Tipi Star Model
Narcisa Flierl
Hedren's strong commitment to animal rescue began in 1969 while she was shooting two films in Africa and was introduced to the plight of African lions. In an attempt to raise awareness for wildlife, she spent over a decade bringing Roar (1981) to the screen. She started her own nonprofit organization, the Roar Foundation, in 1983; it supports the Shambala Preserve, an 80-acre (32 ha) wildlife habitat that enables her to continue her work in the care and preservation of lions and tigers. Hedren has also set up relief programs worldwide following earthquakes, hurricanes, famine and war. She was also instrumental in the development of Vietnamese-American nail salons.[1][2][3]
Nathalie Kay Hedren was born in New Ulm, Minnesota, on January 19, 1930,[4][5] to Bernard Carl and Dorothea Henrietta (ne Eckhardt) Hedren.[citation needed] Her family moved to Morningside, Minnesota, when Hedren was 4, where she lived until she was 17 and modeled for Dayton's.[6] For much of her career, her year of birth was misreported as 1935.[7][8][9][10] In a 2004 A&E Biography, however, she acknowledged that she was actually born in 1930 (which is consistent with the birth registration index at the Minnesota Historical Society).[4] Her paternal grandparents were Swedish immigrants, while her mother was of German and Norwegian descent.[11]
On reaching her 20th birthday, Hedren bought a ticket to New York City, where she joined the Eileen Ford Agency. Within a year, she made her unofficial film debut as "Miss Ice Box" in the musical comedy The Petty Girl. In interviews, she referred to The Birds, her first credited role, as her first film.[12] Although she received several film offers during that time, Hedren had no interest in acting, as she knew it was very difficult to succeed.[13]
She had a highly successful modeling career during the 1950s and early 1960s, appearing on the covers of Life, The Saturday Evening Post, McCall's, and Glamour, among others. In 1961, after seven years of marriage to the actor Peter Griffith, Hedren divorced and returned to California with her daughter, Melanie, and rented an expensive home in Sherman Oaks. She later said, "I thought I could continue my career as it had been in New York. I thought everything would be just fine, and it wasn't. So I thought, 'well, I don't type, what shall I do?'"[14]
On October 13, 1961, she 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 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 for which he was considering her. Hedren was convinced for several weeks it was for his television series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.[15][16]
Being an unknown actress with little training, Hitchcock put Hedren through an extensive color screen test that lasted two days and cost $25,000, 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, did every move she was asked to, and tried to do everything right.[17] Hitchcock asked costume designer Edith Head to design clothes for Hedren's private life and he personally advised her about wine and food.[17] He also insisted for publicity purposes that her name should be printed only in single quotes, 'Tippi'.[17] The press mostly ignored this directive from the director, who felt that the single quotes added distinction and mystery to her name.[18] 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."[19]
Afterward, Hedren was invited to lunch with Hitchcock, his wife, Alma, and Lew Wasserman, head of Universal, at one of Hitchcock's favorite restaurants, Chasen's. There, she was presented with a golden pin of three birds in flight, adorned by three tiny seed pearls, and was asked by Hitchcock to play the leading role in his upcoming film The Birds. "I was so stunned. It never occurred to me that I would be given a leading role in a major motion picture. I had great big tears in my eyes," Hedren later recalled.[14]
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 such as script, music, or photography conferences.[20] Hedren said, "I probably learned in three years what it would have taken me 15 years to learn otherwise."[21] She learned how to break down a script, to become another character, and to study the relationship of different characters.[22] Hedren portrayed her role of Melanie Daniels as Hitchcock requested. She said, "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."[23]
During the six months of principal photography, Hedren's schedule was tight, as she was only given one afternoon off a week.[21] At first, she found the shooting "wonderful".[24] Hitchcock told a reporter, after a few weeks of filming, that she was remarkable, and said, "She's already reaching the lows and highs of terror."[25] Nonetheless, Hedren recalled the week she did the final bird attack scene in a second-floor bedroom as the worst of her life.[20] 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.[26] 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.[27][28] A physician ordered a week's rest. Hitchcock protested, according to Hedren, saying she was the only one left to film. The doctor's reply was, "Are you trying to kill her?"[26] She said the week also appeared to be an ordeal for the director.[29]
Universal's executives, who did not back Hitchcock's decision to hire Hedren in the first place, were impressed with her performance and Wasserman described it as "remarkable".[30] While promoting The Birds, Hitchcock was full of praise for his new protge, 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."[25] The film was screened out of competition in May at a prestigious invitational showing at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival.[31] Hedren's performance was praised in Variety's review: "Aside from the birds, the film belongs to Hedren, who makes an auspicious screen bow. She virtually has to carry the picture alone for the first 45-minute stretch, prior to the advent of the first wave of organized attackers from the sky. Miss Hedren has a star quality and Hitchcock has provided her with a potent vehicle to launch her career."[32] Hedren received the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year, tied with Elke Sommer and Ursula Andress. Her role as Melanie Daniels was named by Premiere as one of the greatest movie characters of all time.[33]
Hitchcock was so impressed with Hedren's acting abilities, he decided to offer her the leading role of his next film, Marnie (1964), a romantic drama and psychological thriller from the novel by Winston Graham, during the filming of The Birds.[34][35] Hedren was stunned and felt extremely fortunate to be offered to play "such a complicated, sad, tragic woman", and later said, "I consider my acting, while not necessarily being method acting, but one that draws upon my own feelings. I thought Marnie was an extremely interesting role to play and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."[34] She voiced doubts about her ability to play the demanding role, but Hitchcock assured her she could do it.[36] As opposed to The Birds, where she had received little acting guidance, for this film Hedren studied every scene with Hitchcock.[37]
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 to rob her employers.[38] During the filming, Hitchcock was quoted as saying about Hedren, "an Academy Award performance is in the making."[39] On release, the film was greeted by mixed reviews and indifferent box-office returns, and received no Oscar nominations. Variety wrote, "Hedren returns in a particularly demanding role. Miss Hedren, undertaking a role originally offered Grace Kelly for a resumption of her screen career, lends credence to a part never sympathetic. It's a difficult assignment which she fulfills satisfactorily."[40] Hedren later said that Marnie was "ahead of its time" because "people didn't talk about childhood and its effects on adult life. It was taboo to discuss sexuality and psychology and to put all that into a film was shocking."[41] Despite its original lukewarm reception, the film was later acclaimed and described as a "masterpiece" and Hedren's performance is now regarded as one of the finest in any Hitchcock film.[42] Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote in his 2016 review of the film "Hedren's performance is one of the greatest in the history of cinema."[43]
Hedren then told him Marnie would be their last film together and later recalled how Hitchcock told her he would destroy her career. "I said I wanted to get out of my contract. He said: 'You can't. You have your daughter to support, and your parents are getting older.' I said: 'Nobody would want me to be in this situation, I want to get out.' And he said: 'I'll ruin your career.' I said: 'Do what you have to do.' And he did ruin my career. He kept me under contract, paid me to do nothing for close on two years." Hedren felt so humiliated, she called the director a "fat pig" in front of people on the set.[54] 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.[57] According to Marnie's screenwriter, Jay Presson Allen, Hitchcock was "mad" for Hedren.[58] She felt unhappy for both and described the situation as "an old man's cri de coeur", adding that Hitchcock had a "Pygmalion complex about Tippi".[59] She advised Hedren to finish the film and then get on with her life and be happy. Hedren's hairdresser, Virginia Darcy, even 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.'"[59] Although Hitchcock thought he might mend fences with Hedren and make another film with her, she refused to reconsider her decision.[60] Hedren's contract terms gave Hitchcock the final say as to any work she could take on and he used that power to turn down several film roles on her behalf. She was particularly disappointed when French director Franois Truffaut told her he had wanted her for one of them.[56] 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.).[61] The studio ultimately released her from her contract after she refused to appear on a television Western for them.[62]
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