Tippi Hedren: Alfred Hitchcock sexually assaulted me

Tippi Hedren: Alfred Hitchcock sexually assaulted me

By Raquel Laneri
October 29, 2016 | 1:37pm

It turns out the fear and loathing you see in Tippi Hedren’s eyes as she’s attacked by vicious avians in the “The Birds” was real.

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“Tippi: A Memoir” by Tippi Hedren (William Morrow)

During the six months the actress spent making the 1963 movie — her big break — Hedren suffered constant sexual harassment, intimidation and cruelty at the hands of director Alfred Hitchcock, she writes in her memoir, “Tippi” (William Morrow, out Tuesday). It’s the first time she’s written about the experiences, which inspired the 2012 HBO film “The Girl.”

Working with the famed director had, at first, seemed like good fortune. Hedren, then 31, had just moved to Los Angeles from New York City, a divorced single mother with a dwindling modeling career and a 5-year-old daughter — Melanie Griffith, who would grow up to be an actress as well. Hitchcock saw Hedren in a television commercial for a meal-replacement shake and tracked her down.

Suddenly, she had a five-year movie contract — plus acting classes with Hitch and his wife, film editor Alma Reville — and a starring role in “The Birds,” the director’s anticipated follow-up to “Psycho.”

But Hitchcock’s interest in his muse rapidly devolved into obsession.

Tippi Hedren

Tippi Hedren interview: 'Hitchcock put me in a mental prison'

A new BBC film tells the story of director Alfred Hitchcock's crazed obsession with one of his ice-cool blonde leading ladies, Tippi Hedren. But she wouldn’t be broken, she tells John Hiscock.

By John Hiscock

11:00AM GMT 24 Dec 2012

The two films Alfred Hitchcock made after Psycho – The Birds and Marnie – cemented his reputation as the master of suspense and made a star out of Tippi Hedren, who had never acted until the director spotted her in a television commercial and put her under contract.

But she says that the price she had to pay for her stardom was a steep and painful one. Hitchcock developed an almost-crazed obsession with her, and when she rejected his advances, he made her life a living hell both on and off the movie sets, the former model says. He bombarded her with crude sexual overtures and ruthlessly tried to control every aspect of her life.

Tippi Hedren / The Revenge of Alfred Hitchcock’s Muse

Tippi Hedren

The Revenge of Alfred Hitchcock’s Muse

Interview by ANDREW GOLDMAN OCT. 5, 2012

The new HBO movie “The Girl” depicts your relationship with Alfred Hitchcock, who, after giving you your first movie role in “The Birds,” plants an unwanted kiss on you, tries to blackmail you for sex and stalks you. Why would he do these things? 
He was a misogynist. That man was physically so unattractive. I think to have a mind that thought of himself as an attractive, romantic man and then to wake up in the morning and look at that face and that body was tough. I think he had a whole lot of problems.

Tippi Hedren

Tippi Hedren On Alfred Hitchcock And HBO's 'The Girl': TCA

by The Deadline Team
August 1, 2012 3:49pm

Ray Richmond contributes to Deadline’s TV coverage.

“He ruined my career but he didn’t ruin my life.” That was the defiant stance actress Tippi Hedren took this afternoon during HBO‘s panel session at TCA promoting the original HBO Films docudrama The Girl that premieres in October. The film stars Toby Jones as Alfred Hitchcock and Sienna Miller as Hedren in the story of the iconic director’s obsessive relationship with his leading lady during the making of the features The Birds and Marniein 1963 and ’64. In a macabre moment, the real-life Hedren emerged for the panel carrying a stuffed, frightening-looking bird. But the winged creature, and Hedren’s intense scenes in the horror film, were nothing compared to her nightmare in staving off the unwelcome advances of Hitchcock. Asked to describe what it was that the director felt for her, Hedren admitted, “I don’t know what to call it. It was something I’d never experienced before. It wasn’t love. When you love someone, you treat them well. We are dealing with a mind here that is incomprehensible. And I certainly am not capable of discerning what was going through his mind or why. I certainly gave no indication that I was ever interested in a relationship with him … He was evil, deviant, almost to the point of dangerous because of the effect he could have on people who were totally unsuspecting.”