Mother

"A boy's best friend is his mother..."

During preproduction, Hitchcock said to the press that he was considering Helen Hayes for the part of Mother. This was obviously a ruse, but several actresses wrote to Hitchcock requesting auditions.

In "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho," it is claimed that Hitchcock tested the scare factor of various versions of the "Mother corpse" prop, by placing them on various days in Janet Leigh's dressing room closet and listening to how loudly she screamed when she discovered each one. The "winner" was the used in the film. After that prank, Leigh took the joke well and got on well with Hitchcock during filming, despite difficulties with the shower scene. The director later stated Leigh was one of the best actresses he'd ever worked with.

It is also said that Hitchcock was very uneasy about the morphing of Norman's face into Mother's at the end of the film. He sent out three different versions of the film during its initial release. The first version included the ending seen on all prints today, the second contained no morphing at all, and the third contained the trick at the end, yet also included it at an earlier point in the film. When Sam Loomis comes back to the Bates Motel to look for Arbogast, there is a zooming shot of Norman standing by the swamp, looking very sinister. The third version of the film included the subtle morphing of Norman's face into Mother's at this moment.

The voice of Norman Bates' mother in "Psycho" was that of noted radio actress Virginia Gregg.

Read the Bright Lights film journal article about "Psycho."
Take a virtual tour of the locations used in "Psycho."