June's Silver Screen Siren: Janet Leigh

She's played the hesitant ingenue, the virile Viking, the rogue reporter, dozens of gingham-clad girls next door, and the secret-laden lady on the lam in what is perhaps her most famous film, 1960's Psycho - and she's played them admirably well, considering that her fair face, and not her thespian aspirations, landed her in the heart of Hollywood in the late 1940's. Though fate and Norma Shearer plopped pretty 19-year-old Jeanette Morrison unceremoniously into a sea of stars, it was the girl's own talent and tenacity that kept her afloat at the biggest studio in Tinseltown: her easy beauty quickly blended with her natural knack for acting and her serious, dedicated, and poised attitude to create the ideal screen sensation, which was evidenced by a decades-long career that included film, television and stage work. Best of all, Janet - whose reputation as a kind, compassionate, and gracious lady on and off-screen has yet to be refuted - exuded a deep gratitude for her opportunity to work during the Golden Age of Cinema, and admitted that a most attractive element of her fame was that it allowed her to lend considerable clout in championing charitable causes.

Fans, fame, and a fair face - the endearingly self-effacing Janet Leigh had them all. Janet,we crown thee June's Silver Screen Siren. Wear thy title well.

Silver Screen Siren Stats
Jeanette Helen Morrison, born July 6, 1927
Mother, with actor Tony Curtis, to Kelly and Jamie Lee Curtis
Best-known Films: Little Women (1949), Touch of Evil (1958), Psycho (1960), Bye Bye Birdie (1963), The Manchurian Candidate
Best Book Bets: There Really Was A Hollywood: An Autobiography by Janet Leigh, 1984.