The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower

by Robert Graysmith

In 1988, Marli Renfro - Janet Leigh's body double in 'Psycho' - was raped and murdered by a serial killer with a fetish for the classic Hitchcock shocker. But as Robert Graysmith investigated Marli's story, a nagging doubt entered his mind. What if Marli was still alive?

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, History, Crime, Biography, Film, Mystery

320 pages, Paperback

First published February 2, 2010

About the author

ROBERT GRAYSMITH is the New York Times Bestselling author and illustrator of Zodiac , Auto Focus , and Black Fire . He was the political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle when the letters and cryptograms from the infamous Zodiac killer were opened in the morning editorial meetings. He lives in San Francisco where he continues to write and illustrate.



Graysmith's latest book Shooting Zodiac is now available in paperback!
As well as the beautiful new edition of The Sleeping Lady: The Trailside Murders Above the Golden Gate in paperback and Kindle!

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Books-A-Million | Kobo | Apple Books | Google Play Books

Two films have been based on his books: Auto Focus and Zodiac. Graysmith is portrayed in the film Zodiac by Jake Gyllenhaal.

Also narrated by the author are the audiobooks Black Fire and Zodiac Unmasked .

Reviews

[Diane in Australia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of bait-and-switch with this one. The book cover, and blurb, lead you to believe that the girl who was the nude body double in Psycho was murdered by a real-life 'Norman Bates'. Not so. The author tries to mesh together a biography of Marli Renfro (the nude actress), the making of Psycho, and the serial killer cases of Kenneth Dean Hunt, and Henry Adolph Busch Jr. Unfortunately, it doesn't hang together as well as the author probably hoped it would. He'd had an obsession with Marli for a long time, and it would probably have been better if he just wrote a biography about her.

The best part of the book is the few peeks behind-the-scenes during the making of Psycho, and a few tidbits about Hitchcock.

It really is a 2 Star book, but since Psycho, and Hitchcock, are given a bit of play in it, I bumped it up to a 3 Star.

3 Stars = I'm glad I read it.

[Belinda Palamara · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Author's attempt to weave together several different storylines does not really work.

This book is great for readers who love descriptions of nipples.

[JBP · Rating 1 out of 5]

Spoilers follow.

Talk about a pointless book with a completely deceptive cover--this is it. The cover makes it seem like it is about the murder of the body double for Janet Leigh in Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO by a Los Angeles serial killer. So, it follows the woman's career as a pin-up model/nudist in exhaustive, stretch out the story as much as possible to make it seem longer--this means repeating moments over and over and it follows the serial killer in similar fashion. Then the guy is caught AND he didn't kill the woman on the cover! He had nothing to do with her, in fact she wasn't even murdered! What a sham.

The book is horribly written and organized. Page after page about how Marli Renfro didn't mind taking her clothes off because she was a nudist, her great body and what it was like for her shooting on the set of PSYCHO. We're talking 75 pages of the various ways Hitchcock filmed Renfro nude in the shower for that famous scene. Overkill and dull. Graysmith evidently had a bunch of Renfro's pin-up magazines growing up because he was letting a lot of that out on the page. The frustrating thing is there is NO real connection between Renfro and the profiled serial killer other than the fact he had a weird mother complex ala the movie. That still doesn't make a connection between the two. Just plane irritating and a waste of time.

[Carla (There Might Be Cupcakes Podcast) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Robert Graysmith does not understand his subject, a woman with whom he's admittedly been "obsessed" for decades. Let me list the ways:

1. He states Marli Renfro is modest. -->
On nude shoots, she always does long, limbering exercises in the nude in front of cast and crew. She is a nudist who enjoys being watched.

2. He states Renfro is in no way pretentious or vain. -->
On the Psycho shoot, she once got dressed in some of her most expensive clothing and lingered for thirty minutes in the shower set after hours, in hopes someone would notice that she was as stylish as Janet Leigh.

3. He states Renfro is so unassuming that she doesn't even care that she is famous (in a loose usage of that word) or has been an admired nude model -->
When Graysmith finally met Renfro, he ran into her thanks to Ebay, where he and she both were searching for pictures of Renfro. Renfro admitted she was amassing a collection her own nude shots.

4. He states that she is unique, that Renfro looks like nobody else. -->
One photograph of Renfro included in the book looks like Marilyn Monroe. A couple of pictures of an aged Renfro look remarkably like Frances Fisher.

Basically, I find Renfro insufferable, an arrogant, self-absorbed woman who seems to believe that Psycho's success was due to her, a body double, rather than Janet Leigh, or Anthony Perkins, or Alfred HItchcock.

I was enthralled by Graysmith's books investigating the Zodiac murders: Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked. This book left me disappointed and, frankly, irritated. I'm sorry I was ever introduced to Marli Renfro.

The murder victims of Henry "Sonny" Busch, a real-life Norman Bates, have been overshadowed by repeated descriptions of Renfro's nipples. A true shame.

[Born Again Kristen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Initially, when I started reading The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's shower, I was under the impression that Marli Renfro, the prime focus, was in fact murdered by a Norman Bates-like character. Highly skeptical, I was, but I started to read it. She wasn't killed but rather a stand in for Janet Leigh was. There's a story about a Norman Bates-like character in the book but he did not do the killing. I couldn't read past her being a Playboy Bunny. There was no pay-off. Just an obsession about a murder that didn't happen to Renfro. On the plus side, there were cool facts about the making of Psycho and Hitchcock. But this book wasn't worth my time.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like the author got a book deal for this subject and then panicked when he realized there basically was no story. So he put together two parallel stories (which end up having nothing to do with each other) and filled in the blanks with a bunch of interesting Hollywood tidbits. And then created a deceiving cover and synopsis to lure readers in. I gave it three stars instead of one because I'm a film nerd who enjoyed the Hitchcock trivia. But this book basically only made me want to go out and buy other books he mentions, rather than keep reading this one.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I was expecting at all. The cover copy and inside flap portray the book as a true crime story; instead it's a mish-mosh of unrelated stories and pages of endless anecdotes that have little or nothing to do with Psycho or murder.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

A big disappointment. The only real mystery is why the author is trying so desperately hard to create one where none exists. He basically tries to splice together two stories that are only vaguely related to create a larger story full of mystery and intrigue... and the result is less than satisfying.


Another thing that didn't really work for me was the way the author inserted himself in the story. Some authors can really make this kind of thing work to expound on the basic story and make it come alive but, unfortunately, at least in this instance, Robert Graysmith is not one of them.

It's worth a read for some interesting bits of history like some of the backstory regarding various aspects of the filming of the infamous Psycho shower scene and the lifestyle of models working during the time period. If you're looking for a true crime or great mystery story then you'll likely be disappointed.

If you go in with limited expectations then you may find it worthwhile.

[Alicia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The historical events written about in this book were quite accurate - you can tell the author took time to research. However, I felt the author could have described women's bodies a little less and focused more on the actual story of the serial killer. There were a lot of part that the author could have removed completely and it wouldn't have taken away from the story itself.

[Douglas Gibson · Rating 2 out of 5]

My second entry in Non-Fiction November is a disorganized mess of a whole lot of information entitled, The Girl In Alfred Hitchcock’s Shower, by Robert Graysmith. Graymith knew darn good and well that this salacious title would be click bait to Hitchcock fan boys like myself, and of course, like a shirtless pic of Nick Jonas on a Buzzfeed article, I clicked right on it, and had to wade through a ton of adds before ever getting to the pic.
Now, this book isn’t all bad and in fact, if you are a Hitchcock or a Psycho completist, go ahead and read it, you’ll just be a little disappointed. In fact, this book did work for me on the Hollywood bio level, and I did learn a few things, but this book does not work on the true crime level in any way. Graysmith is not, unfortunately, able to successfully blend those two genres.
He is also not, unfortunately, able to edit. He goes down every possible sideroad and tributary that is even remotely related to the topic that he is discussing. When discussing a casino lounge where one of the actresses briefly performs, we are given several paragraphs on the history of the casino. The “subject” of the book did a wacky sex comedy film, and we are given the history of the genre of wacky sex films in the 60’s. The film in question happens to have been directed by Francis Ford Coopula, so you bet we are given the history of him too.
I will say this, the true crime section of this book comes with a twist at the end that I did not see coming, and I won’t spoil it just in case you want to test your endurance and tackle this one!

[Terri Stokes · Rating 3 out of 5]

the perfect book for fans of both true crime and Alfred Hitchcock.
We follow through the chapters and learn all about Marlio Renfro, the girl who was the body double for Janet Leigh in that well known and all famous shower scene. There are a few chapters about a guy who in reality, I don't know why the author did, mainly because I didn't feel like it had a connection to Marlio, but I know that he had the connection to the killings.

By the time I came to the end of the book, everything that I was expecting was completely different to what had actually happened and the fact that the book is a bait and switch kind of book, drawing you in with the thoughts along the line of one thing, and then making it in to something different. While it was interesting to read, it was also disappointing that it wasn't what it was.

Sadly, it's not one of Graysmith's best books.

[Lauren Ames · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really thought I’d reviewed this after I abandoned it. Basically Hitchcock was a misogynist and a predator and the author clearly sympathizes with him based on the way he describes these gross encounters. Couldn’t get through it but based on the other reviews it seems like the true crime investigation didn’t amount to much anyway.

[Lady ♥ Belleza · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1988, Marli Renfro - Janet Leigh's body double in 'Psycho' - was raped and murdered by a serial killer with a fetish for the classic Hitchcock shocker. But as Robert Graysmith investigated Marli's story, a nagging doubt entered his mind. What if Marli was still alive?

If you ever saw 'Psycho' you will remember the shower scene. If you never saw it, you likely have heard of it. Robert Graysmith refers to it as 'the most harrowing forty-five seconds of footage in cinema history'. He may be right, and the movie was a defining moment in Janet Leigh's and Tony Perkins' careers. Except it wasn't Janet Leigh in the shower, it was Marli Renfro, a nude body double. When Graysmith started to do research to write a book about her, the information he found on her was that she was dead, murdered by a serial killer, like the character she played in Psycho.

This book is much more that the little blurb above, taken from Goodreads. It covers the filming of the shower scene exhaustively, the camera angles, the retakes, the amount of film and time. It also covers Marli's incredible year after Psycho, she was a Playboy Bunny, she starred in some "Nudie Cuties", one directed by Francis Ford Coppola (not that he ever admitted it), cavorted with movie stars and nudists, posed for numerous men's magazines. It also tells us about Henry Adolph Busch Jr aka "Sonny", a serial killer in L.A. around the time of the filming of Psycho, and another killer "The Bouncing Ball Strangler". Sonny was arrested and confessed to killing three women, police suspected he might also be the other killer but he denied this and police were never able to link him to the killings. He was executed. After Marli's incredible year she dropped out of site, but was she dead?

This book was a fascinating read from start to finish, with many interviews of people connected to the film and film industry. Filled with wonderful facts and quotes. I quite enjoyed it and recommend it.

[Frank · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well this was really not quite what I was expecting. Based on the cover and flap, I assumed that Marli Renfro, the body double for Janet Leigh in Psycho, had been murdered by a murderer similar to the Norman Bates character. This book tells the story of Renfro who it turns out was not murdered at all. It goes into many pages and chapters describing the infamous shower scene and how Renfro was naked on the set the whole time. The book goes on to describe Renfro's life before and after Psycho including living the life of a nudist, appearing in many Men's magazines including the cover of Playboy, working as a Playboy bunny, appearing in "nudie cutie" movies...one of which was made by Francis Ford Coppola years before The Godfather, and then Renfro seemed to have disappeared from public life. Then in 1988, a stand-in for Janet Leigh was murdered named Myra Davis who was reported as the body double in the shower scene which led some to the conclusion that Renfro had been murdered. But Graysmith's obsession with her led him to believe otherwise.

Also included in the book was a separate storyline on a serial killer named Sonny Busch who lived in LA at about the same time as when Psycho was filmed who strangled older women. The movie supposedly triggered something in Busch to kill and he was named the Psycho killer. However, his story was really unrelated to Renfro and only had a very tangential relation to Psycho.

Although the information on Psycho was interesting, I thought Graysmith struggled to find something to lengthen and pad the story of Renfro. He was often repetitious and the Busch story was really unrelated. He also spent an inordinate amount of time describing Renfro's naked body along with other nude models which had little bearing on the story. Definitely not the best true crime story out there.

[Victoria · Rating 2 out of 5]

I saw the title of this book in a catalog so I added to my list to read. It was just an okay book given even thought the title offers a much more interesting story. If you want to know the story you can basically read the chapters about Marli and skip the rest.

Basically Hitchcock used a body double by the name of Marli for the famous shower scene in Psycho. The first several chapters are about her on the set of the film. Then the chapters start going back and forth between Marli's life and the life of a Norman Bates type guy named Sonny who starts murdering older women.

Now at this point your thinking that Sonny is going to find out about Marli and kill her but heres where the book goes all off point. Sonny never meets Marli, doesnt know her, nada, nothing. So why is he part of this story? Is it because of the similarities of Psycho in his murders?

Marli's story from then on is about her being a nudist/pin up/Playboy who enjoys fishing and the nudist lifestyle. After Sonnys arrest, we then get the whole backstory on the author and how he became interested/obssed with Marli.

The last few chapters deal with a "Laura" like adventure where Marli is said to have died but turns out it was Janet Leigh's stand in from Psycho, not Marli who was the body double.

[Granny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robert Graysmith's books on the Black Dahlia case gave me hope that this book would be as riveting, but not so. His descriptions of the late 1950's and early 1960's read like a B movie script, lots of hyperbole but the true, living sense of the period never arose from the morass of words.

It's really too bad, the situation itself has so much possibility and the characters have the potential to be fascinating, but I think the author was too close to this case and so had lost the ability to edit. And since he had been collecting newspaper clippings for decades, editing takes on another dimension. Too often, it reads like a bunch of newspaper clippings bridged together with excessive adjectives.

I haven't given up on Graysmith, but I wouldn't recommend this particular book.

[Shellie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Avoid at all costs....there really is no story here. Others then some tidbits about the short shower scene in Psycho and Janet Leigh's double. Move on ladies & gentlemen, nothing to see here.

[Shae · Rating 1 out of 5]

See reading notes for why I hate this with the burning passion of a thousand suns.

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this book, the author takes more time detailing various women’s nipples than he does describing true crime. It’s a shame, too, because the subject matter is fascinating; it’s just put together in a drawn-out and confusing manner.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was...an...interesting book. I'm not sure I "liked" it. I give it three stars because I learned a lot about the filming of "Psycho," especially the infamous shower scene. That part was fascinating. I never knew until I read this book that there was a body double in the shower scene, and that body double was a model named Marli Renfro.

Unfortunately, I learned way more about Playboy than I ever wanted to know, as well, because Marli was involved with Hefner and Playboy close to the beginning of that "empire."

Equally fascinating was a parallel story involving a nut case named Sonny Busch, who was nicknamed the "Psycho Killer." After taking his elderly aunt to see the movie, he attempted to rape her and then killed her. He murdered one other elderly woman (whom he also knew) shortly afterward, and then attempted to kill a work associate the very next day. She was much younger, though, and was able to fight him off, which resulted in his capture, and subsequent conviction. There was an attempt to connect him with the "Bouncing Ball Strangler," also active at the same time, since he had blackout periods, and could remember nothing that went on during those times. However, there was no evidence, and he was only convicted for three counts of murder. He was later executed in the gas chamber.

Marli went on to "star" in some "nudie cuties" (that's what they called them) in the 60s, and then pretty much disappeared from sight. The author of the book was pretty obsessed with her and had planned to write a book about her for years. He was shocked and dismayed in 2001 when he learned that Marli was, allegedly, dead, murdered in 1988. The killer was not caught until 10 years later, when a connection was made to another murder. However, the name of the woman killed in 1988 was Myra Davis. All media reports had connected Myra Davis and Marli Renfro was being the same person. Robert Graysmith, while researching his book, suddenly discovered that they were not, in fact, the same person, and that Marli Renfro was, in fact, still alive! She had left the "limelight" and stayed in a small town out in the Mojave Desert, and didn't even know that she was supposedly dead! She was too busy "living life" to know she was "dead."

The book, itself, in my opinion, is not well written. The subject matter bounces back and forth so much that it is almost impossible to establish a time line. I found myself wondering if the chapter I was reading was happening before "Psycho," after it, or even parallel to it. It was also very strange to me that, right in the middle of the book, I was subjected to a biography of the author, himself. To me, that's just egotistical overkill. I didn't need to know this. There is also frequent detailed biographical information on characters that don't play a major role in the story, also tedious and unnecessary. However, I suppose Mr. Graysmith thought it necessary and it is his book.

The twist at the end when he discovers that his lifelong obsession is actually still alive, however, was most captivating. It was almost like an unexpected plot twist in a novel.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who is easily offended, though. It deals with a pretty racy subject matter, and pretty frankly. However, language-wise, it is not in the least bit offensive. I recall very few "bad" words in it.

Now, I need to watch "Psycho" again.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

This could have been a great biography of Marli Renfro-The body in the shower in Psycho; unfortunately it turned into a bit of a convoluted meandering look at Los Angeles and the deserts of Nevada in 1960 with bio thrown in. Marlins story is fascinating one: a Playboy covergirl and Bunny; her stint in Psycho, a nudist, an avid fisherman (fisher person?), intelligence and natural curiosity to boot. Yet instead of focusing on her, we took side trips through Caryl Chessman's execution as a segue to talk about the Bouncing Ball Killer and Sonny Busch's killings and the early career of Francis Ford Coppola (somewhat understandable as he did direct two films in which Marli appeared). The last two chapters give a quick summation of the rumor of Marli's death, and quick wrap up of what she'd been doing from 1961 through the 90's. What had the potential to be a wonderful biography of an amazing woman, turn into a conglomeration of 4 different stories that didn't quite mesh.

[Doug Beatty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished this one, and although it was interesting, I think it was marketed the wrong way.

If you read the dust jacket, it seems like you are going to get a true crime novel, involving the girl who was the body double in the movie Psycho, standing in for Janet Leigh in the nude shower scene. And you do get a bit of a true crime story in the tale of Sonny Busch and his mother who live close to the Psycho film set, and Psycho does set Sonny off on a bit of a killing spree but he never really has any contact with Marli Renfro, who is the woman who plays the body double.

Marlie as a bit of an interesting story, you learn about nudity in films and how that all began, and about the birth of Playboy magazine and the Playboy clubs and how Marli was influential in this. You learn about the photographers who specialize in female nudes and the glamour girls who posed for covers and a little bit about how Las Vegas was created and information about the nudist movement, and how Marli was involved with that. It seems that the writer of the novel was a little bit obsessed with Marli and wanted to write a book about her, but as he was known as a true crime writer he wanted to sell it to the true crime fans and added the extra story.

There is also a bit about the murder of the body double in the eighties and it reads on the flap like this is going to be the big mystery in the book but don't let that fool you. There is barely five pages at the end that even mentions it.

Though not a bad book and you learn a bit about film history.

[Lee Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Robert Graysmith, who is probably best known for writing the definitive book on the Zodiac Killer, returns with this true crime/film history/pulp romance.

Marli Renfro was Janet Leigh's body double in Psycho. Sonny Busch was a serial killer and rapist with a mother fixation. Robert Graysmith was a young man who was obsessed with the sexy images of Marli Renfro. Was Sonny the Bouncing Ball Killer, or was the Bouncing Ball Killer still on the loose? Did the Bouncing Ball Killer, or someone else, kill Marli Renfro, or was it a case of mistaken identity? These narratives are smashed together to create this book.

All the research on the making of Psycho comes from books I've already read. The only real connection between the movie and Sonny Busch (aside from his mother issues) is Sonny taking one of his victims to see Psycho before he kills her. Graysmith tries to make his part of the story a real-life version of the Otto Preminger film Laura, but despite what the dust jacket and Graysmith himself would have you believe, the book is betrayed by its own Library of Congress page, which clearly shows Marli Renfro's year of birth, but not death. SO I KNEW SHE WASN'T DEAD BEFORE I EVEN STARTED THE BOOK! (The murder victim was actually the woman who was the camera and lighting setup stand-in for Janet Leigh.) There is a long, unnecessary digression into the early history of the Playboy empire, and at about that point, I began skimming to get to the interesting parts.

[Suspense Magazine · Rating 1 out of 5]

New York Times bestselling author, Robert Graysmith, best known for his books on the Zodiac killer and Jack the Ripper, takes on the mystery of Janet Leigh's body double from Psycho. In 1960, Marli Renfro appeared as the body double in the famous shower scene. It wasn't until 1988 that she received her most notoriety when she was found to be brutally raped and murdered by a serial killer. But was she really? Graysmith, who has been obsessed with Renfro for the past forty years, attempts to portray a scenario where maybe she wasn't really the victim. This is a hard read as the author attempts to give us background material on the serial killer, Sonny Busch, while telling the story of Renfro. With no real direction and a lack of cohesiveness, it is difficult to maintain enthusiasm for what seemed to be an interesting premise.

[Karen S · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book could have been a great true crime thriller and an interesting insider account of the making of Psycho. Sadly, it was neither. The subject is someone who had marginal encounters in the film industry and the "men's magazine" industry. Her stories are boring and she has nothing important to say about her life. The author was/is clearly infatuated with her but whatever her charms may be, they do no translate to the page. The true crime story was the more compelling but was given short shrift.
If only Marli was an interesting personality who had something to tell us, the book might have worked.

[Judy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The dust jacket lead me to believe that it was about the murder of the woman who was Janet Leigh's body double for the movie Psycho. But no... This book intertwined a long drawn out biography of Marli Renfro, a nudist and the object of the author's obsession, with the story of Sonny Busch a loner mother-obsessed serial killer. Except for the fact that Marli and Sonny both appear in this book there is no connection between the two. This book is not a good example of Graysmith's work. Very disappointing.

[Aita Gilley · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a mess! This book could have been 3 or even 4 different Vanity Fair articles versus a rambling mess. As a Hitchcock fan and a crime fiction fan, I was totally disappointed by this book. It should have just been a novella (small but concise). The whole mob connection did not make sense. The only thing that I happened to enjoy was all the little bits of random trivia ( i.e. Michael Douglas was on set as prodution assistant & F.F.C. did nudie cuties & all the Hefner stuff.) Thank God I only paid a dollar for this book, I should have know better.

[Jobetta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very disappointing. The description on the book jacket led me to believe the outcome would be very different. He has two distinct stories that he is attempting to tell and I kept reading, waiting for the connection, but never did understand what the two had to do with one another, aside from a lose connection to the film "Psycho." I DID learn a lot of interesting things about the making of the movie.

[Erica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh, what an irritating book. Not poorly written, but completely misleading! It's a biography of Marli Renfro, which is fine, except that it has basically nothing to do with murder whatsoever. There's a "parallel" story about some guy who was seemingly inspired by Psycho to murder, and at the very end of the book these stories align for 1 paragraph.
A vaguely interesting biography, but I kept reading thinking "what the hell is the point?"

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Graysmith writes an intriguing true life story that centers around the movie Psycho, especially Marli Renfro, the body double for Janet Leigh inPsycho, Sonny Busch, the killer of elderly women in California in the 1960's and the changing morality of the country at that time including the rise of Playboy, the sex industry and gambling. This was hard to put down and my only complaint was that at times he was a bit wordy but it was still worth reading.