could count herself lucky to be part of such an outstanding film.
Leigh had an affair with Sinatra while making the film. She likely made it clear to him that her marriage was all but over. Sinatra had been a family friend. He was involved in a lot of the work to get Kennedy elected, along with the Curtises. Sinatra and Curtis had costarred in the 1958 film, Kings Go Forth. Curtis was antsy and jealous during this period. He was sure his wife and friend had gotten to know one another better.
She sang and danced up a storm as the lead brunette Rosie in the musical Bye Bye Birdie (1963) but was far outshadowed by a sexy Ann-Margret performance. It must have been a disappointment for Leigh but it didn't hold a candle to hearing of the assassination of her good buddy, JFK.
She reunited with Van Johnson and also Shelley Winters and Martha Hyer for a saucy little infidelity comedy (gee, that's never too funny in real life) called Wives and Lovers (1963). I thought it was a delight but it went nowhere.
She turned down the role of Simone Clouseau in The Pink Panther which went to Capucine. Putting her time and energy into her new marriage and raising her daughters, she was off the screen for another three years and then returned as Paul Newman's estranged wife in the detective yarn, Harper (1966). Again she was away from the main action of the film but her scenes with Newman were strong and sexy as hell. Maturity had brought a stunning beauty to Leigh. Damn they were a hot, ideally-match pair. Too bad they didn't work together again.
Sadly, she never again made a big splash in films. I don't think she cared as much about her career as she once did, choosing to put her energies into her family life. Her big-screen films were generally independent ones... the parts frequently two or three scenes. There were horrid horror films. By the 80's she had smaller roles in daughter Jamie Lee Curtis' movies. Leigh also appeared frequently on television in both TV movies and episodic series.
In 1984 she wrote a good autobiography, There Really Was a Hollywood. She later wrote three more books, one of them an inviting study of the making of Psycho. One didn't see a lot of her but she'd make personal appearances to sell her books and many noticed how thin, even gaunt, she had become.
For the last year of her life she suffered from vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels. She died at her Los Angeles home in 2004 at the age of 77.
I was sad. It was due to that soft spot I had in my heart for her. Despite a long and storied career and a dazzling personal life in the 1950's, I always thought she was at her core Jeanette Morrison of Merced, California and I rather liked that.
Next posting:
The last examination
of a movie studio
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