By Paul Lanning

A native of California’s Central Valley, Jeanette Morrison enrolled at Stockton Junior College (then a part of University of the Pacific, now known as San Joaquin Delta College) after high school to study psychology and music. While visiting her parents in Lake Tahoe, Morrison’s stunning good looks drew the attention of legendary Hollywood starmaker Norma Shearer of MGM Studios, and the young college student was soon whisked off to Tinseltown and a career in the spotlight.

Janet Leigh, as she was known from then on, was a star almost immediately, earning strong reviews in her early films such as “The Romance of Rosy Ridge” and “Little Women”. The spotlight grew ever brighter in 1951 with her marriage to Tony Curtis, one of the most high-profile Hollywood romances of the era.

Leigh continued to grow as an accomplished actress, earning praise for her comedic talent in “Angels in the Outfield”, her dramatic turn in the Western “The Naked Spur”, and her singing talent in the musical “My Sister Eileen”, in addition to five films through the course of the 1950s in which she was paired with Curtis, including the sensationalized biopic “Houdini”.

Leigh’s career took a dramatic turn in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the ingénue of the ‘50s appeared in a series of now-classic film-noir thrillers. Her roles in Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil”, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”, and “The Manchurian Candidate” are among the most memorable dramatic female roles of the era, and her brief but indelible role in “Psycho” secured her place in film history, earning her a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Leigh went on to co-star with Dick Van Dyke and a young Ann-Margret in the film version of “Bye Bye Birdie”, another musical for which Leigh earned strong reviews.

Throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, Leigh gradually retreated from the spotlight as she raised two daughters and focused on her marriage to husband Robert Brandt and a series of charitable endeavors, which began with her international supporting the Peace Corps in the early 1960s and her involvement in SHARE, raising funds for emotionally disturbed children. She continued in the public eye, raising money and devoting time to worthwhile causes for many years.

In 1975 Leigh appeared on Broadway in the play “Murder Among Friends”, and in 1980 she famously returned to the big screen in another thriller, “The Fog”, alongside her now-famous younger daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis. They re-teamed for “Halloween H20” in 1998, Leigh’s last motion picture appearance.

In her lengthy and accomplished career Leigh starred alongside many of the greatest stars of cinema, including not only Tony Curtis but also Van Johnson, Errol Flynn, Elizabeth Taylor, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, and Paul Newman, among others, and her work will live on forever in particular with two films that were included among the American Film Institute’s top 100 films of all-time: “Psycho” and “The Manchurian Candidate”. Those two films have also been recognized by AFI as two of the top 100 thrillers of all time, also joined on that list by “Touch of Evil”.

After years of health challenges later in life, Leigh passed away in October, 2004 at the age of 77. In accepting an honorary doctorate at the University of the Pacific just months before her passing, Leigh spoke of the importance of education and the value she placed upon her memories of her time in school.

In 2006 Leigh’s daughters returned to Stockton for the posthumous naming of the plaza in front of Stockton’s new theatre complex in honor of their mother. Janet Leigh Plaza includes a plaque honoring one of Hollywood’s legendary starlets, who got her start at Stockton Junior College way back in the 1940s.