Tippi Hedren: Alfred Hitchcock sexually assaulted me
New York Post By Raquel Laneri October 29, 2016
It turns out the fear and loathing you see in Tippi Hedren’s eyes as she’s attacked by vicious avians in the “The Birds” was real.
During the six months the actress spent making the 1963 movie — her big break — Hedren suffered constant sexual harassment, intimidation and cruelty at the hands of director Alfred Hitchcock, she writes in her memoir, “Tippi” (William Morrow, out Tuesday). It’s the first time she’s written about the experiences, which inspired the 2012 HBO film “The Girl.”
Working with the famed director had, at first, seemed like good fortune. Hedren, then 31, had just moved to Los Angeles from New York City, a divorced single mother with a dwindling modeling career and a 5-year-old daughter — Melanie Griffith, who would grow up to be an actress as well. Hitchcock saw Hedren in a television commercial for a meal-replacement shake and tracked her down.
Suddenly, she had a five-year movie contract — plus acting classes with Hitch and his wife, film editor Alma Reville — and a starring role in “The Birds,” the director’s anticipated follow-up to “Psycho.”
But Hitchcock’s interest in his muse rapidly devolved into obsession.
