Janet Leigh

Janet Leigh was an American actress and author. She is best remembered for her performance in Psycho for which she was awarded the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and received an Academy Award nomination.

The only child of Helen Lita and Frederick Robert Morrison, Leigh was born Jeanette Helen Morrison in Merced, California, where she also grew up. Her maternal grandparents were immigrants from Denmark, and she also had ScotchIrish and German ancestry. In winter 1945, she was discovered by actress Norma Shearer, whose late husband Irving Thalberg had been a senior executive at MetroGoldwynMayer. Shearer showed talent agent Lew Wasserman a photograph she had seen of Leigh while vacationing at Sugar Bowl, the ski resort where the girls parents worked. Shearer later recalled that that smile made it the most fascinating face I had seen in years. I felt I had to show that face to somebody at the studio. Leigh left the College of the Pacific, where she was studying Music and Psychology, after Wasserman secured a contract with MGM, despite having no acting experience. She was placed under the tutelage of drama coach Lillian Burns.

Source: Wikipedia