Janet Leigh RIP

[Wilson]

Janet Leigh has passed away, at the age of 77.

[R Kadin]

Even if she weren't the singlemost splendid sight in Touch of Evil, who couldn't love an actress with sentiments like these (taken from a 1998 interview with Patrick Giles):

PG: What was it like for you seeing the restored version of Touch of Evil?

JL: I got so emotional I cried. It was just wonderful to see it the way Orson had wanted it. Back then. in the '50s, Universal - and I guess the studios in general - liked everything wrapped up in a neat little package, and this was not a pretty, packaged picture. Touch of Evil had to be jarring. You needed to be attacked; you needed to have raw edges. That's the way it was meant to be. And, of course, that isn't the way they understood a picture should be.

and later,

PG: Is it true you hadn't seen the Touch of Evil script when you agreed to do the movie?
JL: All I know is I got home from dinner one night and there was a telegram that said DEAR JANET: I'M JUST DELIGHTED YOU'RE GOING TO BE IN MY PICTURE. I CAN'T WAIT TO WORK WITH YOU. LOVE, ORSON. I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. I called my agent immediately and he said, "Oh, he wasn't supposed to approach you. They're still working out the deal and I haven't seen the script," I said, "Script schmipt, deal schmeal, I want to work with Orson."

[Glenn Anders]

In the second half of the 20th Century, seldom has a woman combined such limpid beauty and acting skills in Movies. Janet Leigh never lost the innocence of her glance, and for a studio-trained actress, she was able to convey within her bubble of beauty a surprising range of character and emotion.

She certainly was an asset in TOUCH OF EVIL. It was that appeal of hers, that "feeling of 'on, no, not that" when the the thugs kidnapped her which must have appealed to the cynical, slightly sadistic Hitchcock, when he saw her in TOUCH OF EVIL, a year or two before he made PSYCHO.

She will not be forgotten, at least by me . . . and I'm sure by the old Knights of the Wellesnet.

Thanks, Jeff, for noting her passing; and to you, R Kadin, for those quickly produced quotes. They illustrate again how the people who actually worked with Welles tended to admire him, early and late.

Glenn

[mteal]

She was a fine actress, besides being gorgeous of course. Curiously she didn't have much of a career after the 60's, but then alot of movie actresses' careers are pretty short-lived. But in addition to PSYCHO, TOE and MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, she also co-starred with John Wayne in one of my favorite guilty pleasures, JET PILOT, that bizarre mutant offspring of director Josef Von Sternberg and producer Howard Hughes. One of those cases of a movie that's so indescribably bad it's good.

[R Kadin]

(post moved to a new thread)

[Wilson]

A Wellesian guilty pleasure thread is fine, but let's keep this one dedicated to any further comments on Janet Leigh...