Janet Leigh & Tony Curtis Biography

PHOTO: Janet Leigh & Tony Curtis

Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis were a glittering Hollywood couple, the Cruise and Kidman of the 1950’s. Wherever they went Curtis’ roguish good looks and Leigh’s childlike beauty drew the lenses of the paparazzi. Successful and ambitious, for awhile they had it ‘all’ and that included love and two fine children.

The romance and marriage in 1951 began happily, both actors were rising stars, their names faces graced the covers of the magazines and the fans swooned. The couple hung out with Frank Sinatra’s rat pack drinking and indulging through the night. As Leigh grew up she became ever more sexy and glamourous. Dying her hair blonder and wearing her clothes tighter she was often photographed in provocative poses.

Playing to the adoring the fans, big name films started to sign the beautiful actors and their schedules filled up. In 1953 Curtis and Leigh took the leading roles in Houdini, a razzle-dazzle biography of the great escape artist. It was the first of five films they were to make together.

As the work piled up Leigh discovered she was pregnant with her first daughter Kelly in 1956, two years later she gave birth to their second daughter Jamie Lee.

After a decade of marriage problems became apparent. Curtis’ love of intoxicants was legendary and both stars were reveling in massive personal success. In 1960 alone Leigh was famously butchered in the shower in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Curtis stared in Stanely Kubrick’s mighty Spartacus.

Divorce came in 1962, Curtis dumped Leigh and the children for a young Austrian actress, Christine Kaufmann. He went on to marry four more times. And Leigh almost immediately remarried stockbroker Robert Brandt and moved with her daughters to live a quieter life in the suburbs of LA.

 

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