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Janet Leigh Oct 4 2004 7:26AM... Says AP or Reuters: "LOS ANGELES (AP) - Janet Leigh, the wholesome beauty whose shocking murder in the classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller "Psycho" was credited with making generations of film fans think twice about stepping into a motel room shower, has died at her Beverly Hills home, Sunday, October 3, 2004, her daughter's publicist confirmed Monday. She was 77." Now, I don't know about that statement. Sure, Leigh was a "beauty" -- but before Psycho (nor after), I don't think she was any more wholesome than your next Hollywood actress. Leigh aged poorly. She's looked so old for so long. She's also gotten publicly nuttier and nuttier over the years. She seemed nice, and LOVED to talk about working with Hitchcock and other Hollywood exploits. Reportedly, Leigh died in the presence of her husband, Robert Brandt, and her daughters, actresses Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis, said Heidi Schaeffer, a spokeswoman for Jamie Lee Curtis. "She died peacefully at home," Schaeffer told The Associated Press.
The blonde actress enjoyed a long and distinguished career, appearing in such films as John Frankenheimer's 1962 political thriller "The Manchurian Candidate", and in Orson Welles' 1958 film noir classic "Touch of Evil". But she gained her most lasting fame in "Psycho" as the embezzling office worker who is stabbed to death in the shower by cross-dressing madman Anthony Perkins. The role earned her an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress. Hitchcock compiled the shower sequence in 70-odd takes of two and three seconds each, for which Leigh spent seven days in the shower. Rumors circulated that she was nude, but she wore a flesh-colored moleskin. (Personally, I'm always wearing moleskins.) Although tame by today's standards, the scene was shocking for the time for its brutality. Leigh wrote in her 1995 book "Psycho: Behind the Scenes in the Classic Thriller" that the filming was easy until the last 20 seconds when she had to express total horror as her character was being slashed to death. She often said she hadn't been able to take a shower since the movie. "It's not a hype, not something I thought would be good for publicity," she insisted. "Honest to gosh, it's true." Leigh made just a handful of cinematic masterpieces, several entertaining movies and some junk. Her best films are, of course, Anthony Mann's The Naked Spur (1953), Josef von Sternberg's Jet Pilot (1957) -- where she takes off her sweater in a scene (she's still got a shirt on underneath), and it's seriously the sexiest thing I've seen in a film before the R Rating, Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958), Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate (1962). Leigh's first year in films was 1947, when she made both If Winter Comes and The Romance of Rosy Ridge. Leigh's final film was A Fate Totally Worse Than Death (2000). In between, some of her most notable films included: Hills of Home (1948), Act of Violence (1948), Words and Music (1948), Holiday Affair (1949), That Forsyte Woman (1949), Little Women (1949), It's a Big Country (1951), Angels in the Outfield (1951), Strictly Dishonorable (1951), Scaramouche (1952), Houdini (1953), Walking My Baby Back Home (1953), Prince Valiant (1954), Rogue Cop (1954), The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), Living It Up (1954), My Sister Eileen (1955), Pete Kelly's Blues (1955), Jet Pilot (1957), The Vikings (1958), Touch of Evil (1958), The Perfect Furlough (1959), Who Was That Lady? (1960), Bye Bye Birdie (1963), Three on a Couch (1966), Harper (1966), John Carpenter's The Fog (1980), Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) Leigh's TV appearances range from 1954 to 2002, and include the Columbo episode, "Forgotten Lady" (1975), as well as episodes of "Howard Stern", "Touched by an Angel", "The Twilight Zone", "Murder, She Wrote", "The Love Boat", "Fantasy Island", "Matt Houston", "Tales of the Unexpected", "Ghost Story", "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", "The Virginian", "The Danny Thomas Hour", "The Dean Martin Show", "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", "The Andy Williams Show", "Password", "I've Got a Secret", "What's My Line?", "This Is Your Life", "Toast of the Town", and "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars". At imdb.
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Janet Leigh dies at 77; 
Leigh had suffered from vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels, for the past year.
