Inside “Psycho” Star Janet Leigh’s 4 Marriages, From Tony Curtis to Robert Brandt
Inside “Psycho” Star Janet Leigh’s 4 Marriages, From Tony Curtis to Robert Brandt
Makena GeraSun, March 29, 2026 at 12:30 PM UTC
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Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, circa 1955 ; Janet Leigh and Robert Brandt during the Food For Thought Luncheon on April 30, 2003 in West Hollywood, California.Credit: Silver Screen Collection/Getty ; Gregg DeGuire/WireImage
Janet Leigh was married four times, including to Tony Curtis.
The famed Psycho star (born Jeanette Helen Morrison) was most famously married to the prolific actor. But before they married in 1951 and welcomed two children together — daughters Kelly and Jamie Lee Curtis — Leigh was married twice in her late teens.
She first wed John Kenneth Carlisle in 1941 when she was only 14 years old. Leigh then married Stanley Reames in 1945 when she was 18. Five years later, Leigh met Curtis at a Hollywood party and they married in 1951.
Her relationship with Curtis was often in the spotlight. The actors eventually split in 1962. That same year, she married her fourth husband, Robert Brandt. Their marriage lasted more than four decades until Leigh’s death on Oct. 3, 2004.
In the years since her parents' deaths — Curtis died on Sept. 29, 2010 — Jamie Lee has spoken about her mom and dad at award shows and on social media. The Scream star has also shared what they taught her about love, despite her family's numerous divorces.
“I’m caught by not only their extreme beauty but their deep love and ambition,” she wrote on Instagram in January 2022. “As the product of 13 divorces in my immediate family I have often struggled with the idea of love, what happens to it? There are only a couple reminders to me that I was born from love and not resentment.”
Here’s everything to know about Janet Leigh’s four marriages, from Tony Curtis to Robert Brandt.
John Kenneth Carlisle
Janet Leigh wearing a wedding dress, circa 1948.Credit: Screen Archives/Getty
Leigh met her first husband, Carlisle, when she was only 14 years old.
Leigh publicized the story of her first marriage — which lasted only four months — in the December 1960 issue of Motion Picture magazine, according to a 1962 lawsuit Carlisle filed against the magazine and Leigh for libel and invasion of privacy, according to The Hanford Sentinel. (The suit was later dismissed.)
In 1941, when Leigh was 14 years old, her family moved from Stockton, Calif., to Merced, Calif., after the death of her grandfather. There, she met 18-year-old Carlisle, she wrote in Motion Picture, and the two “went steady.” She wore his letterman sweater and class ring on a chain around her neck.
When Leigh’s family moved back to Stockton, she was devastated about leaving Carlisle. The following summer, though, Leigh visited Merced, during which time she and Carlisle decided to wed. They drove to Reno, Nev., on Aug. 1, 1942 and got married at the city courthouse, where Leigh lied about her age (she was 15 at the time).
But when the couple returned to California, Leigh’s parents insisted that the marriage be dissolved. After four months, the annulment was finalized on Dec. 28, 1942, per Motion Picture and the lawsuit.
Stanley Reames
Janet Leigh tests perfume on her husband Stanley Reames, circa 1945.Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty
Leigh married her second husband, Reames, after graduating high school.
Before she began her Hollywood career, Leigh was a college student at the College of the Pacific in Stockton. She enrolled in September 1943 to study music and psychology, and by the following summer, she had met her soon-to-be second husband, according to Janet Leigh: A Biography.
Leigh crossed paths with Reames in the summer of 1944. At the time, Reames was in the Navy studying in the V-12 program at the nearby Officers Training School, and they became acquainted when Reames was putting together a band in need of a vocalist. He discovered Leigh, brought her on as the band’s lead singer and the two soon began dating.
Reames proposed on the porch of Leigh’s Alpha Theta Tau sorority house, according to Janet Leigh: A Biography, and they married on Oct. 5, 1945, in Morris Chapel at the College of the Pacific. Shortly after, Leigh dropped out of college and moved to L.A. with Reames, who had musical aspirations.
Around the same time, actress Norma Shearer saw a photo of Leigh at the ski resort where her father worked, launching her Hollywood career. According to The Telegraph, after being introduced to MGM studio executives, Leigh landed her first role in the 1947 film, The Romance of Rosy Ridge, when the studio changed her name from Jeanette Helen Morrison to Janet Leigh.
But while Leigh’s acting career began to take off, Reames’ music career was floundering. They divorced in 1948 after two years of marriage.
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Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh on their wedding day on June 4, 1951 in Greenwich, ConnecticutCredit: FPG/Archive Photos/Getty
Leigh’s marriage to Curtis began in 1951.
They met at a party hosted by RKO Pictures in 1950, according to an excerpt from the 2023 book Hitchcock’s Blondes: The Unforgettable Women Behind the Legendary Director’s Dark Obsession in Vanity Fair.
They quickly began dating, and married in a civil ceremony in Greenwich, Conn. on June 4, 1951.
Over the course of their relationship, Leigh and Curtis starred in five films together, including Houdini in 1953 and The Black Shield of Falworth in 1954. During this time, Leigh and Curtis’ relationship was thrust into the spotlight, given the label of the ideal Hollywood couple.
“There was no bigger pair,” Curtis wrote in his 1993 autobiography, per The Independent. “No other husband-and-wife team came close to us until Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, but that was 10 years later. They did it through scandal. We did it through the movies and people’s affection.”
Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh with their two daughters, Jamie Lee and KellyCredit: Bettmann/Getty
During their marriage, Leigh and Curtis welcomed two daughters — Kelly Curtis in 1956 and Jamie Lee in 1958. They both followed in their parents footsteps into acting.
Kelly got her first role as a child alongside both of her parents in The Vikings in 1958. Jame Lee’s breakout role was in the 1978 film Halloween. She has since won dozens of awards for her work.
Leigh and Curtis’ partnership had its ups and downs, and the two were known as much for their movies as they were for their tumultuous relationship.
The couple divorced in 1962 after 11 years of marriage. Despite their disagreements, Leigh spoke highly of Curtis.
“Tony and I had a wonderful time together; it was an exciting, glamorous period in Hollywood,” she said in an interview, per CBS News. “A lot of great things happened, most of all, two beautiful children."
Robert Brandt
Janet Leigh and Bob Brandt in New York on October 21, 1962.Credit: Bettmann/Getty
Leigh was married to her fourth and final husband, Robert Brandt, for 42 years.
Leigh began her longest marriage to stockbroker Brandt in 1962, and they remained married until her death in 2004.
Though it is unclear how the pair met, Brandt worked in the securities industry, founding two companies, Brandt Zwick and Co. and Robert Brandt and Co., per The Hollywood Reporter.
When Leigh and Brandt wed, he became a father figure to Jamie Lee and Kelly.
Janet Leigh and Robert Brandt during the Food For Thought Luncheon on April 30, 2003 in West Hollywood, California.Credit: Gregg DeGuire/WireImage
Though Jamie Lee was estranged from her biological father, Curtis, she had a close relationship with Brandt, who died in 2009 — calling him her “father” in an Instagram post visiting he and her mother’s shared grave in April 2023.
In July 2024, Jamie Lee shared an Instagram post honoring Brandt and his role in her life.
“Today is the anniversary of the birth of Robert Brandt, my ‘step’ father. The truth is, he raised me from three years on,” Jamie Lee captioned a photo of Brandt and Leigh alongside her and her sister as children.
She continued, “[He] fell in love with a movie star with two very young daughters. He was tall and handsome and smart and incredibly athletic and although he really didn't want to have children, he stepped up to that task. ... He was a good man.”
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