Vacationing at a ski resort, retired screen diva Norma Shearer noticed a picture of pretty Jeanette Morrison. In no time Jeanette had a screen test, a new name -- Janet Leigh -- and the lead opposite heartthrob Van Johnson in The Romance of Rosy Ridge. Coltish, wide-eyed and talented, Leigh was the ideal choice to play a coltish, wide-eyed beauty in this poignant love story set in the post-Civil War Ozarks, where folks are still divided blue versus gray. When an ex-soldier (Johnson) comes to the troubled town wearing military britches so faded no one can tell the original color, he gets the locals all riled up -- especially when he courts the daughter (Leigh) of an ex-Johnny Reb (Thomas Mitchell) who reckons the newcomer may be a damned Yankee!

Janet Leigh made an impressive film-debut in MGM's THE ROMANCE OF ROSY RIDGE. Though the title suggests a lighthearted musical, the film is actually a fairly sober adaptation (with slight comic undertones) of a novel by Mackinlay Kantor. In the days following the Civil War, a Missouri farming community lives in a state of constant tension due to conflicting pro-North and pro-South sentiments. Into this situation ambles ex-Union soldier Henry Carson (Van Johnson), who briefly camps out at the farm of unforgiving Confederate sympathizer Gill MacBean (Thomas Mitchell). Suspecting that Carson is up to no good, MacBean is sure of it when the handsome stranger begins courting MacBean's daughter Lissy Anne (Leigh). Things come to a head dramatically when the heretofore easygoing Carson comes face to face with a band of hooded, night-riding barn burners who've been fomenting discord among the farmers.