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Edmonton Journal (03/Jun/1995) - Leigh shuns showers, 35 years after Psycho

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Leigh shuns showers, 35 years after Psycho

"No showers and no motels!"

That's been Janet Leigh's recipe for happiness ever since she starred in Alfred Hitchcock's classic of suspense, 1960's Psycho.

After all, she spent seven days in a studio motel shooting the most famous shower scene in movie history.

"To be famous for that above all else! Well, it just beats me!

"Director Hitchcock had mapped out each and every camera angle with designer Saul Bass. I was given a flesh-colored moleskin bikini with pasties which melted under the constant heat of the water.

"There was even a scaffold constructed for the overhead shot. You never see me nude and you never see the knife enter the body although you think you do.

"And that sound of crunching — the special effects guy was stabbing a cantaloupe."

And now Leigh has written a book called Behind The Scenes Of Psycho (Harmony Books), which includes interviews with some, but not all, of her Psycho co-stars.

"I wrote to Vera Miles, who played my sister, but never got a response. John Gavin who played my lover talks about the movie for the first time.

"Tony Perkins had died (of AIDS) but I dearly would have liked to sit down with him. We remained fast friends. He made a lot of romantic movies after that.

"It wasn't until 10 years later that the character of Norman Bates caught up with him and he was offered only weird parts.

"It's the same thing with me. I went on to do The Manchurian Candidate (1962) which is an equally fine film. I did the musical Bye, Bye Birdie (1963). I did Harper (1966). Nobody ever asked me about Psycho in those years."

Reissues of the film plus controversy over its TV showings (CBS withdrew the film after a firestorm of protest) resulted in renewed interest.

Today it's the movie Leigh is most often asked about. "But I think my best movie is Touch Of Evil (1958)."

Leigh hasn't taken a shower in 30 years and she never stayed in motels to begin with. She admits the film attracts a fair number of crazies she stays away from. "Mr. Hitchcock sent me the book. In it, Norman is a pretty sleazy character. It was Hitch's idea to cast Tony, who was tall and very good looking. In fact Tony and John Gavin look like brothers.

"Hitch wanted me because he thought it would be funny to kill off the leading lady in the first half-hour and have the audience spend the rest of the picture waiting for her to come back.

"She's stolen money, but in her conversation with Norman she determines to turn around in the morning and return it. She doesn't get the chance."

Hitchcock shot the movie on the quick with the TV crew from his series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He felt the grainy, black and white movie would be a flop after the success of such lushly romantic interludes as Rear Window and Vertigo.

"Every time I'd go back to my dressing room, Mrs. Bates would be sitting there. Hitch had plopped the dummy in a chair as a joke and I'd run screaming my head off."

Some dubious firsts: Psycho was the first American movie to show a flush toilet and the first to use the word "transvestite."

Leigh had been in movies 13 years when Psycho came along. Film great Norma Shearer spotted her photo on a desk at the Sugar Bowl Ski Lodge near Reno, Nev., where Janet's mother was the receptionist.

Shearer forwarded the picture to MGM. Aged 19, the newly renamed Leigh (real name Jeanette Morrison) signed a six-month contract in 1946 and earned $49.50 a week after taxes.

Leigh said one difference between her beginnings and daughter Jamie Lee Curtis is that "Jamie had no support system. She still envies me. I was groomed. There were stills, interviews, acting classes."

The MGM factory system slowly slipped away when audiences stayed home to watch TV.