In an excerpt from his new book, Hitchcock’s Blondes: The Unforgettable Women Behind the Legendary Director’s Dark Obsession, Laurence Leamer digs deep into the turbulent marriage between the Psycho star and Some Like It Hot actor.
In those years, in Hollywood, there were the good girls and the bad girls, and only a treacherous no man’s land in between. Janet Leigh’s colleague at MGM, Elizabeth Taylor, was a naughty girl. There were no vixen-like roles for Leigh. The studio developed the twice-married divorcé into a morally fastidious goody-goody girl, exemplifying the supposed values of repressed America in the early postwar years.
What drew Leigh to Curtis was his warm, effusive soul. Brash, bold, spilling his ironic wit over everything, the actor exuded life. Although Leigh had also grown up poor, she had been brought up as a princess in a palace compared to Curtis. Being around him, she was passionately alive too. Nevertheless, Curtis and Leigh married in a civil ceremony in June 1951 in Greenwich, Connecticut. The nuptials were greeted by an avalanche of publicity beyond anything the newlyweds thought possible. They were ambitious young actors using whatever it took to get where they wanted to go—and here, set before them, was an incredible tool that Curtis exploited to the fullest.
One evening, Curtis and Leigh were at a party at the New York residence of Cole Porter. Porter’s minions had set out an array of cutlery around the plates. Leigh kept whispering to her husband, trying to get him to use the right utensil. The more she implored him, the more studiously he grabbed the wrong fork.
Hitchcock was notorious for giving his actors almost no advice and tearing their heads off if they dared ask him too many questions. He treated Leigh differently. She was so genial, polite, and thankful that Hitchcock could hardly be less than gracious. He did leave the grotesque mannequin for serial killer Norman Bates’ mother sitting in her chair in her dressing room. And he peppered her with dirty limericks and foul jokes until her face turned pink.
But the show that was their marriage had to go on. For their tenth wedding anniversary in June 1961, they staged a party extravagant even by Hollywood standards. The couple built a dance floor over the pool, a dais for the orchestra, and a platform for tables to hold the 250 guests that included the film elite from Frank Sinatra to Doris Day and Gene Kelly to Jack Lemmon. The last guest did not leave until after 5:30 in the morning.
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