Tippi Hedren (born Nathalie Kay Hedren, January 19, 1930) is an American actress, former fashion model and an animal rights activist. She made her film debut in The Birds followed by the title role Marnie. She has been involved with animal rescue at Shambala Preserve, an 80-acre (320,000 m2) wildlife habitat which she founded in 1983. Hedren was also instrumental in the development of Vietnamese-American nail salons in the United States.
Early life
For much of her career, Hedren's year of birth was listed as 1935, although in 2004, she acknowledged that she was actually born in 1930. Hedren was born in
New Ulm, Minnesota, the daughter of Bernard Carl and Dorothea Henrietta (née Eckhardt) Hedren. Her paternal grandparents were emigrants from Sweden, while her maternal ancestry is German and Norwegian.
Her father ran a small general store in the small town of
Lafayette, Minnesota, and gave her the nickname "Tippi".
When she was four, she moved with her parents to
Minneapolis.
As a teenager, Hedren took part in department store fashion shows.
Her parents relocated to California while she was a high school student.
On reaching her 20th birthday, she bought a ticket to
New York City
and began a professional modeling career. Within the year she made her
unofficial film debut as an uncredited extra in the musical comedy
The Petty Girl; in interviews she refers to
The Birds as her first film.
Career
Collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock
Discovery
Hedren had a successful modeling career in the 1950s and early 1960s, once appearing on the cover of
Life magazine.
On Friday the 13th of October 1961, Hedren received a call from an
agent who told her a producer was interested in working with her. When
she was told it was
Alfred Hitchcock who, while he was watching
The Today Show, saw her in a commercial for a diet drink called
Sego,
she agreed to sign a seven-year contract. During their first meeting,
the two talked about everything except the role he was considering her
for. Hedren was convinced for several weeks it was for his television
series,
Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Hitchcock put Hedren through a $25,000 screen test, doing scenes from his previous films, such as
Rebecca,
Notorious and
To Catch a Thief with actor
Martin Balsam. According to Balsam, Hedren was very nervous but studied every line and move she was asked and tried to do everything right. Hitchcock asked costume designer
Edith Head to design clothes for Hedren's private life and he personally advised her about wine and food. He also insisted for publicity purposes that her name should be printed only in single quotes, 'Tippi'.
The press mostly ignored this directive from the director, who felt
that the single quotes added distinction and mystery to her name.
Hitchcock was impressed with Hedren as production designer
Robert F. Boyle explained. "Hitch always liked women who behaved like well-bred ladies. Tippi generated that quality."
Because he was happy with her screen test, Hitchcock invited Hedren to a
dinner where he offered her a golden pin of three birds in flight and
asked her to play the leading role in his film,
The Birds.
The Birds
The Birds
(1963) was Hedren's screen debut. Hitchcock became her drama coach and
gave her an education in film-making as she attended many of the
production meetings like script, music or photography conferences. Hedren said, "I probably learned in three years what it would have taken me 15 years to learn otherwise." She learned how to break down a script, to become another character and to study the relationship of different characters.
Hedren portrayed her role of Melanie Daniels as Hitchcock requested.
"He gives his actors very little leeway. He'll listen, but he has a very
definite plan in mind as to how he wants his characters to act. With
me, it was understandable, because I was not an actress of stature. I
welcomed his guidance."
Hedren in a trailer for
The Birds
During the six months of principal photography, Hedren's schedule was tight as she was given one afternoon off a week. She found the shooting to be at first "wonderful".
Hitchcock told a reporter, after a few weeks of filming, she was
remarkable and said, "She's already reaching the lows and highs of
terror."Nonetheless, Hedren recalled the week she did the final attack scene in a second-floor bedroom as the worst of her life.
Before filming it, she asked Hitchcock about her character's
motivations to go upstairs and his response was, "Because I tell you
to." She was then assured that the crew would use mechanical birds.
Instead, Hedren endured five solid days of prop men, protected by thick
leather gloves, flinging dozens of live gulls, ravens and crows at her
(their beaks clamped shut with elastic bands). In a state of exhaustion,
when one of the birds gouged her cheek and narrowly missed her eye,
Hedren sat down on the set and began crying.
A physician ordered a week's rest. Hitchcock protested, according to
Hedren, saying there was nobody but her to film. Her doctor's reply was,
"Are you trying to kill her?" However, she admitted the week appeared to be an ordeal for the director.
While promoting
The Birds, Hitchcock was full of praise for
his new protégé and compared her to Grace Kelly. "Tippi has a faster
tempo, city glibness, more humor [than Grace Kelly]. She displayed
jaunty assuredness, pertness, an attractive throw of the head. And she
memorized and read lines extraordinarily well and is sharper in
expression." For her performance, Hedren received the
Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year, tied with
Elke Sommer and
Ursula Andress.
Marnie
Hitchcock was impressed with Hedren's performance in
The Birds and decided to offer her the leading title role of his next film,
Marnie (1964), a romantic drama and psychological thriller from the novel by
Winston Graham.
Hedren was stunned and later said, "I thought Marnie was an extremely
interesting role to play and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity". She voiced doubts about her ability to play that demanding role but was assured by Hitchcock she could do it.
Contrary to
The Birds where she had received little acting guidance, Hedren studied every scene with the director.
Hedren recalled
Marnie as her favorite of the two films she
did with Hitchcock for the challenge of playing an emotionally battered
young woman who travels from city to city assuming various guises in
order to rob her employers. During the filming, Hitchcock was quoted as saying about Hedren, "an Academy Award performance is in the making". On release, the film was greeted by mixed reviews and indifferent box-office returns, and received no Oscar nominations.
Troubled relations with Hitchcock
Hedren's relationship with Hitchcock caused much controversy. In
1973, she admitted that a major life-style difference caused a split in
their relationship. "He was too possessive and too demanding. I cannot
be possessed by anyone. But, then, that's my own hangup."
Hedren in a trailer for
Marnie
In 1983, author Donald Spoto published his second book about Hitchcock,
The Dark Side of a Genius, in which Hedren agreed to talk about her relationship with the director in detail for the first time. Hedren explained the shooting of the attack scene in
The Birds and recalled that, during the filming of
Marnie,
Hitchcock made "an overt sexual proposition that she could neither
ignore nor answer casually, as she could his previous gestures."
The book was controversial as several of Hitchcock's friends claimed
the Hitchcock portrayed in the book was not the man they knew.
For years after its release, Hedren was not keen to talk about it in
interviews but thought the chapter devoted to her story was "accurate as
to just what he was."
Hedren explained her silence before telling her story, “It was
embarrassing and insulting—there were a lot of reasons why I didn’t want
to tell the story. I didn’t want it to be taken advantage of, twisted,
turned and made into an even uglier situation than it was.”
In Spoto's third book about Hitchcock,
Spellbound by Beauty (2008), she said that it was during production of
The Birds that she began to feel uncomfortable over him as she remembered he was watching her all the time.
Hitchcock tried to control everything from what she wore to what she
ate and drank. She said she was being followed outside the set and
reports were made and sent to Hitchcock about her comings and goings.
He told the cast and crew they were not allowed to talk to her. Hedren
claimed he tried, on one occasion, to kiss her in the back of a car when
they were alone. Hedren said she told his assistant, Peggy Robertson, and the studio chief,
Lew Wasserman,
she was becoming very unhappy about the whole situation. "But he was
Alfred Hitchcock, the great and famous director, and I was Tippi Hedren,
an inexperienced actress who had no clout." She decided she could not quit her contract because she was afraid to be blacklisted and unable to find work. Hedren's own daughter, Melanie Griffith, remembered that while Hedren was doing
The Birds, she thought Hitchcock was taking her mother away from her. "Suddenly, I wasn't allowed even to visit my mom at the studio."
During
Marnie, Hedren found Hitchcock's behavior toward her
more difficult to bear as filming progressed. "Everyone - I mean
everyone - knew he was obsessed with me. He always wanted a glass of
wine or champagne, with me alone, at the end of the day. (...) he was
really isolating me from everyone."
She said Hitchcock had no consideration for her feelings and remembered
she was humiliated after he asked her to touch him, just before
shooting a scene. "He made sure no one else could hear, and his tone and
glance made it clear exactly what he meant."
Hedren asked Hitchcock’s permission one day to travel to New York to appear on
The Tonight Show where she was supposed to be presented an award as the
Most Promising New Star. Hitchcock refused because, according to his biographer, he thought a break would harm her performance.
Hedren said it was during that meeting Hitchcock made offensive demands
on her. "He stared at me and simply said, as if it was the most natural
thing in the world, that from this time on, he expected me to make
myself sexually available and accessible to him – however and whenever
and wherever he wanted."
She told him she wanted to get out of her contract because, "He made
these demands on me, and no way could I acquiesce to them," and recalls
Hitchcock telling her he'd ruin her career. "And he did: kept me under
contract, kept paying me every week for almost two years to do nothing. Hedren was furious and apparently called the director a fat pig in front of people on the set. Hitchcock made only a comment about it to his biographer,
John Russell Taylor,
"She did what no one is permitted to do. She referred to my weight."
The two communicated only through a third party for the rest of the
film.
As her contract allowed Hitchcock to approve or not any offers she
received, Hedren said that he turned down several film roles on her
behalf and was particularly disappointed when French director
François Truffaut told her he had wanted her for a film. Although Hedren never mentioned the title, it was reported the film was
Fahrenheit 451 (1966), starring
Julie Christie
in the role Hedren was considered for. Truffaut's daughter Laura
disputed this saying her father was not secretive about the actors he
considered and never mentioned Hedren for that film, "It is extremely
unlikely in my view, that my father seriously entertained this project
without sharing it with my mother or mentioning it to us in later
years."
In 1966, Hitchcock finally sold her contract to
Universal Studios after Hedren appeared in two of their TV shows,
Kraft Suspense Theatre (1965) and
Run for Your Life (id.). She was released from her contract after she refused to work on a TV Western for them.
Controversy
Hedren's account contrasted with the many interviews she gave about
her time with Hitchcock, her warm tribute she paid to him when he was
honoured with the
AFI Life Achievement Award by the
American Film Institute in 1979, and her presence at his funeral.
When asked about it, Hedren answered, "He ruined my career, but he
didn’t ruin my life. That time of my life was over. I still admire the
man for who he was."
The BBC/HBO film
The Girl (2012), featuring
Sienna Miller as Hedren and
Toby Jones as Hitchcock, was based on Spoto's book
Spellbound by Beauty. The film was controversial as others who knew and worked with Hitchcock responded to it negatively.
Other actresses have spoken about the close attention Hitchcock paid to
details of the leading ladies' characters and appearances in his films,
but said that no harassment was involved.
Kim Novak, who worked on Hitchcock's
Vertigo (1958), disputed Hitchcock's portrayal as a sexual predator in
The Girl,
"I never saw him make a pass at anybody or act strange to anybody. And
wouldn't you think if he was that way, I would've seen it or at least
seen him with somebody? I think it's unfortunate when someone's no
longer around and can't defend themselves."
[ Novak previously described Hitchcock as a gentleman and, when asked
about reports of his behaviour, she said, "Maybe I just wasn't his
type."
Eva Marie Saint stated that Hitchcock was very protective of her during the filming of
North by Northwest
(1959) and that all his leading ladies had a different take on him
adding, "I mean, look at how he tried to overpower Tippi Hedren – not
only in her career, but in her life. He never did that with me." She said her relation with Hitchcock was “a different scenario," than Hedren's, "I was married and he really liked my husband.”
Upon its release, Hedren said although she believed the film
accurately portrays Hitchcock's negative behaviour towards her, the time
constraints of a 90-minute film prevented telling the entire story of
her career with him. "It wasn't a constant barrage of harassment. If it
had been constantly the way we have had to do it in this film, I would
have been long gone". She recalled there were times she described as
"absolutely delightful and wonderful,” and insisted that “Hitchcock had a
charm about him. He was very funny at times. He was incredibly
brilliant in his field."
James H. Brown, the first assistant director on
The Birds and
Marnie, who was interviewed several years before
The Girl, said Hedren and Hitchcock had differences on
Marnie,
recognized it was possible the director lost control and interest on
the set of the film, but added, "I thought some of the things expressed
about Hitchcock were highly over exaggerated. I think Hitchcock became a
little upset with Tippi because she wasn't fulfilling the star
qualities that he thought she had or was looking for."
Rod Taylor, her co-star in
The Birds,
remembered, "Hitch was becoming very domineering and covetous of
'Tippi,' and it was very difficult for her. (...) No one was permitted
to come physically close to her during the production. 'Don't touch the
girl after I call "Cut!" he said to me repeatedly."
Diane Baker, Hedren's co-star in
Marnie,
said that her memories of the film were so painful she tried to forget
the experience and turned down participation in any Hitchcock tributes.
She added, "I never saw Tippi enjoying herself with the rest of us.
(...) None of us ever saw her having a warm, friendly relationship with
him. (...) Nothing could have been more horrible for me than to arrive
on that movie set and to see her being treated the way she was."
Baker knew everything she said was reported to Hitchcock and she made
sure he learned how unhappy she was about his attitude toward Hedren.
Baker was happy not to be under contract to him, the way Hedren was,
because she could get away.
Jay Presson Allen,
Marnie's screenwriter, admitted Hitchcock was "mad" for Hedren. She added that she was unhappy for both and described the situation as "an old man's cri de coeur".
Virginia Darcy, Hedren's hairdresser, declined an invitation from Hedren to see
The Girl,
but she admitted she told Hitchcock he should not be possessive with
Hedren. "Tippi felt rightly that she was not his property, but he'd say,
'You are, I have a contract.'"
Bulk of career
Hedren has appeared in over eighty films and TV shows. Hedren's first feature film appearance after
Marnie was in
A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), starring
Marlon Brando and
Sophia Loren. She was told by writer/director
Charlie Chaplin that she was offered a major supporting role as Brando's estranged wife and had to accept the film without reading the script.
However, when she finally received it, she realized that her part was
little more than a cameo, and asked Chaplin to expand the role. Although
Chaplin tried to accommodate her, he could not, as the story mostly
takes place on a ship, which Hedren's character boards near the end of
the film. Hedren later said that it was both very amusing and strange working for him.
In 1968, Hedren returned to film with the leading role of Rita Armstrong, a socialite who helps her boyfriend (played by
George Armstrong) to catch a killer, in
Tiger by the Tail. In the same year, she guest-starred on
The Courtship of Eddie's Father as
Bill Bixby's girlfriend. She then agreed to take part in two films,
Satan's Harvest (1970), opposite
George Montgomery, and
Mister Kingstreet's War (1973), shot back-to-back, for the only reason they were made in Africa.
In 1973, Hedren was in
The Harrad Experiment with
James Whitmore and
Don Johnson. She confessed at the time she was occasionally depressed over the fact she wasn't doing any major films.
Hedren starred alongside her then-husband, the agent and occasional producer
Noel Marshall in the 1981 film
Roar
(directed by Marshall), about a family's misadventures in a research
park filled with lions, tigers, and other wild cats. The film cost $17
million to make but grossed only $2 million worldwide. In 1982, she co-starred with
Leslie Nielsen in
Foxfire Light.
In the 1980s, Hedren appeared in several primetime television series including
Hart to Hart in 1983 and
Tales from the Darkside in 1984. In the 1985 pilot episode of
The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents,
she made a brief appearance as a waitress in a bar who berates a
customer, played by her daughter Melanie Griffith. In 1990, Hedren had a
role on the daytime soap opera
The Bold and the Beautiful. That same year, she had a non-speaking, minor part as a wealthy widow romanced by
Michael Keaton in the film
Pacific Heights (1990), which starred her daughter Griffith.
In the early 1990s, Hedren appeared in many television movies such as
Return to Green Acres (1990),
Through the Eyes of a Killer (1992), and
Treacherous Beauties (1994). In 1994, she appeared in the made-for-cable sequel
The Birds II: Land's End,
in a role different from the one she played in the original. Before its
release, she admitted she was unhappy that she didn't get a starring
role and, when asked about what could have been Hitchcock's opinion, she
answered : "I'd hate to think what he would say!".In a 2007 interview, Hedren said of the film, "It's absolutely horrible, it embarrasses me horribly."
In 1996, Hedren played an
abortion rights activist in
Alexander Payne's political satire
Citizen Ruth with
Laura Dern. In 1998, she co-starred alongside
Billy Zane,
Christina Ricci,
Eartha Kitt,
Andrew McCarthy and
Ron Perlman in
I Woke Up Early the Day I Died, a film she particularly liked due to the fact that it had no dialogue in it. After appearing in a number of little-exposed films between 1999 and 2003, Hedren had a small but showy role in the 2004
David O. Russell comedy
I Heart Huckabees, as a foul-mouthed attractive older woman who slaps
Jude Law in an elevator.
Hedren continued to guest-star on television series throughout the 1990s and 2000s, in series such as
Chicago Hope (1998),
The 4400 (2006) and
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2008). She was a cast member of the short-lived primetime soap opera
Fashion House in 2006 with
Bo Derek and
Morgan Fairchild.
While filming an episode on June 22, 2006, a gallon of water fell from
the ceiling and hit Hedren "at about 25 mph" leading to a return of
crippling headaches she had suffered earlier in life.
Later in 2006 the actress retained lawyer Joseph Allen to file a
personal injury claim against the owner of the sound stage; after a
seven-year litigation, she was awarded $1.5 million in damages in
December 2013.
In 2009, Hedren appeared in the
Lifetime movie
Tribute, which starred actress
Brittany Murphy in one of Murphy's last roles. She provided the voice for the character of
Queen Hippolyta on the animated series
Batman: The Brave and the Bold in 2011. In 2012, Hedren and her daughter Griffith guest-starred together on an episode of
Raising Hope. She then acted in
Jayne Mansfield's Car, directed by
Billy Bob Thornton and starring Thornton,
Robert Duvall and
Kevin Bacon, but her scenes were left on the cutting room floor. In the same year Hedren starred, alongside
Jess Weixler and
Jesse Eisenberg,
Free Samples, directed by Jay Gammill. Hedren guest-starred in the fourth season finale of
Cougar Town; her episode ("Have Love Will Travel") aired on the 9th April, 2013.
In 2013, exactly fifty years after
The Birds, Hedren returned to Bodega to shoot a film called
The Ghost and the Whale.
Influence
A
Louis Vuitton
ad campaign in 2006 paid tribute to Hedren and Hitchcock with a
modern-day interpretation of the deserted railway station opening
sequence of
Marnie.
Bridget Fonda, who played Hedren's daughter in the straight-to-cable film
Break Up (1998), gushed to her that she had watched
Marnie "a million times."
In interviews,
Naomi Watts has stated that her character interpretation in
Mulholland Drive (2001) was influenced by the look and performances of Hedren in Hitchcock films. Watts and Hedren later acted in
I Heart Huckabees (2004) but didn't share any scenes together onscreen. Off-screen, the film's director
David O. Russell
introduced them both, and Watts has said about Hedren, "I was pretty
fascinated by her then because people have often said that we're alike."
Watts dressed up as Hedren's title character from
Marnie for a photo shoot for March 2008 issue of
Vanity Fair.
In the same issue,
Jodie Foster dressed up as Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels from
The Birds.
Another issue of Vanity Fair referred to
January Jones's character in
Mad Men as "Tippi Hedren's soul sister from
Marnie". The
New York Times television critic earlier had echoed the same sentiment in his review of
Mad Men. January Jones said that she "takes it a compliment of sorts" when compared to Grace Kelly and Hedren.
Actress
Téa Leoni said that her character in the film
Manure (2009) is made up to look like Hedren.
Personal life
In 1952, Hedren met and married 18-year-old future advertising executive
Peter Griffith. Their daughter, actress
Melanie Griffith, was born on August 9, 1957. They were divorced in 1961. On September 22, 1964, Hedren married her then-agent
Noel Marshall,
who later produced three of her films; they divorced in 1982. In 1985,
she married steel manufacturer Luis Barrenechea, but they divorced in
1995.
[She was engaged to veterinarian Martin Dinnes from 2002 until their breakup in mid-2008.In September 2008, Hedren told
The Sunday Times "I’m waiting for someone to sweep me off my feet.”
Hedren played a role in the development of Vietnamese-American nail salons in the United States. In 1975, while an international relief coordinator with
Food for the Hungry, she began visiting with refugees at
Hope Village outside
Sacramento, California.When Hedren found that the women were interested in her manicured
nails, she employed her manicurist to teach them the skills of the trade
and worked with a local beauty school to help them find jobs.
Her work with the Vietnamese-Americans was the subject of "Happy Hands"
directed by Honey Lauren, which won Best Documentary Short at the
Sonoma International Film Festival in 2014.
Vietnamese-Americans now dominate the multi-billion dollar nail salon business in North America.
CND and Beauty Changes Lives Foundation (BCL) have announced the BCL
CND Tippi Hedren Nail Scholarship Fund to support professional nail
education and will be administered starting January 1, 2014.
Hedren suffered from severe and persistent headaches for a long time
and therefore was unable to accept several projects, including a
television series produced by and starring
Betty White.
After she got a titanium plate put in her neck, she was able to improve
and was not feeling as much pain she had endured for years. She then
agreed, with the blessing of her doctor, to take the part of a dying
woman in the soap opera
Fashion House.
While she was rehearsing a scene, a gallon of water fell from the
ceiling onto her head. The headaches returned after the incident and
persisted. Hedren filed a suit to receive recompense following her
inability to work. Hedren's lawyer, Joseph Allen, made a mistake in his
discussions with the defendants that allowed them to block him from
filing suit. Hedren then sued Allen for malpractice. In 2013,
The Hollywood Reporter
reported that Hedren had been awarded a $1.5 million settlement,
including $213,400 for past lost earnings and $440,308 for future lost
earnings, against her former lawyer.
Hedren was hurt by the report as she had not collected the award. She
gave an interview to explain that her former lawyer does not have the
money to pay her. She also discussed how the report put her in a
difficult situation as her Foundation is in dire need of funds. She
explained she has to raise $75,000 every month to keep it going.
"Chances are I won’t ever even see the money, and that what hurts so
badly, that in all of this pain and suffering that publication ran with a
swift and not researched story, which told people around the world who
have been so gracious and thoughtful about sending donations, that I no
longer needed them."
