Candy Girl
03-30-2010, 04:36 PM
by John Gholson Mar 30th 2010
http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk91/yankeegirl71/weird%20stuff/psychoshower-450-x-246.jpg
Is the name Robert Graysmith familiar to you? He's the author of Zodiac, and he was brought to life on the big screen by actor Jake Gyllenhaal in David Fincher's film of the same name. He's back in the true crime game with another unusual murder case, this one movie-related, with the release of his book The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower.
It's the bizarre, convoluted account of the murder of Myra Davis, Janet Leigh's stand-in for Psycho. The killer, Kenneth Dean Hunt, intended to murder Marli Renfro, Leigh's body double for the infamous shower scene, but got the wrong woman back in 1988. The stand-in and body double were always getting mixed up; one stood in for certain lighting set-ups (Davis), while the other (Renfro) was visible in the iconic shower scene as a body double when Leigh's face isn't shown.
The crime, committed by Hunt (who most suggest was an over-the-top Psycho fan obsessed with killing Leigh's body double in the shower scene, Marli Renfro) went unsolved until roughly ten years ago, and folks confused the two gals so much to the point that even the Associated Press reported Renfro (not Davis) had been murdered when she was actually alive and completely unaware of her apparent death. There was also a report that claimed the two women were actually one in the same.
Hitchcock and Leigh kept up the lie that Leigh did the shower scene all by herself up until their dying days, burying the contribution made by Renfro -- a contribution Graysmith's book hopes to bring to light. It's a rich enough story that Graysmith's book might make an interesting film in its own right -- the story of a real murder spurred on by Hunt's love for Psycho's fake murder, and the strange case of mistaken identity that followed.
(via Guardian UK)
http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk91/yankeegirl71/weird%20stuff/psychoshower-450-x-246.jpg
Is the name Robert Graysmith familiar to you? He's the author of Zodiac, and he was brought to life on the big screen by actor Jake Gyllenhaal in David Fincher's film of the same name. He's back in the true crime game with another unusual murder case, this one movie-related, with the release of his book The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower.
It's the bizarre, convoluted account of the murder of Myra Davis, Janet Leigh's stand-in for Psycho. The killer, Kenneth Dean Hunt, intended to murder Marli Renfro, Leigh's body double for the infamous shower scene, but got the wrong woman back in 1988. The stand-in and body double were always getting mixed up; one stood in for certain lighting set-ups (Davis), while the other (Renfro) was visible in the iconic shower scene as a body double when Leigh's face isn't shown.
The crime, committed by Hunt (who most suggest was an over-the-top Psycho fan obsessed with killing Leigh's body double in the shower scene, Marli Renfro) went unsolved until roughly ten years ago, and folks confused the two gals so much to the point that even the Associated Press reported Renfro (not Davis) had been murdered when she was actually alive and completely unaware of her apparent death. There was also a report that claimed the two women were actually one in the same.
Hitchcock and Leigh kept up the lie that Leigh did the shower scene all by herself up until their dying days, burying the contribution made by Renfro -- a contribution Graysmith's book hopes to bring to light. It's a rich enough story that Graysmith's book might make an interesting film in its own right -- the story of a real murder spurred on by Hunt's love for Psycho's fake murder, and the strange case of mistaken identity that followed.
(via Guardian UK)