All About Jamie Lee Curtis' Parents, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis

Talent is in the Curtis family genes.

Jamie Lee Curtis is the product of Hollywood royalty, born the youngest daughter to movie stars Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis in 1958.

Although Janet (whose shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho in 1960 is iconic) died in 2004 and Tony (critically acclaimed for films including 1958's The Defiant Ones) died in 2010, their daughter often speaks about them and keeps their legacy alive.

The Everything Everywhere All at Once star, who recently won her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 2023 Oscars, has made a major impact on the film industry, and often speaks of her parents as inspirations (even joking that she's the original "nepo baby").

Janet and Tony were married for 12 years, and though it ended in divorce, Jamie Lee has opened up about what she's learned from their relationship and the comfort of being known she was "born from love and not resentment."

Jamie Lee, who's married to Christopher Guest and has two grown children, paid tribute to her parents during her Oscars acceptance speech and many times before. She honored them at the SAG Awards 2023 when she won the award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role, telling PEOPLE that she wore her mother's wedding ring because she "wanted to bring them here tonight."

"I literally wouldn't be here without them, just biologically wouldn't be here without them, and I am a product of this town, these people," Jamie Lee said that night. "I never would have been an actor, it was a total fluke I became an actor. And so, I don't know, I just wanted to bring them here tonight."

Here's everything to know about Jamie Lee's parents.

Janet was Tony's first wife

Tony wed Janet in 1951, marking the actor's first marriage (Janet was previously involved in two brief marriages as a teenager). Tony and Janet were together for 12 years before their relationship ended in divorce.

In the years that followed, both spoke about their time together and admitted to marriage being "difficult." Jamie Lee has also opened up about their relationship over the years.

In January 2022, the actress penned a heartfelt caption alongside a throwback black-and-white photo of her late mom and dad. "Once in a while when their images find me unexpectedly, I'm caught by not only their extreme beauty but their deep love and ambition," she began.

"As the product of 13 divorces in my immediate family I have often struggled with the idea of love, what happens to it?" continued the Knives Out actress. "There are only a couple reminders to me that I was born from love and not resentment, competition, jealousy and rancor which are the cornerstones of any unpleasant divorce ... I also forget that they were famous and loved worldwide."

Jamie Lee concluded by thanking her late parents for "love and life."

Following their divorce in 1962, they each pursued other relationships and married again. Tony dated Marilyn Monroe and Natalie Wood and wed German actress Christine Kaufmann in 1963; they had two daughters before divorcing in 1968. Later that year, he married Leslie Allen; they had two sons before divorcing in 1982.

In 1984, Tony tied the knot with Andrea Savio and divorced in 1992. In 1993, he married Lisa Deutsch, but they divorced one year later. In 1998, Tony wed his sixth and final wife, Jill Vandenberg (who was 45 years his junior). They were together until he died in 2010.

As for Janet, she remarried the same year she divorced from Tony, tying the knot with stockbroker Robert Brandt. They were together for 42 years until she died in 2004.

They had two kids, daughters Kelly and Jamie Lee

During Tony and Janet's marriage, they welcomed two children: Kelly and Jamie Lee.

Kelly is the eldest of the their daughters, born in 1956. Like her parents and sister, Kelly pursued a career as an actress; her first-ever appearance on the silver screen was in The Vikings, a 1958 adventure film that starred both Tony and Janet alongside Kirk Douglas and Ernest Borgnine. Her other notable roles include 1987's Magic Sticks and 1991's The Devil's Daughter.

In February, Jamie Lee mentioned her sister and parents in her acceptance speech at the 2023 SAG Awards.

"I'm wearing the wedding ring that my father gave my mother. They hated each other, by the way, by the end of it," she said with a laugh. "But my sister Kelly and I were born from love. My father was from Hungary and my mother was from Denmark, and they had nothing and they became these monstrous stars in this industry."

Their work ethic as Hollywood actors inspires Jamie Lee

Tony and Janet had storied careers both separately and together.

Throughout Tony's life, the New York native (whose birth name is Bernard "Bernie" Schwartz) appeared in over 150 movies. As for how he did it? "I was a good-looking kid," he jokingly admitted to PEOPLE in 2008. "That's the only reason I got into the movies."

While his first (uncredited) role was in 1949's Criss Cross at age 23, he didn't rise to fame until the late 1950s where he saw bigger roles and memorable movies.

Tony's notable work includes 1957's Sweet Smell of Success with Burt Lancaster, 1958's The Defiant Ones with Sidney Poitier and the comedy rated No. 1 funniest by the American Film Institute: Billy Wilder's 1959 Some Like It Hot, costarring Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon.

Janet, who has credited former MGM star Norma Shearer for starting her career, landed her first movie role in 1947's The Romance of Rosy Ridge. But like her ex-husband, her fame didn't rise until the late 1950s through the 1960s.

The northern California native (whose birth name is Jeanette Helen Morrison) is well known for roles in Orson Welles's 1958 film noir classic Touch of Evil with, Charlton Heston, and the 1962 political thriller The Manchurian Candidate.

But Janet will be forever be associated with being stabbed by Anthony Perkins's Norman Bates in the 1960 Hitchcock thriller Psycho, a role that earned her critical recognition.

Jamie has spoken out about her Hollywood ties and how her acting career has been impacted — even calling herself "an OG Nepo Baby," having been a professional actress since she was 19 years old.

"I've never understood, nor will I, what qualities got me hired that day, but since my first two lines on Quincy as a contract player at Universal Studios to this last spectacular creative year some 44 years later, there's not a day in my professional life that goes by without my being reminded that I am the daughter of movie stars," she captioned an Instagram post in part.

They both received Academy Award nominations in Best Acting categories

Tony earned an Oscar nomination at the 31st Academy Awards for Best Actor in 1959 for his role as John "Joker" Jackson in The Defiant Ones. He lost to David Niven, who won for his work in Separate Tables.

Janet earned an Oscar nomination at the 33rd Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress in 1961 for her role as Marion Crane in Psycho. Although she lost to Shirley Jones for her work in Elmer Gantry, she did win the category at the Golden Globe Awards that year.

Janet was very philanthropic, a trait Jamie Lee admires

Outside of Jamie Lee's work in front of the camera, she has spent much time involving herself in her other passions: writing, producing, directing and activism. Her passion for the latter was spawned from watching her mother use her platform to raise money for those less fortunate.

"My mother was incredibly philanthropic," Jamie Lee told PEOPLE. "She [worked with] a group of Hollywood wives who started an organization called SHARE — Share Happily and Reap Endlessly. It was a very small group who understood their power."

She continued, "They were married to big stars — of course, my mother was a star in her own right — and these women banded together and used their power. Over the years they've raised more than $50 million to support children's charities."

Jamie Lee says her mother's roll-up-her sleeves attitude "had a huge impact on me. Philanthropy helped me find myself. At 30, I started really owning my voice, to try to help in certain areas." Over the years, the actress has gone on to advocate for the Special Olympics, education, AIDS research and children.

In August 2020, she launched the website My Hand in Yours to benefit Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Talented artists and jewelry designers create everything from jewelry to journals, of which Jamie Lee underwrites all the cost of production and 100 percent of sales benefit children in need of medical care.