Most people are familiar with British director Alfred Hitchcock's unsettling fascination with his icy blonde leading ladies, but his jaw-dropping treatment of actress Tippi Hedren during his production of The Birds remains one of the most stunning stories in Hollywood history. Hitchcock had reassured Hedren that he aimed to use fake prototypes during the bedroom sequence in which she is viciously and relentlessly attacked and pecked. Instead, the director forced his crew to repeatedly pelt Hedren with real live birds with their beaks taped shut. The terror you see in Hedren's eyes during this sequence gathers new, terrifying momentum when you consider that her fear and pain are very, very real. The Birds has gone on to become a Hitchcock classic, but Hedren repeatedly suffered at the hands of the director even after the film's release, citing the contractual disputes, unwanted sexual advances, and general poor relationship with Hitchcock as being irreparably damaging to her career.
