by Tippi Hedren
Every actress on the lot was vying for the role of Melanie Daniels, the lead female character in the film. Hitchcock had his choice of leading ladies, with a track record that included A-list movie stars like Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Doris Day, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, and Janet Leigh. I admit it, every once in a while I’d catch myself drifting into a fantasy about Hitch casting me in a small role in The Birds, but I knew I was getting way too far ahead of myself. He and Alma and I were spending an enormous amount of time together, and they’d never even mentioned that movie to me.
Rumors persisted about who might get the lucky nod to star in The Birds. It was one of the most pervasive questions buzzing around the Universal Studios lot in the spring of 1962, and no one including me would have guessed the answer, not in a million years.
About three weeks after I did my screen test with Martin Balsam, I was invited to join Hitch, Alma, and Lew Wasserman for dinner at Chasen’s.
Chasen’s was a legendary restaurant in West Hollywood, a favorite hangout for everyone who was anyone in show business, from the biggest stars to the top executives. Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant—you name it, they were there on any given night. Ronald Reagan proposed to Nancy Davis in the “Reagan booth” at Chasen’s. Elizabeth Taylor famously had ten quarts of Chasen’s chili shipped to her while she was filming Cleopatra in Italy, as if there were no good food to be found in Rome.
We, of course, were seated in the “Hitchcock booth.” All heads in the crowded restaurant turned as I crossed the room. Not only was I a new face in town, but I seemed to be joining none other than Alfred Hitchcock and Lew Wasserman for dinner, which meant if I wasn’t somebody already, I might be somebody very soon.
Shortly after our drinks arrived, Hitch turned to me and, without a word, handed me a small gift box from a famously exclusive store called Gump’s in San Francisco.
I opened it and found myself staring at an exquisite, delicate pin—gold and seed pearls, crafted to depict three birds in flight. It was beautiful, but I couldn’t imagine what the occasion was.
Hitch answered the question before I could ask it. “We want you to play Melanie Daniels in The Birds.”
I was stunned. I’m sure I gasped.
After just sitting there silent and frozen in place for several seconds with tears welling up in my eyes, I looked across the table at Alma. She had tears in her eyes, too.
I looked at Lew. He even had a tear in his.
Finally I looked at Hitchcock. His eyes were dry. He just stared back at me—very, very pleased with himself.
Four
I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening to me. It felt as if one minute I was thinking of signing up for typing classes and the next I’d been thrust into the lead in an Alfred Hitchcock film. He’d worked with some of the most accomplished, talented actresses in the world. He could have hired anyone he wanted, and he wanted me, a woman who’d never even had a passing thought about becoming an actress. That this brilliant, iconic director had so much faith in me felt like an overwhelming responsibility, but it was incredibly motivating as well. Whatever brought all this on, I was prepared to do everything in my power to make sure that believing in me was a decision he’d never regret.
Apparently the executives at Universal Studios were as mystified as I was about why Hitchcock cast me. They’d been impressed by my screen test, but that didn’t eliminate their biggest objection, which I couldn’t argue with or do anything about: I was an unknown. The studio had high hopes for The Birds. It was their next Alfred Hitchcock film, their follow-up to the massively successful Psycho. They’d committed a whole lot of money to see to it that this movie would be the biggest box office hit it could possibly be. They felt they had the right to have a name on the marquee that would add to the audience’s built-in Hitchcock excitement, not inspire them to stand outside the theater with their wallets still in their pockets, scratching their heads and saying, “Who the hell is Tippi Hedren?” The executives’ opposition only added to the intense pressure I was already feeling, but Hitchcock never even flinched.
One day at the studio he became concerned that I was losing weight. I wasn’t. I hadn’t lost or gained an ounce since I was a teenager. But suddenly large baskets of bread and potatoes began appearing on my front doorstep with notes in them reading “Eat me.” I didn’t think much about it. True, it seemed a little controlling, and true, it was a little unnerving that someone had repeatedly been right outside my door without my knowing it, but paranoia has never been a part of who I am, and I had far too much on my mind to waste it on what was probably meant to be a harmless gesture.
Hitch’s preparation for The Birds was exhaustive and meticulous. He worked very closely with Evan Hunter on the script and covered his office walls with graphs that outlined the rise and fall of every sequence in the film. He spent countless hours with his cinematographer Robert Burks, his photographic adviser Ub Iwerks, and his special effects expert Lawrence Hampton.
Bird trainer Ray Berwick was brought in to train the hundreds and hundreds of ravens and gulls. I remember him telling me that once he’d trained birds to peck someone on command, it was impossible to “untrain” them, so they’d spend the rest of their lives safe and happy in his massive aviary. I became great pals with Buddy, one of the ravens, and thanks to Ray, Buddy and I did some cute, wonderful tricks together to entertain the cast and crew off camera.
The Birds took six months to shoot. Between the trained birds, the mechanical birds, the composite photography, the animation, and the live action, it really was a masterpiece of filmmaking on Hitchcock’s part. I was so intensely focused on holding up my end of it and doing my damnedest to rise to the extraordinary expertise of my castmates that I was barely aware of the technical artistry that was going on around me.
Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Veronica Cartwright, and Suzanne Pleshette were all so wonderful to me, so supportive, and as time went by, so quietly sympathetic. Not once was anyone dismissive of me as the complete novice I was, or anything less than kind and embracing. We didn’t socialize together off camera, partly because there was no time or energy left after long days of filming and partly because, unbeknownst to me, Hitchcock was too proprietary of “The Girl,” as he referred to me behind my back, to allow it. In fact, as I eventually found out, he’d given an actual order, almost a threat, to Rod Taylor, and later to Sean Connery during Marnie: “Do not touch The Girl!” As irresistible as both those men were, I never let any romantic thoughts about them enter my mind anyway, and probably because of that, we became great friends. But “Do not touch The Girl”? Really?
In case you’ve never seen the film, or it was so long ago you’ve forgotten, The Birds is about a wealthy San Francisco socialite named Melanie Daniels (my character). She happens to meet a handsome, glib, rather cocky lawyer named Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a pet store in San Francisco. Before he leaves the store, he mentions in passing that his younger sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) is having a birthday. Melanie buys a pair of lovebirds for Cathy as an excuse to drive to Mitch’s weekend home in Bodega Bay to deliver them and, of course, to see him again.
She’s boating across the bay when, out of nowhere, a seagull swoops down to attack her, leaving her with a bleeding forehead.
Mitch, his sister Cathy and his mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy), who live in the house full-time, tend to her wound and invite her to stay for dinner. Cathy excitedly accepts the gift of the lovebirds, while Lydia treats Melanie with a cool, suspicious distance. As the evening proceeds, Melanie is convinced to stay for Cathy’s birthday party the next afternoon.
She spends the night at the home of schoolteacher Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), who was once romantically involved with Mitch. Annie tells Melanie not to take Lydia’s apparent dislike of her personally. It seems that Lydia suffered a breakdown a few years earlier when her husband died, and she’s mistrustful of any woman who might lure Mitch away from her a
nd leave her abandoned.
The lives of everyone in Bodega Bay are turned upside down when, for no apparent reason, massive flocks of birds begin to viciously attack the residents. The children at Cathy’s birthday party are attacked while playing in the yard. A huge flock of sparrows flies wildly down the chimney through the fireplace and into Mitch and Lydia’s living room. A local farmer is killed by the birds, as is Annie, as she tries to protect the children from an attack on the schoolhouse.
Finally the birds surround Mitch’s house, holding Melanie, Mitch, Cathy, and Lydia hostage. That night, during what seems to be a lull in the chaos, Melanie hears the unmistakable sound of a lot of fluttering wings coming from somewhere above her. She ends up climbing alone to the upstairs bedroom, where the birds quickly surround her and violently strike, trying to kill her, too. Mitch comes to her rescue.
She’s desperately in need of medical attention. While the radio reports that the bird attacks are spreading to neighboring communities, Mitch, Melanie, Lydia, Cathy, and the lovebirds Melanie gave her (“They haven’t harmed anyone”) manage to escape the house and leave Bodega Bay while the birds seem to allow it—resting up, it’s implied, to inflict more violent harm on the once-peaceful town.
On another level of the film, we learn that Melanie’s mother abandoned her many years earlier, which makes Lydia’s initial rejection of her sting all the more. Melanie’s been looking for her mother ever since, and Lydia’s eventual caring and compassion toward her gives her the emotional closure she’s been yearning for.
I’ll never forget asking Hitchcock while we painstakingly worked on the script and my performance, “Knowing what’s happened to the farmer and Annie, knowing that the whole town’s under attack and that the birds have surrounded the house, why in the world would I climb those stairs and go into that bedroom by myself?”
To which Hitch replied after careful thought, “Because I tell you to.”
I’ve been complimented many times, by the way, about how beautifully I played the piano in The Birds. I do love a nice compliment, but I’m afraid I can’t accept that one. Mom taught my sister Patty and me to play the piano when we were children. Patty became very good at it. I didn’t. Trying to conquer the violin was all the musical challenge I cared to tackle. I remember thinking, “What’s the point? No one’s ever going to ask me to play the piano.” Then, of course, there I sat at a piano on a soundstage, shooting a Hitchcock movie, being asked if I could play the piano.
No one minded that I couldn’t, but it would have been nice if I could. At least I’d played enough and practiced enough that I knew what it would look like if I really was playing that song. I’ll take credit for that, but nothing more.
It became a pattern I didn’t really put together at first. Every time I’d be laughing and talking with a male member of the cast or crew, my next exchange with Hitchcock would be icy and a bit petulant. He might suddenly recite a particularly filthy, offensive limerick, or give me a terse, unnecessary criticism, especially when I was alone with him in the back of his limo, always looking directly at me to make sure I knew it was deliberate. At other times he’d launch into endless, pointless monologues, seemingly just to hear himself talk and remind me which of us was in charge. I’d refuse to react in any way and simply gaze out the window of that limo, thinking, “Get me out of here.”
I couldn’t avoid noticing when he began relentlessly staring at me on the set. Obviously there’s nothing unusual about a director spending a lot of time looking at his actors. But this was an expressionless, unwavering stare, no matter where he was or what he was doing; even if he was talking to a group of people on the other side of the soundstage, his eyes would be fixed on me. The cast and crew noticed, too, and it made them as uncomfortable as it made me, but there didn’t seem to be anything anyone could do about it. After one of our scenes together, Suzanne Pleshette pulled me aside and quietly whispered, “This is so sad, because I promise, making movies isn’t always like this. I’m really sorry he’s putting you through it.”
I wasn’t some naive fourteen-year-old girl. In ten years of modeling I’d learned how to deflect unwanted male attention. I’d never learned, though, how to deflect something like this.
One late afternoon I was in the back of the limo with Hitchcock as usual, going back to our hotel in Santa Rosa after a long day on the set. He was indulging in one of his monologues, and I was turned away from him, exhausted, looking out the window at nothing at all.
The limo was just pulling to a stop at the entrance to the hotel, which was swarming with guests and valets and some of our crew members, when with no warning, he threw himself on top of me and tried to kiss me.
Why he insisted on having an audience for that utterly disgusting encounter I’ll never know, unless in some deranged fantasy he thought I might cooperate. He shouldn’t have been one bit surprised that instead I screamed, “What?!” and then “Stop!,” pushed him off of me, jumped out of the limo, and stormed into the hotel.
It was an awful, awful moment I’ll always wish I could erase from my memory.
The next time I saw him was on the set. I dreaded seeing him again, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of knowing how deeply he’d offended and affected me. Instead, I arrived all business and ready to work, as if nothing had happened.
We were shooting a scene in which Melanie takes refuge in a phone booth with birds crashing against it, trying to get at her. The phone booth had supposedly been equipped with shatterproof glass, and mechanical birds were suspended by wires far above it and some distance away so that they were traveling at very high speeds when they hit.
Mechanical birds number one and two went perfectly, crashing into the glass with identical sickening thuds. Mechanical bird number three, on the other hand, managed to shatter the “shatterproof” glass. Filming was suspended for the rest of the day while my dear makeup man Howard Smit spent hours with a pair of tweezers, picking tiny fragments of glass out of the left side of my face.
I’ve never accused Hitchcock of deliberately rigging that phone booth, and I’m not accusing him of it now. But a part of me did wonder if I was being punished for rejecting him and doing it so publicly.
One night toward the end of our shoot in Bodega Bay I was invited to join Hitch and Alma for dinner at our hotel in Santa Rosa. I couldn’t think of an excuse to get out of it for the life of me, and since Alma was going to be there, I didn’t try very hard. I liked her, and Hitchcock was always better behaved when she was around.
The evening was progressing perfectly well, and Hitchcock was at his dry-witted, entertaining best, until Alma excused herself to say hello to some people in the garden area outside the dining room. The moment she was gone Hitch segued into a story about directing Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief. It was such a seamless transition from the other stories he’d been telling that night that I didn’t even see this coming—during a scene in which they were kissing, he said, he suddenly found himself getting aroused.
How’s that for an image you could happily live without for the rest of your life? If there was more to that story, I have no idea what it was. I don’t remember what I said or how I managed to accomplish it, but I was on my feet and out of there in a shot, wishing we could somehow be granted the power to un-hear things.
The production moved back to Universal Studios, back to Los Angeles, where I could finally be at home with my daughter again. She was my salvation, my reminder of sweet, innocent normalcy and of what really mattered in this world. I wasn’t about to let her see the horrible emotional toll this movie was taking on me, so I did my best to be the mommy she loved and counted on, no matter what it took. She knew me so well that I’m not sure how successful I was at hiding my turmoil from her, but we never talked about it.
I couldn’t tell her that I’d started seeing Hitchcock in the back of his limo driving past our house.
I couldn’t tell her that I’d found out he was occasionally having me
followed, and that he’d even had my handwriting analyzed.
I couldn’t tell her that one day, in a relatively private corner of the soundstage, away from the set while we were shooting, he’d asked me to touch him, and I’d resisted the temptation to slap him and just turned and walked away.
In fact, I couldn’t tell anyone. It was the early 1960s. Sexual harassment and stalking were terms that didn’t exist back then. Besides, he was Alfred Hitchcock, one of Universal’s superstars, and I was just a lucky little blond model he’d rescued from relative obscurity. Which one of us was more valuable to the studio, him or me?
I even introduced Melanie to Hitchcock one day. I was a little apprehensive about it. I didn’t believe he would do anything to harm her in any way; I was just aware, as we all were, that he didn’t really like children. But he was lovely with her and even presented her with her very own “Tippi Hedren” doll. For reasons I’ll never understand, a story has gone around for decades that the doll, a replica of her mommy, was in a little casket when he gave it to her. That’s completely untrue. The doll was in nothing but a beautiful gift box. It’s that simple.
My behavior toward Hitchcock chilled to a polite, professional distance. I became skilled at getting out of being alone with him unless it was absolutely unavoidable. He was constantly asking me to have cocktails or dinner with him after work, and nine times out of ten I could escape it by lying about someplace I needed to be or an appointment I couldn’t get out of, or by just telling him the truth—I needed and wanted to spend the evening with Melanie.
But from time to time his secretary Peggy would convince me to say yes. “Just one drink, Tippi. Where’s the harm?” she would say, or “It’s only dinner, then home you’ll go to your little girl.” Peggy was in an impossible position. She was sympathetic toward me, and always very kind. I was never sure how much she knew or didn’t know, and I wasn’t about to ask. But she was also very loyal to her boss, and she’d worked for Hitchcock for so long that she understood him, or at least she was sensitive to him and didn’t want him hurt.