American actress Janet Leigh, perhaps best known for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, Psycho, has died. She was 77.
Her publicist says Leigh died peacefully Sunday surrounded by family at her home in Beverly Hills, California. She reportedly has suffered for the past year from an inflammation of the blood vessels.
During her five-decade film career, Leigh starred with such Hollywood leading men as John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper and Frank Sinatra. Her last movie role was in 2000.
But the blonde beauty achieved cult-status fame for her part in Hitchcock's 1960 movie Psycho, in which she plays a woman murdered in the shower by a cross-dressing, psychotic killer.
Leigh appeared in a number of successful films, including Touch of Evil, The Manchurian Candidate, Little Women and Angels in the Outfield.
One of her daughter's, Jamie Leigh Curtis, is also a successful Hollywood actress.