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Daily News (06/Jun/1995) - Clarifying the 'Psycho' babble leigh dries up shower rumors, other myths

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Clarifying the 'Psycho' babble leigh dries up shower rumors, other myths

The first thing Janet Leigh wants you to know is that her blood-curdling screams in the legendary "Psycho" shower scene were the result of good acting, not cold water.

For years, rumors have circulated that "Psycho" director Alfred Hitchcock surprised Leigh by shutting off the shower's hot water to elicit her intense shrieks of panic.

The rumor even made it to the Universal Studios Tour, where guides would repeat the cold-water story to tourists milling past the infamous "Psycho" house.

But it's simply not true, says Leigh.

"The water was actually quite warm," said Leigh. "Mr. Hitchcock was most considerate."

At 67, Leigh has decided to set the record straight about "Psycho," a movie that not only changed forever the horror movie genre but greatly impacted the lives of its stars as well.

With celebrity biographer Christopher Nickens, Leigh has written "Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller." The book's release this month is timed to coincide with the movie's 35th anniversary.

Speaking from the Santa Monica offices of her publisher, Leigh remains much like her screen persona of decades past, a persona developed in sweet ingenue roles of the '50s. She is small, blond, elegant and polite.

She also bristles easily when asked about some of the more pervasive "Psycho" myths.

For example, she says it is absoluteley untrue that a nude model — and not she — stood in a studio-built shower for seven days while Hitchcock painstakingly pieced together what would become one of the scariest moments in film history.

Not so, she insists. Wearing fleshtone moleskin applied by adhesive (and painfully removed between shots), Leigh endured the weeklong shower alone.

A body double was used for lighting purposes while Hitchcock explored camera angles, and for a shot that was cut, but what is on the screen is entirely Leigh.

And of the rumor that the shower scene so scared Leigh in real-life that she now only takes baths?

That's true, she says, laughing.

"Before seeing 'Psycho,' I was a relatively normal bather."

Other books on "Psycho" — and there have been dozens — have discussed the technical aspects of the film and its impact on moviemaking. But Leigh's is the first to examine the movie's impact on the cast from the standpoint of someone who was there.

Leigh was an established star and half of a Hollywood glamour couple (with husband Tony Curtis) when she was asked by Hitchcock in 1959 to consider the role of Marion Crane in his coming movie "Psycho."

Famous for his austere movie budgets, Hitchcock offered Leigh only $25,000 for the part — a fourth of her customary per-picture fee. Leigh accepted the role after reading the script, and says now she would have "done it for free."

By 1950s standards, "Psycho" was a revolutionary film. It was the first movie in which the star was viciously killed in the beginning third of the story.

Hitchcock also pushed the limits of on-screen gore. Shots of Marion Crane's blood in the bathtub and of her lifeless corpse — timid scenes by 1995 standards — were shocking in Hitchcock's day.

Leigh says the director was a genius at terrifying audiences by implying — rather than graphically showing — violence.

"The editing and music was so dramatic that even though you never saw anything, you'd swear you saw the knife ripping her flesh," she said.

"And you never did. But that was the intensity that you worked up to in seeing it. You saw her being ripped apart. Each one of those cuts was like the knife going in, the knife going in. It was frightening."

Leigh says she was never intimidated by Hitchcock's reputation as a domineering bully on the set. Both Kim Novak ("Vertigo") and Tippi Hedren ("The Birds") complained that Hitchcock browbeat them into the performances he demanded and attempted to control their off-screen lives, too.

Leigh says Hitchcock treated her with respect and dignity, perhaps because she was already a big star when she signed on to "Psycho."

"I can't speak for other people," she said. "Their experience was their experience. He wasn't a Svengali to me because I was already discovered. He wasn't trying to take an unknown and form a star, which he wanted to do with Tippi and Vera (Miles, "Psycho" co-star) and Kim. For me, it was different. He was delightful."

Leigh earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her work in "Psycho." The movie also was nominated for three other Oscars: Best Direction, Best Cinematography (black and white) and Best Art Direction.

Leigh lost out to Shirley Jones' portrayal of a prostitute in "Elmer Gantry." In fact, "Psycho" was snubbed in all the categories in which it was nominated.

"It's a strange thing," Leigh said of the Oscars. She speculates that "Psycho" was passed over because horror films are thought to be a class below more serious movies that plumb social issues.

"It has to be a drama" to win, she said. "And Hollywood is a faddish town, too. They get their pet peeves or their pet likes."

Leigh writes lovingly in the book of her friendship with the late Anthony Perkins, who played bedeviled motel proprietor Norman Bates. Perkins was so convincing in the role, she writes, that Hollywood typecast him as a crazy, which ultimately damaged his career. Leigh, however, went on to critical acclaim in movies such as "Bye Bye Birdie" and "The Manchurian Candidate." She also raised two daughters, actress Jamie Lee Curtis and Kelly Curtis.

In the book, both daughters admit that they have never seen "Psycho" from start to finish, saying they do not wish to see their mother's character killed on the screen.

Ironically, Leigh has watched Jamie Lee get chased, beaten and killed in movies.

" 'Halloween' scared the hell out of me," Leigh said of her daughter's first movie role as the hunted girl in John Carpenter's slasher flick.

Leigh also saw "Death of a Centerfold," in which Jamie Lee plays slain Playboy playmate Dorothy Stratten.

"That really bothered me," she said. "That was me seeing my baby."

Leigh says she got the idea for the book two years ago after an appearance at a convention of Hitchcock fans in Florida. She arrived at the Universal theme park in Orlando to find hundreds waiting for her autograph, she says.

Until that moment, Leigh had never recognized "Psycho's" lasting effects. But after talking to fans, she and her husband began to discuss the "Psycho" mystique.

"We were marveling at the effect it still has on people," she said. "It was almost unbelievable. Who knew it was this kind of phenomenon?"

She contacted her literary agent (Leigh already had published her memoirs, "There Really Was a Hollywood,"), and the deal was made. Researching the information gave her new respect for the film's lasting impact, she says.

" 'Psycho' is part of our vocabulary," she said. "If someone says shower scene, it's an instant identification. If you hear 'ee ee ee.' That's all you have to hear. You don't have to say anything more and people know exactly what it is.

"It's part of our culture. It's part of our humor. It's part of our fears. It's part of our lives."