4. Tippi Hedren Vs. Alfred Hitchcock
In its early days, Hollywood was a terrible place for actresses. The directors often tripped over their own unchecked power and they felt entitled to get whatever it is they wanted. With no sexism laws protecting them, their leading actresses often became targets as was the case with Tippi Hedren's first film. Hedren was a naive model who was trying to transition to an actress career and she caught a huge break when she was offerred a major role in the Alfred Hitchcock film, The Birds. It was by no means an easy acting job though and things got even harder once Hitchcock started making advances on her. Hedren did not feel comfortable with these advances though and she firmly stood her ground in saying no to him, despite knowing that this would likely enrage him and lead to possible abuse. There is a scene in The Birds where Hedren's character is viciously attacked by hundreds of birds. Hedren had understandably expected to work with mechanical birds given the obvious danger of using real ones. For Hitchcock though, mechanical birds wouldn't provide the sense of danger or give him the sick thrill that he would get from seeing real birds attack Hedren. For a whole week, Hedren had gulls, pigeons and ravens hurled at her. She even nearly had an eye bitten out, in addition to the many scratches she suffered. The traumatizing experience caused Hedren to collapse and get a doctor-ordered week off from filming. It was also the last straw for Hedren working under Hitchcock, even though she had a signed contract under him. She refused to star in any films with him and Hitchcock returned the favor by refusing to let any other directors use her, even though she was in demand after The Birds' success. Her fledgling career as an actress was essentially killed by the man who had found her and now paid her $600 a week to not act. She would eventually be free from Hitchcock once her contract expired and she did get a few parts but it's still hard to wonder what could have happened to her if Hitchcock hadn't wasted so much time exhibiting creepy stalker-like tendencies.