What Alfred Hitchcock's On-Set Behavior Was Really Like

Publish date: 2024-05-05

The day after Hitchcock's attempted kiss in the limo, Hedren came to the set of "The Birds" and was greeted with a nasty surprise (via The Guardian). A mechanical bird broke a glass window on set, sending a shard flying into her face. Another bird — a live one, she was horrified to see — was attached to her shoulder, and nearly pecked her eye. Throughout the filming, live birds were thrown at her, giving her real cuts and injuries.

Later, the director cast Hedren in "Marnie." Hedren was under a seven-year contract with Hitchcock at this point, and despite her bad experiences with the director, she couldn't refuse (via Indie Wire). At one point, Hitchcock did not allow her travel to pick up a Photoplay award from Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show," Hedren claimed, and would not allow Universal to submit Hedren's performance in the movie for an Oscar. At one point, she alleges, he attempted to assault her in his office. "I've never gone into detail about this and I never will," she wrote in her memoir, via Lithub. "I'll simply say that he suddenly grabbed me and put his hands on me. It was sexual, it was perverse, and it was ugly, and I couldn't have been more shocked and more repulsed."

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