Leigh was born in Merced, California, the only child of Helen Lita (née Westergard) and Frederick Robert Morrison. She was discovered by actress Norma Shearer, whose late husband Irving Thalberg had been a senior executive at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Shearer showed talent agent Lew Wasserman the photograph she had seen of Leigh while vacationing at the ski resort where the girl's parents worked. Read more...

Leigh made her film debut in The Romance of Rosy Ridge in 1947, as the romantic interest of Van Johnson's character. Throughout the 1950s, she starred in movies, most notably in the leading role in the musical comedy My Sister Eileen, co-starring Jack Lemmon, Betty Garrett and Dick York.

Leigh's best-known role was as the morally ambiguous Marion Crane in the Alfred Hitchcock classic 1960 Read more...

Leigh married her third husband, Tony Curtis, on June 4, 1951. They had two children, actresses Kelly and the more well known Jamie Lee. Curtis, who admitted to cheating on her throughout their marriage, left Leigh in 1962 for Christine Kaufmann, the 17-year-old German co-star of his latest film Taras Bulba. Leigh was granted a quick divorce, and married stockbroker Robert Brandt later that year Read more...