6. Hitchcock Attacked Tippi Hedren With Real Birds Because She Spurned Him
Verdict: Untrue The Birds may be Alfred Hitchcock's last great film (and the final one that the director apparently enjoyed making), but in terms of the treatment of the actors, it was another day, another birds**t-encrusted dollar on the set of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Tippi Hedren got the worst of it, as her director used live birds - hungry, eye-pecking birds - in some scenes for the ultimate in realism, resulting in Hedren becoming traumatised and taking time out for exhaustion. There's no disputing, then, that Hitchcock was a complete swine when it came to putting his actors through sheer misery. What has been disputed is Tippi Hedren's account, specifically that Hitchcock pummelled her with violent feathered hell-beasts because she spurned his sexual advances. Eva Marie Saint, Doris Day and Kim Novak - all one-time Hitchcock blondes - came out following the release of The Girl, a TV movie about Hitchcock and based on Hedren's recollections, to defend the director, while other journalists and biographers have called Hedren's claim that Hitchcock was openly sexual with her absurd. That Hitch intentionally tried to ruin Hedren's career, however, is another story altogether (verdict: he did do that).
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
