As each era in pop culture passes, we’ll find that fans are often as interested in looking back as they are in looking forward and that’s usually reflected in the career resurrections of stars from decades past.
And while beloved 90s actor Brendan Fraser is in the process of getting a much-deserved bump from fans who felt he was unfairly cast aside, recent years have also seen acting legend Jamie Lee Curtis return to prominence in a major way.
While it’s not the only reason for this resurgence, her major role in recent a reboot of the Halloween franchise has done a lot to power it. And at the premiere of the most recent entry in the series, Halloween Kills , Curtis paid homage to her mother Janet Leigh’s own role as a horror pioneer.
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But while she clearly retains a great deal of respect and love for her late mother, Curtis’ recent comments make it clear that this doesn’t mean she has any interest in putting her on a pedestal.
On October 15, Curtis sat down with Melanie Griffith for a piece conducted for _Interview_ magazine.
Their interview contained a lot of reminiscing about their careers and friendship, but it also revealed the likely reason why the actresses had never never known each other as children.
And that apparently had to do with their mothers’ wildly different attitudes towards the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock.
As Griffith put it, “I don’t know how he was with your mom, but he apparently was not very good with my mom.”
According to People , this is something of an understatement as Griffith’s mother Tippi Hedren has spoken out against Hitchcock’s alleged stalking and assault of her during the 1960s back in 2016.
In Griffith’s words, “She was of the #MeToo movement, and it was not accepted at that time. She was shunned and he made sure that she was shunned.”
And as far as Curtis can tell, Hedren and the #MeToo movement at large likely wouldn’t have received much support from her own mother Janet Leigh.
While Curtis was anxious about putting words in her mouth since Leigh never lived to see the #MeToo movement take hold, she recalled that her mom only spoke with gratitude about Hitchcock.
As Curtis said, “I don’t think Janet would ever have acknowledged anything, because from her standpoint, she was just grateful. That was very much her take.”
And since that seemed to be how she felt about the movie industry at large, Curtis believes that the revelations born from the #MeToo movement would have “really upset” her.
In Curtis’ words, “I don’t think Janet would have ever acknowledged if there was any bad behavior. She was, it’s a bad term, but kind of Pollyannaish about the industry.”
So even if she had to face the truth of what has been going on in Hollywood’s underbelly, Curtis believes she still would have found it difficult to admit that Hitchcock and other powerful men in the industry were so predatory.
As she put it, “I think she would have looked at it as, ‘That was just the way it was.'”
h/t: Interview
