Janet Leigh was an actress.
Janet Leigh ( born Jeanette Helen Morrison ; July 6 , 1927 -- October 3 , 2004 ) was an American actress , singer , dancer 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 . Early in her career , she appeared in popular films spanning a wide variety of genres , including Act of Violence ( 1948 ) , Little Women ( 1949 ) , Angels in the Outfield ( 1951 ) , Scaramouche ( 1952 ) , The Naked Spur ( 1953 ) and Living It Up ( 1954 ) . She played mostly dramatic roles during the latter half of the 1950s , in such films as Safari ( 1956 ) and Touch of Evil ( 1958 ) , but achieved her most lasting recognition as the doomed Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock 's Psycho ( 1960 ) . Psycho is a 1960 American psychological horror film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock , and written by Joseph Stefano , starring Anthony Perkins , Janet Leigh , John Gavin , Vera Miles and Martin Balsam , and was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch .