Group: Member Post Group: Working Member
Posts: 116
Status:  |
BEVERLY HILLS - Tippi Hedren was one of the “Hitchcock Blonds,” women of such elegance and beauty that their complicity or even presence in his scenes of merciless horror sent moviegoers into dark worlds of sheer fright. This was, of course, precisely the goal for director Alfred Oakley Sunglasses Cheap Hitchcock, widely considered film’s ultimate master of suspense. It also could be a ticket to the top for an actress, certification of almost supernatural glamour and mystique. But it didn’t work out like that for Tippi Hedren. As a young actress who put oakley sunglasses for cheap her career in Hitchcock’s hands when she starred in his 1963 masterpiece “The Birds,” Hedren saw Hitchcock evolve from teacher and mentor to creepy stalker. It’s a tale laid out with disturbing detail in “The Girl,” an oakley sunglass HBO film debuting in October - the first of two upcoming movies on the director. “We are dealing with a brain here that is unusual, genius and evil,” Hedren told TV critics here. “Deviant oakley sunglasses cheap almost to the point of dangerous because of the effect that he can have on people who are totally unsuspecting.” That puts “The Girl” in some contrast to “Hitchcock,” a theatrical oakley sunglasses outlet film due out next year. “Hitchcock,” which will star Anthony Hopkins as the director and Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, the star of Hitchcock’s 1960 tour de force “Psycho,” takes a more flattering angle, focusing on Hitchcock’s battle to produce that unlikely triumph. Leigh, who died in 2004, always said Hitchcock’s conduct was professional and that she never experienced the personal approaches reported by fellow “Hitchcock Blonds” like Hedren, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly and Vera Miles. Hedren wasn’t quite a naif when she made “The Birds.” But when she resisted Hitchcock’s personal and ultimately sexual demands, she says, he became cold and vindictive, tormenting her on the set and undermining her career by keeping her under contract, idle, until her moment passed. She appeared in films and TV shows over the next half century, but never rose to the prominence suggested when she shared the 1964 Golden Globe for “most promising newcomer” with Elke Sommer and Ursula Andress. Instead she did other things. In 1983 she founded the Shambala wildlife refuge in California, providing a home for big cats. She is also the mother of actress Melanie Griffith. “Hitchcock ruined my career,” Hedren said Wednesday. “He didn’t ruin my life.” In fact, she said, the two had good times. Hitchcock was her drama coach, “and you couldn’t get a better coach than that.” But it turned bad, and she says one reason she agreed to the film, in which she is played by Sienna Miller, is to show young women “they don’t have to agree to anything that doesn’t feel right.” There are harassment laws to support that concept today, Hedren notes, but not then. “If there were,” she joked, “I’d be a rich woman.” And Hitch? “I think,” said Hedren, “he was an extremely sad character.” dhinckley@nydailynews.com
|
August 4, 2012, 5:54 am