Tippi hedren

Born on January 19, 1930, in New Ulm, a small town in Minnesota, Nathalie Hedren is the daughter of a German-Norwegian, Dorothea Henrietta, and a Swede, Bernard Carl Hedren, who gave her the nickname “Tippi”, which apparently It comes from the Swedish word “tupsa”, which means “darling”. When she turned 20, she moved to New York to work as a professional model, shooting for magazines, fashion shows, and commercials. She came to work as an extra in the discreet musical The Broadway Sensation (1950), although she goes almost unnoticed.

In the city of skyscrapers she met the actor Peter Griffith , who soon became her husband. It wasn’t long before she divorced her (in 1961), but she had her only child, now well-known actress Melanie Griffith , with him in 1957.

She owes her film career to the fact that in 1962 Janet Leigh had been shocked after divorcing Tony Curtis , with whom she had had two offspring, and had remade her life with the unknown Robert Brandt. She decided to take a retreat to spend her time with him and her two children. But this decision left Alfred Hitchcock devastated , who at that time had her as her muse, after Psycho . The Briton felt abandoned again, it was not as terrible a blow as when Grace Kelly left him lying to become princess of Monaco, but almost.

Something stirred in the Master of Suspense’s mind when he discovered Tippi Hedren in a television commercial for Sego brand diet drinks. As when James Stewart ‘s character Scottie Ferguson, afflicted with acrophobia in his masterpiece Vertigo , gradually turns Judy Barton, an ordinary woman he met on the street, into the late Madeleine, Alfred Hitchcock gradually transformed the young girl in the new Kelly, marked by sophistication, and an elegant exuberance. He commissioned Edith Head, costume designer for her films, to put together a wardrobe for her day-to-day life. Just like he had done before with his previous female stars.

The problem is that with this he did not let her live. After offering him a six-year contract, she gave him the lead role in The Birds , opposite Rod Taylor ., but during filming he seemed to be obsessed with her. According to her version, recounted in “Tippi: A Memoir”, her autobiography, she forbade everyone to talk to her, and if she saw her laugh with others, her gaze turned cold and distant, even when he was talking to the other. studio side. “He started telling me what to wear in my free time, what to eat and what friends to see. He would get furious if I didn’t ask permission to visit a friend at night or on a weekend”. He recounts that on one occasion he tried to push himself in the limo, even though Time’s Up was many years away, and at that time there was not much attention paid to accusations of sexual harassment.

The scene in which the birds attack him was especially dangerous, which the director forced him to repeat several times, despite the fact that they had to throw birds at him, some real and others made of wood. One hit him in the eye, causing a retinal injury. Perhaps he resented his refusal to give in to his claims, but when he finished his plans after five days, he began to cry.

Despite everything, the agreement she had with him forced her to return to his orders in Marnie, the thief . Initially Hitchcock did not want her, but had managed to get Grace de Monaco to agree to return to Hollywood to take part in this film, along with Sean Connery , even with the approval of her husband, Prince Rainier. But at that time the president of the principality was advised to disavow this action, so as not to give that image of frivolity that so irritated Charles De Gaulle, president of the Republic of France, suspicious of the tax privileges granted by his rival.

So in the end he turned to Hedren. But the experience was again very negative. “I had installed myself in a dressing room connected by a door to his. On one occasion, he suddenly walked in and put his hands on me. The more he opposed me, the more aggressive he became,” he recalls. Faced with her rejection, he disowned her forever, she even told him that it would ruin her career, and she limited herself to giving him instructions through her assistants.

It is very difficult to determine if Alfred Hitchcock really had enough power for Tippi Hedren to be sentenced to a blacklist. But the truth is that afterwards, she barely stood out again in the cinema. The teacher Charles Chaplin recruited her for what would be his last film, The Countess from Hong Kong , where she played Martha, wife of Ogden ( Marlon Brando ), who after being named United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia, travels on a ship, which Natasha ( Sophia Loren ), a Russian countess, sneaks into on a layover in Hong Kong. Her work is very secondary.

Since then it was relegated to second-rate productions. Her second husband, producer Noel Marshall , whom she would also end up divorcing, would direct The Great Roar for her , which was an unprecedented flop. In addition, during filming, several people were attacked by the lions that were needed on the set, including the actress herself and her partner. Affected by the event, Tippi Hedren would create an animal reserve in Acton, California where she welcomes discarded pets from Hollywood, mainly used in movies.

She appears with her daughter briefly in the 1990 thriller Suddenly, a Stranger , in the hit series Beauty and Power , and plays Bridget Fonda ‘s mother in Caught . One of her few successes was the second-rate telefilm The Birds 2: The End of the World , where she reprises Helen, her character in the original film. She has remained active well into her old age, appearing in episodes of shows like CSI Las Vegas and Cougar Town .

While his daughter, Melanie, has also been relegated to decadence, his granddaughter, Dakota Johnson , has become popular, made a celebrity by the gruesome Fifty Shades of Gray , but showing she has a chance…if she gets parts.