Tippi: A Memoir

by Tippi Hedren

  And until the day he died, Peter and Melanie adored each other. That made me happy, and I would never have tried to deny them that love or have interfered in their relationship in any way. How he and I came to feel about each other was beside the point. He was her father. My daddy and I loved each other to the moon and back, no matter how many miles separated us at any given time. I’ll always cherish the fact that Melanie can say the same thing about her daddy, and that she’s passed along the tradition. She has three children by her three different husbands, and when holidays and special occasions come along, everyone’s invited, including ex-husbands, their spouses, and their other children—all of us connected, all of us part of the same extended family, petty resentments strictly prohibited.

  One Thanksgiving, surrounded by all those dear people, Melanie asked me to say grace. I gave a prayer of gratitude for our love of each other that we shared with an amazing understanding.

  I admire that daughter of mine so much for the open heart and open arms that are always there for anyone and everyone she’s ever loved.

  Melanie was four years old when she, her nanny Josephine, our sweet little menagerie, and I moved back to Los Angeles in 1961. Because financial planning is not my forte, I rented a beautiful, expensive house in Westwood, in keeping with the lifestyle we were accustomed to in New York. It was such a joy to give my daughter a safe, lovely place to grow up with our poodle and our cat and our bunny, and to watch her and my parents fall in love with one another, that on most days I could avoid thinking about the fact that my bank account was slowly ebbing away.

  Commercials and occasional print work came along now and then, but there was no way around the reality that fashion models have a limited shelf life. I was in high, nonstop, glorious demand when I was in my twenties. But as my thirty-first birthday came and went, the flood of offers was slowing to a trickle. My huge stack of magazine covers and catalogues weren’t going to pay the rent or transform me from what I’d been to what I’d become—a single mother with a high school education and no bankable skills to speak of. I should have learned how to type.

  I had no idea what I was going to do.

  Looking back, I’m as amazed as you might be at the incredible Cinderella pattern of my life. Opportunities I hadn’t dreamed of or even thought about were handed to me on a silver platter, landed right in my lap out of nowhere, almost as if I’d planned them ahead of time, and it was my choice to either ignore them and let them go to waste or to pay attention and give them my best shot. “What shall I do now?” I’d ask, and the universe would say, “You’re going to do this. Now make the most of it.” A woman with a business card meeting my streetcar in Morningside, literally falling into the arms of the future husband who would cocreate my beautiful daughter. And then along came another glass slipper, with a note from God reading, “Okay, now you’re going to do this.”

  It was Friday the thirteenth of October 1961.

  My phone rang.

  I answered it to hear, “Are you the girl in the Sego commercial?”

  The Sego commercial? Yes, I’d done a commercial a few months earlier for a new meal replacement shake from Pet Milk called Sego. I hadn’t given it another thought, other than being grateful for the paycheck and the residuals and wondering if it might be a little misleading to hire a hundred-pound model to sell a diet drink. Why would anyone be calling about that?

  It seems a “well-known director” and his wife had been watching The Today Show that morning and happened to see the commercial. He’d promptly called the executives at Universal Studios, where he was under contract, and ordered them to “FIND THE GIRL.”

  Once we’d established that I was apparently “the girl,” the caller wondered if I’d be available to meet with the director’s agent at MCA the following Tuesday.

  MCA was a huge, powerful agency. Of course I’d be available. But who was this “well-known director”?

  The caller wouldn’t tell me. He simply gave me the information for Tuesday’s meeting and hung up.

  I was dumbfounded. What in the world could this possibly be about, and who in the world could this director possibly be? He must be pretty important if he could order the executives at what was arguably the biggest studio in town to “find the girl” and they would jump to the task. Who was this man?

  It was a fun, intriguing three days from that Friday to that Tuesday, trying to figure out who the mystery director might be, not to mention what he might want with me. I had a party at my house the night after the phone call, and my agent, Mort Viner, was there. He was with MCA as well, and he knew about the phone call, but even he wouldn’t tell me who it was.

  Countless scenarios played out in my mind, including the most likely one: A lot of models were also either actresses or aspiring actresses. This director might easily be assuming that I was one of those, find out that the thought of being an actress had never even been on my radar, thank me for my time, and send me right back home to sign up for typing classes. But whatever it was and whoever he was, I was excited and ready to play it out.

  I was right on time for my meeting on Tuesday at MCA with superagent Lew Wasserman, head of MCA, who would buy and control Universal Studios a year later. He was tall and slender, with black-framed glasses and a readily accessible smile, and we exchanged a few pleasantries as we sat down together in his office.

  Then he ended the mystery.

  “Alfred Hitchcock wants to put you under contract.”

  I just stared at him, speechless, wondering if I’d heard him correctly. I also had to fight an urge to laugh—I’d been staring at walls covered with framed photos of Alfred Hitchcock in Wasserman’s outer office while I waited for this meeting, and not once did it enter my mind that he might be the mysterious “well-known director” I’d been obsessing about all weekend.

  I’d seen most if not all of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies. He’d earned his status as an icon. He was brilliant. He was prolific—literally dozens of classic films, and he was conquering a whole new medium with his hit television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. This man wanted to put me under contract? From seeing me in a Sego commercial? And a contract for what? Was I dreaming?

  Wasserman, in the meantime, was sliding some neatly typed paperwork to me across the desk.

  “It’s a straightforward, standard contract,” he said. “Look it over, and if you agree to it and sign it, we’ll set up a meeting for you and Hitch.”

  The only people who called Hitchcock “Alfred,” he added parenthetically, were people who didn’t know him. “Mr. Hitchcock” or “Hitch” were the only two choices when addressing him.

  Everything was a dazed blur as I looked through the pages in front of me, but I did manage to register the words “$500 per week.” Enough said. I signed on the dotted line above my typed name, and I was under contract to Alfred Hitchcock before I’d even met him.

  Next thing I knew I was driving through the gate at Paramount Studios, and Hitchcock’s secretary Peggy was showing me into his office. Whether or not he planned it this way I have no idea, but my first look at him was the famous profile that greeted his audiences every week at the beginning of his television show. He was shorter and even rounder than I was expecting, and he was remarkably unattractive. But from the moment he turned to welcome me, he couldn’t have been more charming. He led me to a small table, where a lovely luncheon for two and an expensive bottle of red wine were waiting for us, and we spent a delightful hour together. He had a dry British wit and a fondness for spontaneously reciting very funny, slightly off-color limericks. We talked about travel and food and wine, and I was fully prepared to make it clear to him, when the subject inevitably came up, that I knew nothing about acting and had never acted a day in my life.

  The subject of acting never came up. The subject of why in the world he wanted me under contract never came up. We simply ate, laughed, and had an enjoyable, stimulating social conversation. Then, after a pleasant good-bye,
I thanked him and left, more curious than ever and still in shock over how dramatically my life had changed in just a few short hours. I didn’t know why me. I didn’t know what any of it was about or what promises I’d made in that contract I’d signed. All I knew was that I always kept my promises and that I had a generous, steady paycheck to look forward to. My little girl and I were going to be just fine.

  Melanie, my parents, and I celebrated my incredible Alfred Hitchcock news over dinner that night. Melanie had been thriving ever since our move to California. She was extraordinarily pretty, smart, and strong-willed. She inherited my love of animals, but not the shyness I went through at her age—she was much more outgoing than I was, and I never had to wonder how she was feeling at any given moment. Whatever it was, good or bad, if she felt it, she openly, confidently expressed it. She was loving, affectionate, and sensitive, and she was my favorite sidekick. I probably treated her more like an adult than a child. Like most parents, in those hours before I go to sleep at night I find myself looking back at what I’d do differently now if I had the chance. That’s one of them.

  As we toasted my future with Hitchcock, my parents were thrilled for me. I don’t think Melanie especially understood what was going on, she was just adorably thrilled because the rest of us were. Mom and Daddy didn’t have a single doubt that whatever Hitchcock had in mind for me, I could do it and do it well. I still marvel at their unwavering belief in me. It was like having a hidden bank account I could draw from when my belief in myself was running low.

  The studio system that was common practice during Hollywood’s “golden age” was on its way out by the time I went under contract to Alfred Hitchcock, who’d moved to Universal by then. Actors under contract were no longer required to take classes in singing, dancing, diction, poise and movement, horseback riding, and countless other skills that would prepare them for a wider variety of roles and groom them for stardom. But I still had a lot to learn and a considerable amount of work to do to accomplish what was expected of me, and I loved every minute of it.

  I was assigned a voice coach, not for singing (dear God), but for speaking effectively. It was fascinating—she taught me, for example, how to place my voice. Instead of placing it in the back of the throat, she said, I should place my voice at the lips. It sounded trivial, but once I started learning what she was talking about, I was surprised at what a difference it made.

  I was also assigned to the brilliant, Academy Award–winning wardrobe designer Edith Head. From the first minute I stepped through the tall red double doors of her building on the Universal lot, I knew I was in the hands of the best of the best. Her eyes sparkled with a genius imagination behind her trademark round-rimmed glasses, and it’s impossible to calculate the number of hours we spent together, usually laughing, while she created a glorious array of clothing for me, everything from ball gowns to cocktail dresses to pantsuits to skirt suits for me to wear on-screen and off, all under orders from Hitchcock. I knew a thing or two about fashion myself after all those years of modeling, so Edith and I spoke the same language, which made our working together even more meaningful. She began inviting me to cocktail parties and dinners at her home, and we developed a genuine friendship. More than fifty years later I still have and cherish some of the fabulous clothes Edith Head designed for me.

  And then, of course, there was the little matter of acting lessons. Hitchcock had scheduled a screen test for me, a requirement for every contract player, I was sure, and he saw to it that I had the two best acting teachers in the business. I was taught by Alfred Hitchcock and his wife, Alma Reville.

  Alma was an extraordinary woman. She was already an accomplished film editor when she and Hitchcock met, and she had an unbelievable ear for dialogue and eye for detail. Everyone on the Universal lot knew the story of Alma pointing out a moment in Psycho when you could see Janet Leigh breathing after she was killed, a moment Hitchcock had missed, and the scene was recut accordingly. Alma had an enormous, well-deserved influence over her husband while never trying to upstage him or even share a part of his spotlight. She was plain, quiet, stunningly gifted, and one of Hitchcock’s most valuable underrated assets.

  We usually met at their house in Bel Air, which he preferred over the more formal setting of his office, and Hitch and Alma gave me an education in acting beyond anything I could have dreamed of while getting me ready for my screen test. Technique was only the beginning. They also taught me how to break down a script, how to analyze a character, how to explore both the text and the subtext of a character’s relationships with other players—it was a lot of hard, remarkable, mesmerizing work, and I enjoyed it as much as I needed it.

  The screen test Hitch had devised for me would have been a challenge even for a seasoned actress. I’d be performing scenes from three of his classic films: Rebecca, To Catch a Thief, and Notorious. The lead female characters in those films were three very complex, different women, and I worked exhaustively on them, hoping that what I lacked in experience I could make up for in earnest dedication.

  Edith Head did the breathtaking wardrobe. The best hair and makeup team on the lot was reserved for me. Hitch flew in veteran actor Martin Balsam from back east, fresh from his work on Psycho, to be my scene partner. Elaborate sets were built, and Hitch’s entire film crew was scheduled to shoot the test in color. I was grateful for my years of modeling and commercial work—I might have been brand-new at this acting thing, but at least I knew my way around a soundstage.

  It all seemed like a whole lot of trouble to go through for what was probably just preparation for a small part on his television series or something, but I was so naive that I assumed this was simply how screen tests were done, par for the course when you were put under contract.

  Not until later did I find out that it was unprecedented at the time, the most expensive screen test on record, at a cost of about $25,000—just under $200,000 in today’s money.

  I was blown away, not only by the fact that Hitch would invest that much time, effort, and money to make me look good, but also that he had the power at Universal Studios to make it happen.

  He showed me the finished product a couple of weeks later, and I was stunned by it. The production itself was exquisite, Edith Head’s wardrobe was flawless, Martin Balsam was amazing, and I could see the value of every minute Hitch and Alma had spent coaching me. I was pretty damned good! I could do this! I could act!

  A few days after the screen test, I was summoned to a private meeting in Hitchcock’s office—not with Hitchcock, who was conspicuously absent, but with his attorney, a grim-looking man named Ed Henry. I couldn’t imagine what this was about, but I could tell from his tepid greeting that this meeting was neither social nor friendly.

  As soon as we sat down he got right to the point. “Miss Hedren, I need to talk with you about your past . . .”

  What?

  “. . . particularly your life in New York.”

  “Oh, you mean my modeling career and the start of my commercial work?” I chimed in.

  “No,” he said, “I’m afraid it’s much more serious than that.” He cleared his throat and continued: “We’ve heard from a variety of sources that there’s a problem with your reputation.”

  What?

  I looked right at him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Well,” he continued, looking right back at me, “we’ve heard that you were rather . . . available to men.”

  Now I was staring at him. I managed to keep my voice even, and I enunciated clearly to make sure he understood every word I was saying. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, “but if I am correct, and I think I am, because the hair on the back of my neck is beginning to bristle, I find your implication very insulting, and I won’t dignify it with a response or even attempt to continue this conversation.”

  On which I stood and walked out and slammed the door behind me.

  I never did find out what on earth prompted that ridiculous, offensive meeting. Not for o
ne moment did I believe anyone, let alone a “variety of sources,” had said any such thing, so maybe it was some test on Hitchcock’s part to see how I’d react to essentially being accused of spending my years in New York as a prostitute. I didn’t know what it was about, and a point finally came when I didn’t care.

  As it turned out, it wouldn’t be the last time I would storm out of Hitchcock’s office and slam the door behind me, but that would come much, much later.

  One afternoon not long after that bizarre meeting, Hitchcock and I were alone in his office when he told me he’d thought of another screen test he wanted to do with me. This one involved martinis.

  I would drink a real martini, he said, and answer “a provocative series of questions.”

  Then I would drink a second martini and answer those same questions.

  Then a third and a fourth, presumably until I was so drunk that my answers would be as provocative as the questions.

  He described the whole thing in enough cinematic detail that I could tell he’d thought about it a lot.

  There was something creepy to me about the idea itself and the quiet excitement in his voice as he talked me through everything from what I’d be wearing to each and every move I’d make to each and every shot he had planned while, at his direction, I’d get completely wasted and slowly but surely lose all my inhibitions on camera.

  I didn’t know what to say or how to react, so I said nothing and didn’t react at all. I got the feeling it disappointed him.

  That second screen test never happened, and I put it, and my uneasiness about it, out of my mind.

  There was a lot of talk around the studio about the next Hitchcock film. The screenplay was written by a writer named Evan Hunter. It was inspired by a short story by Daphne du Maurier, who wrote the magnificent novel Rebecca that Hitchcock had transformed into one of his greatest movies. The short story and Evan Hunter’s screenplay were called The Birds.