Uncut Forum

Barry Leibowitz (CBS News) skrev:[Graysmith:] On the conservative US Air Force base where I lived with my officer parents in Japan, Psycho was not to be shown and periodically even Playboy was banned. Arriving early at the deserted college, I wandered the streets of Oakland, California at night and at a newsstand saw the cover of Playboy showing the beautiful red haired Marli Renfro looking over her shoulder.

Barry Leibowitz (CBS News) skrev:[Graysmith:]Her photo, in jigsaw puzzle form, had a piece missing---just like a mystery. At the time I did not know that Marli had been the nude in the Psycho shower. It was a well kept secret [hendes medvirken står ikke anført i filmens rulletekst].

I tacked her cover up in my art studio and during 1960-61 often wondered who she was. The connection between Marli, Playboy and the great Hitchcock made the stunning model and dancer irresistible and I vowed to someday write a book about her. One of my books took fifteen years to write, another ten, and another took six. Marli's book took forty years.

When did the Marli Renfro case become an obsession for you?

Graysmith: Almost immediately. I am not only a visual person but an obsessive one. Once I start a project I finish it, I can't let go. For over forty years I kept her photos (and have them in front of me as I write this), as obsessed as the detective in the classic noir film "Laura" who fell in love with a dead woman's portrait. But as I finally wrote the vivacious redhead's story after all the rumors and reports in print said that she had been murdered, a nagging doubt entered my mind. What if, like "Laura," she were still alive and someone else had been murdered in her place? And if she were could I find her?

[...]

For all the books written about Psycho, Marli Renfro had never been interviewed.

I found it a tremendous cultural loss. The redheaded chorus dancer and outdoorswoman had been at the heart of the most famous movie scene ever filmed, seeing everything that went on behind the scenes and in the shower.

[...]

From Page One we know Marli is doomed---wire services, magazines, a TV show and even a book---report her ironic later death as a victim of a serial killer, the same part she played in Psycho. We dread what is to come. The suspense in "The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower" is driven by our growing love for Marli as we learn about her amazing year. In 1960 Marli appeared in the most famous scene in movie history, starred in Francis Ford Coppola's first movie (The Peeper), the third Nudie-Cutie ever filmed, and was a Playboy cover girl and one of the first bunnies. During this single year Marli worked with Hugh Hefner, dated Lenny Bruce, attended nudist camps with nudist queen Diane Webber and rode stallions along the Malibu Beach with Steve McQueen. What an astonishing individual she was.

[...]

The third surprising thing was the extent to which both Hitch and Janet Leigh misled the public, saying in numerous interviews and in a book that only Janet had been in that shower, that Janet had done the bulk of the shower scene and that Marli was only used as the corpse wrapped in a shower curtain. Only later did Hitch admit that when you see Janet's face it is her, but when you don't it is Marli Renfro holding the pose a click at time so that her nudity could be concealed by a well placed arm or hand. Certainly Janet's wonderful acting in Psycho leading to the shower scene created a sympathetic character we care about, but there were two people in that shower and as a frame by frame remake recently showed it was a tremendously difficult and grueling performance for Marli Renfro and not easy to duplicate. Marli never received more than $500 for a pivotal role in a film that made $15 million in its first year. Nor did she get the recognition she deserved which I hope she will now.

Barry Leibowitz (CBS News) skrev:Without giving away the ending, what's the most surprising thing you can reveal about what happened to Marli Renfro?

Graysmith: I would say three things. First, this was not the first time Psycho or a Hitchcock TV program inspired a murder.

Second, if I had not figured out the answer to the puzzle eighteen hours before and laid a cunning trap, I would have fainted dead away at the phone call I got the next morning.