Marli Renfro has lived one hell of a life. Though best known for serving as Janet Leigh’s body double in Psycho’s genre-redefining shower scene, the former model, showgirl and Playboy cover star had racked up quite a resume before she was immortalized in Robert Graysmith’s biography, The Girl in Hitchcock’s Shower.
Having started out as a chorus dancer first in Las Vegas and then New York, Renfro was working as a model in Los Angeles when she heard about the casting call for Psycho. Shortly after working with Hitchcock, she worked with a college-aged Francis Ford Coppola on his first film, and flew to Chicago to take a job at the first ever Playboy Club.
To mark the release of the documentary 78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene, I spoke to Renfro about her on-set memories of Hitchcock and Anthony Perkins, her strategy for dealing with Hugh Hefner, and the real-life plot twist that would be a stretch even for Hitch—when she was misreported as a murder victim.
On how she became involved with Psycho:
I was a pin-up model at the time, and heard that they were looking for a model out at Universal Studios. I went for the appointment, and there I found out that I had an interview with Mr. Hitchcock. I had to strip down, and then I had a sort of interview with Janet Leigh, and I had to strip down in front of her, too, because they wanted to make sure that our bodies were similar, and they were. I was hired to work two or three days, and wound up working a week.
After my interview, we went to the soundstage where I saw the set and the bathtub and all of that. There were other rooms of the interior of the Bates house, the stairway, stuff like that, and while I was there I saw some of the other scenes being filmed with Vera Miles and John Gavin and Martin Balsam, so I had a good idea about the film at that point.
By the time the movie came out, I was living in Chicago. My roommate said, "Oh, let’s go see it!" I thought, "How boring. I saw most of it being shot!" But we went to see it, and it scared me half to death! I was so surprised by how scary it was! Tony did such a good job, especially at the end.
On her memories of Hitchcock and Anthony Perkins:
Hitchcock was very professional, very warm, just wonderful. I was such a huge fan of his that I would have done it for nothing to tell you the truth. I’m glad I got paid, but just to be in his presence and seeing him at work... He couldn't have made me feel more comfortable, and I did my best to keep a professional attitude going, because everybody is dressed except me. Tony [Perkins] was only there for a short bit because he was in New York—either in a play or rehearsing for a play—but in between scenes, he and the wardrobe mistress and myself would play word games—Ghost and stuff like that. Such a nice, nice young man.
On her first day on set:
It was about two hours in makeup, and they put a wig on me to match Janet’s hair, and then we walked to the soundstage and above the door there was a red light flashing saying, "Closed Set, No Admittance." We opened the door and walk in, and there on the right were bleachers, and I thought, "Oh my God…" There were about 20, 25 people, probably all male—I don’t remember seeing a woman, but there could have been one—mostly reporters. And I thought, "Oh, they’re expecting a stripper or something like that." But I was a nudist at the time, so to me nudity was just very natural. One of the reporters wrote up a nice article about how I handled my demeanor so professionally. I'm almost positive that Hitchcock had a talk with everybody there—the cameraman, the grips, the lighting guys—to say, "No joking around. I want attitudes very low key." And it worked out great.
On working with a young Francis Ford Coppola:
He was still a student at UCLA film school, and I worked with him in about November of 1960 on his very first film, Tonight for Sure. It was a little girlie movie—a little risqué at the time, though now it would be on television. He reminded me so much of Hitchcock, just the way he did things, the way he directed me. I remember thinking at the time, "This young man is going places." He was so methodical and knew exactly what he wanted and was just very creative.
On becoming, and then un-becoming, a nudist:
A friend of mine—a director of local Los Angeles commercials—he and his wife were nudists. I wanted to tan all over and not have tan lines, and so he said I could go up to the top of his office building to sunbathe, because nobody’s there to look down. So I did, and he said, "Well listen, my wife and I are nudists. Why don’t you come and see about it, if you’d like to?" I applied for membership [at their nudist club], and it was a family organization; not that many single people were allowed in, but I was allowed in. So that’s how I got to be a nudist! I stopped when I got married—my first husband really didn’t approve. He went once and just clenched his teeth the whole time, which just ruined everything.
On discovering that she had been misreported as dead:
Back in 2001, I appeared on [the Oxygen game show] I’ve Got A Secret. In talking to them, I told them that I was on the cover of the September 1960 issue of Playboy, and they said, "Oh great, we’ll get a copy to put on the coffee table in the show." They had to call Playboy to get their permission to use the magazine, and were told, "No—and besides, she’s dead." It wasn’t until 2008, when Robert Graysmith got in touch with me because he wanted to write my biography, that I found out it was actually Myra Davis. She posed for the storyboards on Psycho, and it was put out there that she was Janet Leigh’s double instead. Some workman had killed her, but the press had reported that it was me. Very weird.
On working at the original Playboy Club in Chicago:
A month or so after I did Psycho, Playboy flew me to Chicago to shoot the September cover and a spread inside the magazine. They were putting the finishing touches on the very first Playboy Club; during the exit interview with Hef, I asked him for a job there. He said sure. So I went back to Hollywood, packed up and moved to Chicago, and became one of the very first Playboy bunnies. Hefner was a real entrepreneur: You know, at the time drinks were 35 cents at a regular bar, but they were $1.50 at the Playboy Club, and it was packed! I worked the lunch hour and it was packed—businessmen meeting either colleagues or clients, whatever. It was always women who pulled my ears and my bunny tail—men never did touch us, but the women did.
On her mixed feelings about Hugh Hefner:
I had a dear friend in Miami Beach, who when I mentioned I was going to be working at the Playboy Club said, "You just stay away from him. He’s not for you." I don’t think I really need to expand on that… At the time, there was a 1956 Mercedes convertible that I really liked, and Hef drove a Mercedes, so I just made sure that whenever we talked, we talked about cars! I don’t put him down or anything—each to his own proclivity.
