Verdict: Allegedly true Of all the bizarre rumours that have ever circulated about Alfred Hitchcock, probably the strangest is the claim that he had no belly button. Not that anyone is saying Hitch was a reptile-man birthed in some kind of Satanic ritual - just that an operation later in life left him without a tummy hole. According to the rumour, Hitch - for one of his numerous operations - had his stomach stitched across the middle, leaving him as one of the few mammals on the planet missing a belly button. For a long time this rumour has circulated on some of the less trustworthy corners of the internet, seemingly without much in the way of evidence to back it up. Nonetheless, if you were to believe Karen Black - the lead actress in Hitch's Family Plot - it is 100% accurate. The rumour can apparently be traced back to an obscure Q&A Black gave in 2000, where she told an audience that Hitchcock revealed to her personally his button-free torso on the set of Family Plot, which is actually one of the less creepy things he did to one of his female stars.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
