Actress Tippi Hedren starred in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964), after which she wanted to be let out of her contract with his studio.
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HBO's film The Girl (2012) is about the stressful and controlling relationship she had with the director. At 83, the former fashion model continues to work in film, theatre and television.
She also runs a reserve for big cats. Her daughter, actress Melanie Griffith, and son-in-law, actor Antonio Banderas, are on the board of the Roar Foundation. For more information, go to shambala.org.
What was it about performing that hooked you?
I didn't really ever intend on being an actress. I was a very, very successful fashion model. It was during a time in the 1950s when television was taking over the world and our lives.
I ended up doing a tremendous number of class-A television commercials. In fact, I was able to take six months off and go around the world.
Nice. So that's what you liked about acting.
Yeah, [laughs] after about 11 years, which is a long time to be a fashion model, I wanted my daughter to have a little bit of freedom, so we moved to California. I thought my career would take off as it had in New York. It didn't.
On Friday the 13th of October 1961, I received a phone call from an executive at Universal [Studios]. He said, "There is a producer interested in you." On the Tuesday I was asked to go to an agency and was told that Alfred Hitchcock wanted to sign me to a contract. So I was under contract before I even met Alfred Hitchcock.
You've been really open about his obsession with you. It is hard for girls growing up now to imagine he was able to get away with the kind of control he had over your life.
That was the studio days, and that situation apparently happened often.
But at one point you were brave enough to say, "I'm done".
I did. He said, "Well, you can't. You have your daughter to take care of and your parents are getting older."
I said, "I will not put up with this. When Marnie is over, I am gone." He said, "I'll ruin your career." I said, "Do what you have to do". And he did.
He kept me under contract and paid me my $600 a week. He was cheap. [Laughs.]
After I finished The Birds and Marnie, I was, as the Hollywood expression goes, hot. Apparently a number of directors and producers had called to use me in their films, but to get to me they had to go through Hitchcock, and all he said was, "She isn't available."
I read you said you had nightmares after doing The Birds.
No, I never said that. I never had nightmares. In fact, I love birds. You know, I have been rescuing big cats, lions and tigers. On the preserve we give a wonderful home to these poor, innocent creatures who were born to live in jail for the rest of their lives.
It's been fun to hear your story, especially with the interviews you did for The Girl.
You know, I just didn't want to talk to anybody about it until I met Donald Spoto, the biographer. He wrote The Dark Side of Genius about Alfred Hitchcock. It tells about what he was really like and it's pretty brutal.
He said, "Tippi, would you consider my doing a chapter on you about this situation?" I thought it is time somebody speaks out about old Hollywood. I mean, old Hollywood still exists, but you can't get away with it any more. If this situation had happened now I would be a very rich woman. [Laughs.]
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