"A boy's best friend is his mother," remarked nut case Norman Bates in the chilling movie Psycho. That seemingly innocent remark spelled trouble for the character of embezzler Marion Crane, played by actress Janet Leigh.
A real-life California girl, Leigh dropped out of college to go into movies. Since her first role, in 1947, she was in many a movie--some of them quite good, yet the one role that made her an iconic figure in movies' history was the one in Psycho. The shower-scene murder of Leigh's character was truly a classic.
The plot of Psycho, as directed by the great Alfred Hitchcock, was the stuff of pop-psych legend. Motel owner Norman Bates has murdered his mother, then "becomes" his dead mother in his less lucid moments. Mom's mummified corpse is kept in the cellar of the spooky-looking old family home near the motel. The movie was full of suspense if ever one was.
Leigh went on to work in other films, most notably Touch of Evil and The Manchurian Candidate, both in the early 1960s. She also worked twice with daughter Jamie Lee Curtis.
The glamorous Leigh, married four times, died at age 77 in 2004.
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