Tippi Hedren
Encyclopedia
Nathalie Kay "Tippi" Hedren (born January 19, 1930) is an American
actress and former fashion model with a career spanning six decades. She is primarily known for her roles in two Alfred Hitchcock
films, The Birds
and Marnie
, and her extensive efforts in animal rescue at Shambala Preserve
, an 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) wildlife habitat which she founded in 1983.
Hedren is the mother of Academy Award nominee Melanie Griffith
, and they share credits on several productions, notably Pacific Heights
(1990).
in 1930 to Dorothea Henrietta (née
Eckhardt) and Bernard Carl Hedren. Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from Sweden
, and her maternal ancestry was German
and Norwegian
. Her father ran a small general store in the small town of Lafayette, Minnesota
and gave her the nickname "Tippi." "My father thought Nathalie was a little bit much for a brand new baby," Hedren explained at a 2004 screening of The Birds
.
As a teenager, Hedren took part in department store fashion shows. Her parents relocated to California
while she was still a high school student. When she reached her 18th birthday, she bought a ticket to New York and began a professional modeling career. Within a year she made her film debut (minus dialogue) as a Petty Girl model in The Petty Girl
(1950) musical comedy, although in interviews she refers to The Birds (1963) as her first film.
magazine. She was discovered by Hitchcock, who was watching The Today Show when he saw Hedren in a commercial for Sego, a diet drink. Hitchcock was looking for an actress who possessed something of the sophistication, self-assurance and cool-blonde sex appeal of Grace Kelly
, with whom he had made three films. Hedren, expensively groomed and mentored by Hitchcock, appeared in his films The Birds
and Marnie
. At the time of the films' releases, she was criticized for being too passive in The Birds and too expressive in Marnie. It took years before she received respect for her work in both films from American
film critics.
At a packed house in Lancaster, California
's Antelope Valley
Independent Film Festival Cinema Series screening of The Birds on September 28, 2004, Hedren recalled how she was mysteriously selected for a lead role: "I said, 'Well, who is this person? Who is interested?'... Nobody would tell me who it was." (It was Alfred Hitchcock, who soon announced his choice of Hedren.)
Hitchcock put Hedren through a then-costly $
25,000 screen test, doing scenes from his previous films, such as Rebecca, Notorious and To Catch a Thief
with actor Martin Balsam
. He signed her to a multi-year exclusive personal contract, something he had done in the 1950s with Vera Miles
. Hitchcock's plan to mold Hedren's public image went so far as to carefully control her style of dressing and grooming. Hitchcock insisted for publicity purposes that her name should be printed only in single quotes, "Tippi". The press mostly ignored this directive from the director, who felt that the single quotes added distinction and mystery to Hedren's name. In interviews, Hitchcock compared his newcomer not only to her predecessor Grace Kelly
but also to what he referred to as such "ladylike", intelligent, and stylish stars of more glamorous eras as Irene Dunne
and Jean Arthur
. Later, Hedren indicated that she didn't want to be known as the next Grace Kelly but rather as the first Tippi Hedren.
Her appearance in The Birds brought a wealth of publicity. In a December 1962 Look
magazine cover story "Hitchcock's New Grace Kelly", Alfred Hitchcock compared her to his star of To Catch a Thief and Rear Window
, saying, "'Tippi' has a faster tempo, city glibness, more humor. She displayed jaunty assuredness, pertness, an attractive throw of the head. And she memorized and read lines extraordinarily well and is sharper in expression."
Hedren said of Hitchcock, "He is subtle as a psychiatrist and never gives displaced encouragement." With the release of the film, she got a very tepid reception, the only exceptions being critic Bob Thomas ("Miss Hedren makes an impressive debut") and Time
("pleasant and ladylike, as Grace Kelly was.") Years after the film's release, she remembered the location work at Bodega Bay
as dangerous and taxing, commenting, "For a first film, it was a lot of work."
For the final attack scene in a second-floor bedroom, filmed on a closed set at Universal-International Studios, Hedren had been assured by Hitchcock that mechanical birds would be used. 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). Cary Grant
visited the set and told Hedren, "I think you're the bravest lady I've ever met." 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. A physician ordered a week's rest, which Hedren said at the time was riddled with "nightmares filled with flapping wings". The Birds brought her a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer.
Premiere
magazine chose Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels in The Birds as one of "The 100 Greatest Characters of All Time". Marnie (1964), a psychological thriller
from the novel by Winston Graham
, was Hedren's second Hitchcock assignment, co-starring with Sean Connery
. She recalls Marnie as the favorite of her two films for Hitchcock because of the central character, an emotionally battered young woman who travels from city to city assuming various guises in order to rob her employers. On release, the film was greeted by mixed reviews and indifferent box-office returns. Although Hitchcock continued to have Hedren in mind for several other films after Marnie, the actress declined any further work with him. Other directors who wanted to hire her had to go through Hitchcock, who would inform them she was unavailable. "It grew to be impossible. He was a very controlling type of person, and I guess I'm not about to be controlled", said Hedren. When Hedren tried to get out of her contract, she recalls Hitchcock telling her he'd ruin her career. "And he did: kept me under contract, kept paying me every week for almost two years to do nothing."
By the time Hitchcock sold her contract to Universal and she was fired for refusing work on one of its television shows, Hedren's career had stalled.
On April 13, 2011, at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY, Hedren stated in an interview with Turner Classic Movies' Ben Mankiewicz, prior to a screening of The Birds, that because she refused Hitchcock’s sexual advances, Hitchcock effectively stunted her career.
Charles Chaplin cast her as the sophisticated, brittle, cheated-upon wife of Marlon Brando
in his shipboard comedy A Countess from Hong Kong
(1967). She made more than 40 films between 1967 and 2006, including Pacific Heights
, Citizen Ruth
and I Heart Huckabees. More recently, she has appeared in episodes of The 4400
in 2006 and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
in 2006. She was a cast member of the night-time soap opera Fashion House
in 2006. Hedren has also appeared in many independent films. In 2009, she co-starred with actress Brittany Murphy
in the made-for-television movie Tribute
.
Along with Kim Novak
, Eva Marie Saint
and Joan Fontaine
, she will participate to the Motion Picture Academy Tribute to the “Hitchcock Blondes” (2011).
ad campaign in 2006 paid tribute to Hedren and Hitchcock with a modern-day interpretation of the deserted railway station opening sequence of Marnie
. Her 1963 publicity picture from The Birds was the cover for Jean-Pierre Dufreigne's book Hitchcock Style (2004). In interviews, Naomi Watts
has stated that her character interpretation in Mulholland Drive
(2001) was influenced by the look and performances of Hedren and Kim Novak
in Hitchcock films. Watts and Hedren later acted in I Heart Huckabees (2004) but didn't share any scenes together onscreen. Off-screen, the film's director David O. Russell
introduced them both, and Watts has said about Hedren, "I was pretty fascinated by her then because people have often said that we're alike." Watts was once expected to star in a remake of The Birds
(1963) and has dressed up as Hedren's title character from Marnie
for a photo shoot for March 2008 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. In the same issue, Jodie Foster
dressed up as Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels from The Birds
(1963).
In another issue of Vanity Fair
, the magazine referred to January Jones
's character in Mad Men
as "Tippi Hedren's soul sister from Marnie
". The New York Times television critic earlier had echoed the same sentiment in his review of Mad Men
. January Jones said that she "takes it a compliment of sorts" when compared to Grace Kelly and Hedren. Actress Tea Leoni
said that her character in the film Manure (2009) is made up to look like Hedren.
In 1981, Hedren produced Roar
, an 11-year project that ended up costing $17 million and starring dozens of African lions. "This was probably one of the most dangerous films that Hollywood has ever seen", remarked the actress. "It's amazing no one was killed." During the production of Roar, Hedren, her husband at the time, Noel Marshall
, and daughter Melanie were attacked by lions; Jan de Bont
, the director of photography, was scalped. She later co-wrote the book Cats of Shambala (1985) about the experience. Roar made only $2 million worldwide. Hedren ended her marriage to Marshall a year later in 1982. The film directly led to the 1983 establishment of the non-profit Roar Foundation and Hedren's Shambala Preserve
, located at the edge of the Mojave Desert
in Acton, California
between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley
40 miles (64.4 km) northeast of Los Angeles
. Shambala currently houses some 70 animals, including African lions, Siberian and Bengal tiger
s, leopard
s, serval
s, mountain lions and bobcat
s. Hedren lives on the Shambala site and conducts monthly tours of the preserve for the public. Hedren took in and cared for Togar, a lion that belonged to Anton LaVey
, after he was told by San Francisco officials that he couldn't keep a fully grown lion as a house pet. More recently, Shambala became the new home for Michael Jackson
’s two Bengal tigers, Sabu and Thriller, after he decided to close his zoo at his Neverland Valley Ranch in Los Olivos, California
. On December 3, 2007, Shambala Preserve made headlines when Chris Orr, a caretaker for the animals, was mauled by a tiger named Alexander.
Several documentaries have focused on Shambala Preserve, including the 30-minute Lions: Kings of the Serengeti (1995), narrated by Melanie Griffith, and Animal Planet
's Life with Big Cats (1998), which won the Genesis Award for best documentary in 1999. The animals at the preserve served as the initial inspiration for the life's work of artist A. E. London
, who started her career working for Hedren.
in 1952. Their daughter, actress Melanie Griffith
, was born on August 9, 1957. They were divorced in 1961. She married her then-agent Noel Marshall
, who later produced three of her films, in 1964; they divorced in 1982. She married businessman Luis Barrenechea in 1985 and divorced in 1995.
Hedren has three grandchildren from daughter Griffith: musician Alexander Bauer, actress and model Dakota Johnson
and Stella Banderas. Her current son-in-law is actor Antonio Banderas
.
In a Los Angeles Times
article and featured on a CBC news story, Hedren was described as being a pivotal figure in the modern development of Vietnam
ese owned-nail salons in the United States and later spread rapidly along the East and to Canada. Drawn to the plight of refugees from the Vietnam War
, she began visiting a tent city at Hope Village, and in 1975, helped Vietnamese immigrants, primarily female, by having her manicurist
teach them the skills of the trade and working with a local beauty school to help them find jobs. In Canada, the nail parlour industry is now dominated by Vietnamese immigrants and refugees.
actress and former fashion model with a career spanning six decades. She is primarily known for her roles in two Alfred Hitchcock
films, The Birds
and Marnie
, and her extensive efforts in animal rescue at Shambala Preserve
, an 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) wildlife habitat which she founded in 1983.
Hedren is the mother of Academy Award nominee Melanie Griffith
, and they share credits on several productions, notably Pacific Heights
(1990).
in 1930 to Dorothea Henrietta (née
Eckhardt) and Bernard Carl Hedren. Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from Sweden
, and her maternal ancestry was German
and Norwegian
. Her father ran a small general store in the small town of Lafayette, Minnesota
and gave her the nickname "Tippi." "My father thought Nathalie was a little bit much for a brand new baby," Hedren explained at a 2004 screening of The Birds
.
As a teenager, Hedren took part in department store fashion shows. Her parents relocated to California
while she was still a high school student. When she reached her 18th birthday, she bought a ticket to New York and began a professional modeling career. Within a year she made her film debut (minus dialogue) as a Petty Girl model in The Petty Girl
(1950) musical comedy, although in interviews she refers to The Birds (1963) as her first film.
magazine. She was discovered by Hitchcock, who was watching The Today Show when he saw Hedren in a commercial for Sego, a diet drink. Hitchcock was looking for an actress who possessed something of the sophistication, self-assurance and cool-blonde sex appeal of Grace Kelly
, with whom he had made three films. Hedren, expensively groomed and mentored by Hitchcock, appeared in his films The Birds
and Marnie
. At the time of the films' releases, she was criticized for being too passive in The Birds and too expressive in Marnie. It took years before she received respect for her work in both films from American
film critics.
At a packed house in Lancaster, California
's Antelope Valley
Independent Film Festival Cinema Series screening of The Birds on September 28, 2004, Hedren recalled how she was mysteriously selected for a lead role: "I said, 'Well, who is this person? Who is interested?'... Nobody would tell me who it was." (It was Alfred Hitchcock, who soon announced his choice of Hedren.)
Hitchcock put Hedren through a then-costly $
25,000 screen test, doing scenes from his previous films, such as Rebecca, Notorious and To Catch a Thief
with actor Martin Balsam
. He signed her to a multi-year exclusive personal contract, something he had done in the 1950s with Vera Miles
. Hitchcock's plan to mold Hedren's public image went so far as to carefully control her style of dressing and grooming. Hitchcock insisted for publicity purposes that her name should be printed only in single quotes, "Tippi". The press mostly ignored this directive from the director, who felt that the single quotes added distinction and mystery to Hedren's name. In interviews, Hitchcock compared his newcomer not only to her predecessor Grace Kelly
but also to what he referred to as such "ladylike", intelligent, and stylish stars of more glamorous eras as Irene Dunne
and Jean Arthur
. Later, Hedren indicated that she didn't want to be known as the next Grace Kelly but rather as the first Tippi Hedren.
Her appearance in The Birds brought a wealth of publicity. In a December 1962 Look
magazine cover story "Hitchcock's New Grace Kelly", Alfred Hitchcock compared her to his star of To Catch a Thief and Rear Window
, saying, "'Tippi' has a faster tempo, city glibness, more humor. She displayed jaunty assuredness, pertness, an attractive throw of the head. And she memorized and read lines extraordinarily well and is sharper in expression."
Hedren said of Hitchcock, "He is subtle as a psychiatrist and never gives displaced encouragement." With the release of the film, she got a very tepid reception, the only exceptions being critic Bob Thomas ("Miss Hedren makes an impressive debut") and Time
("pleasant and ladylike, as Grace Kelly was.") Years after the film's release, she remembered the location work at Bodega Bay
as dangerous and taxing, commenting, "For a first film, it was a lot of work."
For the final attack scene in a second-floor bedroom, filmed on a closed set at Universal-International Studios, Hedren had been assured by Hitchcock that mechanical birds would be used. 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). Cary Grant
visited the set and told Hedren, "I think you're the bravest lady I've ever met." 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. A physician ordered a week's rest, which Hedren said at the time was riddled with "nightmares filled with flapping wings". The Birds brought her a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer.
Premiere
magazine chose Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels in The Birds as one of "The 100 Greatest Characters of All Time". Marnie (1964), a psychological thriller
from the novel by Winston Graham
, was Hedren's second Hitchcock assignment, co-starring with Sean Connery
. She recalls Marnie as the favorite of her two films for Hitchcock because of the central character, an emotionally battered young woman who travels from city to city assuming various guises in order to rob her employers. On release, the film was greeted by mixed reviews and indifferent box-office returns. Although Hitchcock continued to have Hedren in mind for several other films after Marnie, the actress declined any further work with him. Other directors who wanted to hire her had to go through Hitchcock, who would inform them she was unavailable. "It grew to be impossible. He was a very controlling type of person, and I guess I'm not about to be controlled", said Hedren. When Hedren tried to get out of her contract, she recalls Hitchcock telling her he'd ruin her career. "And he did: kept me under contract, kept paying me every week for almost two years to do nothing."
By the time Hitchcock sold her contract to Universal and she was fired for refusing work on one of its television shows, Hedren's career had stalled.
On April 13, 2011, at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY, Hedren stated in an interview with Turner Classic Movies' Ben Mankiewicz, prior to a screening of The Birds, that because she refused Hitchcock’s sexual advances, Hitchcock effectively stunted her career.
Charles Chaplin cast her as the sophisticated, brittle, cheated-upon wife of Marlon Brando
in his shipboard comedy A Countess from Hong Kong
(1967). She made more than 40 films between 1967 and 2006, including Pacific Heights
, Citizen Ruth
and I Heart Huckabees. More recently, she has appeared in episodes of The 4400
in 2006 and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
in 2006. She was a cast member of the night-time soap opera Fashion House
in 2006. Hedren has also appeared in many independent films. In 2009, she co-starred with actress Brittany Murphy
in the made-for-television movie Tribute
.
Along with Kim Novak
, Eva Marie Saint
and Joan Fontaine
, she will participate to the Motion Picture Academy Tribute to the “Hitchcock Blondes” (2011).
ad campaign in 2006 paid tribute to Hedren and Hitchcock with a modern-day interpretation of the deserted railway station opening sequence of Marnie
. Her 1963 publicity picture from The Birds was the cover for Jean-Pierre Dufreigne's book Hitchcock Style (2004). In interviews, Naomi Watts
has stated that her character interpretation in Mulholland Drive
(2001) was influenced by the look and performances of Hedren and Kim Novak
in Hitchcock films. Watts and Hedren later acted in I Heart Huckabees (2004) but didn't share any scenes together onscreen. Off-screen, the film's director David O. Russell
introduced them both, and Watts has said about Hedren, "I was pretty fascinated by her then because people have often said that we're alike." Watts was once expected to star in a remake of The Birds
(1963) and has dressed up as Hedren's title character from Marnie
for a photo shoot for March 2008 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. In the same issue, Jodie Foster
dressed up as Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels from The Birds
(1963).
In another issue of Vanity Fair
, the magazine referred to January Jones
's character in Mad Men
as "Tippi Hedren's soul sister from Marnie
". The New York Times television critic earlier had echoed the same sentiment in his review of Mad Men
. January Jones said that she "takes it a compliment of sorts" when compared to Grace Kelly and Hedren. Actress Tea Leoni
said that her character in the film Manure (2009) is made up to look like Hedren.
In 1981, Hedren produced Roar
, an 11-year project that ended up costing $17 million and starring dozens of African lions. "This was probably one of the most dangerous films that Hollywood has ever seen", remarked the actress. "It's amazing no one was killed." During the production of Roar, Hedren, her husband at the time, Noel Marshall
, and daughter Melanie were attacked by lions; Jan de Bont
, the director of photography, was scalped. She later co-wrote the book Cats of Shambala (1985) about the experience. Roar made only $2 million worldwide. Hedren ended her marriage to Marshall a year later in 1982. The film directly led to the 1983 establishment of the non-profit Roar Foundation and Hedren's Shambala Preserve
, located at the edge of the Mojave Desert
in Acton, California
between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley
40 miles (64.4 km) northeast of Los Angeles
. Shambala currently houses some 70 animals, including African lions, Siberian and Bengal tiger
s, leopard
s, serval
s, mountain lions and bobcat
s. Hedren lives on the Shambala site and conducts monthly tours of the preserve for the public. Hedren took in and cared for Togar, a lion that belonged to Anton LaVey
, after he was told by San Francisco officials that he couldn't keep a fully grown lion as a house pet. More recently, Shambala became the new home for Michael Jackson
’s two Bengal tigers, Sabu and Thriller, after he decided to close his zoo at his Neverland Valley Ranch in Los Olivos, California
. On December 3, 2007, Shambala Preserve made headlines when Chris Orr, a caretaker for the animals, was mauled by a tiger named Alexander.
Several documentaries have focused on Shambala Preserve, including the 30-minute Lions: Kings of the Serengeti (1995), narrated by Melanie Griffith, and Animal Planet
's Life with Big Cats (1998), which won the Genesis Award for best documentary in 1999. The animals at the preserve served as the initial inspiration for the life's work of artist A. E. London
, who started her career working for Hedren.
in 1952. Their daughter, actress Melanie Griffith
, was born on August 9, 1957. They were divorced in 1961. She married her then-agent Noel Marshall
, who later produced three of her films, in 1964; they divorced in 1982. She married businessman Luis Barrenechea in 1985 and divorced in 1995.
Hedren has three grandchildren from daughter Griffith: musician Alexander Bauer, actress and model Dakota Johnson
and Stella Banderas. Her current son-in-law is actor Antonio Banderas
.
In a Los Angeles Times
article and featured on a CBC news story, Hedren was described as being a pivotal figure in the modern development of Vietnam
ese owned-nail salons in the United States and later spread rapidly along the East and to Canada. Drawn to the plight of refugees from the Vietnam War
, she began visiting a tent city at Hope Village, and in 1975, helped Vietnamese immigrants, primarily female, by having her manicurist
teach them the skills of the trade and working with a local beauty school to help them find jobs. In Canada, the nail parlour industry is now dominated by Vietnamese immigrants and refugees.
actress and former fashion model with a career spanning six decades. She is primarily known for her roles in two Alfred Hitchcock
films, The Birds
and Marnie
, and her extensive efforts in animal rescue at Shambala Preserve
, an 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) wildlife habitat which she founded in 1983.
Hedren is the mother of Academy Award nominee Melanie Griffith
, and they share credits on several productions, notably Pacific Heights
(1990).
in 1930 to Dorothea Henrietta (née
Eckhardt) and Bernard Carl Hedren. Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from Sweden
, and her maternal ancestry was German
and Norwegian
. Her father ran a small general store in the small town of Lafayette, Minnesota
and gave her the nickname "Tippi." "My father thought Nathalie was a little bit much for a brand new baby," Hedren explained at a 2004 screening of The Birds
.
As a teenager, Hedren took part in department store fashion shows. Her parents relocated to California
while she was still a high school student. When she reached her 18th birthday, she bought a ticket to New York and began a professional modeling career. Within a year she made her film debut (minus dialogue) as a Petty Girl model in The Petty Girl
(1950) musical comedy, although in interviews she refers to The Birds (1963) as her first film.
magazine. She was discovered by Hitchcock, who was watching The Today Show when he saw Hedren in a commercial for Sego, a diet drink. Hitchcock was looking for an actress who possessed something of the sophistication, self-assurance and cool-blonde sex appeal of Grace Kelly
, with whom he had made three films. Hedren, expensively groomed and mentored by Hitchcock, appeared in his films The Birds
and Marnie
. At the time of the films' releases, she was criticized for being too passive in The Birds and too expressive in Marnie. It took years before she received respect for her work in both films from American
film critics.
At a packed house in Lancaster, California
's Antelope Valley
Independent Film Festival Cinema Series screening of The Birds on September 28, 2004, Hedren recalled how she was mysteriously selected for a lead role: "I said, 'Well, who is this person? Who is interested?'... Nobody would tell me who it was." (It was Alfred Hitchcock, who soon announced his choice of Hedren.)
Hitchcock put Hedren through a then-costly $
25,000 screen test, doing scenes from his previous films, such as Rebecca, Notorious and To Catch a Thief
with actor Martin Balsam
. He signed her to a multi-year exclusive personal contract, something he had done in the 1950s with Vera Miles
. Hitchcock's plan to mold Hedren's public image went so far as to carefully control her style of dressing and grooming. Hitchcock insisted for publicity purposes that her name should be printed only in single quotes, "Tippi". The press mostly ignored this directive from the director, who felt that the single quotes added distinction and mystery to Hedren's name. In interviews, Hitchcock compared his newcomer not only to her predecessor Grace Kelly
but also to what he referred to as such "ladylike", intelligent, and stylish stars of more glamorous eras as Irene Dunne
and Jean Arthur
. Later, Hedren indicated that she didn't want to be known as the next Grace Kelly but rather as the first Tippi Hedren.
Her appearance in The Birds brought a wealth of publicity. In a December 1962 Look
magazine cover story "Hitchcock's New Grace Kelly", Alfred Hitchcock compared her to his star of To Catch a Thief and Rear Window
, saying, "'Tippi' has a faster tempo, city glibness, more humor. She displayed jaunty assuredness, pertness, an attractive throw of the head. And she memorized and read lines extraordinarily well and is sharper in expression."
Hedren said of Hitchcock, "He is subtle as a psychiatrist and never gives displaced encouragement." With the release of the film, she got a very tepid reception, the only exceptions being critic Bob Thomas ("Miss Hedren makes an impressive debut") and Time
("pleasant and ladylike, as Grace Kelly was.") Years after the film's release, she remembered the location work at Bodega Bay
as dangerous and taxing, commenting, "For a first film, it was a lot of work."
For the final attack scene in a second-floor bedroom, filmed on a closed set at Universal-International Studios, Hedren had been assured by Hitchcock that mechanical birds would be used. 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). Cary Grant
visited the set and told Hedren, "I think you're the bravest lady I've ever met." 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. A physician ordered a week's rest, which Hedren said at the time was riddled with "nightmares filled with flapping wings". The Birds brought her a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer.
Premiere
magazine chose Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels in The Birds as one of "The 100 Greatest Characters of All Time". Marnie (1964), a psychological thriller
from the novel by Winston Graham
, was Hedren's second Hitchcock assignment, co-starring with Sean Connery
. She recalls Marnie as the favorite of her two films for Hitchcock because of the central character, an emotionally battered young woman who travels from city to city assuming various guises in order to rob her employers. On release, the film was greeted by mixed reviews and indifferent box-office returns. Although Hitchcock continued to have Hedren in mind for several other films after Marnie, the actress declined any further work with him. Other directors who wanted to hire her had to go through Hitchcock, who would inform them she was unavailable. "It grew to be impossible. He was a very controlling type of person, and I guess I'm not about to be controlled", said Hedren. When Hedren tried to get out of her contract, she recalls Hitchcock telling her he'd ruin her career. "And he did: kept me under contract, kept paying me every week for almost two years to do nothing."
By the time Hitchcock sold her contract to Universal and she was fired for refusing work on one of its television shows, Hedren's career had stalled.
On April 13, 2011, at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY, Hedren stated in an interview with Turner Classic Movies' Ben Mankiewicz, prior to a screening of The Birds, that because she refused Hitchcock’s sexual advances, Hitchcock effectively stunted her career.
Charles Chaplin cast her as the sophisticated, brittle, cheated-upon wife of Marlon Brando
in his shipboard comedy A Countess from Hong Kong
(1967). She made more than 40 films between 1967 and 2006, including Pacific Heights
, Citizen Ruth
and I Heart Huckabees. More recently, she has appeared in episodes of The 4400
in 2006 and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
in 2006. She was a cast member of the night-time soap opera Fashion House
in 2006. Hedren has also appeared in many independent films. In 2009, she co-starred with actress Brittany Murphy
in the made-for-television movie Tribute
.
Along with Kim Novak
, Eva Marie Saint
and Joan Fontaine
, she will participate to the Motion Picture Academy Tribute to the “Hitchcock Blondes” (2011).
ad campaign in 2006 paid tribute to Hedren and Hitchcock with a modern-day interpretation of the deserted railway station opening sequence of Marnie
. Her 1963 publicity picture from The Birds was the cover for Jean-Pierre Dufreigne's book Hitchcock Style (2004). In interviews, Naomi Watts
has stated that her character interpretation in Mulholland Drive
(2001) was influenced by the look and performances of Hedren and Kim Novak
in Hitchcock films. Watts and Hedren later acted in I Heart Huckabees (2004) but didn't share any scenes together onscreen. Off-screen, the film's director David O. Russell
introduced them both, and Watts has said about Hedren, "I was pretty fascinated by her then because people have often said that we're alike." Watts was once expected to star in a remake of The Birds
(1963) and has dressed up as Hedren's title character from Marnie
for a photo shoot for March 2008 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. In the same issue, Jodie Foster
dressed up as Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels from The Birds
(1963).
In another issue of Vanity Fair
, the magazine referred to January Jones
's character in Mad Men
as "Tippi Hedren's soul sister from Marnie
". The New York Times television critic earlier had echoed the same sentiment in his review of Mad Men
. January Jones said that she "takes it a compliment of sorts" when compared to Grace Kelly and Hedren. Actress Tea Leoni
said that her character in the film Manure (2009) is made up to look like Hedren.
In 1981, Hedren produced Roar
, an 11-year project that ended up costing $17 million and starring dozens of African lions. "This was probably one of the most dangerous films that Hollywood has ever seen", remarked the actress. "It's amazing no one was killed." During the production of Roar, Hedren, her husband at the time, Noel Marshall
, and daughter Melanie were attacked by lions; Jan de Bont
, the director of photography, was scalped. She later co-wrote the book Cats of Shambala (1985) about the experience. Roar made only $2 million worldwide. Hedren ended her marriage to Marshall a year later in 1982. The film directly led to the 1983 establishment of the non-profit Roar Foundation and Hedren's Shambala Preserve
, located at the edge of the Mojave Desert
in Acton, California
between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley
40 miles (64.4 km) northeast of Los Angeles
. Shambala currently houses some 70 animals, including African lions, Siberian and Bengal tiger
s, leopard
s, serval
s, mountain lions and bobcat
s. Hedren lives on the Shambala site and conducts monthly tours of the preserve for the public. Hedren took in and cared for Togar, a lion that belonged to Anton LaVey
, after he was told by San Francisco officials that he couldn't keep a fully grown lion as a house pet. More recently, Shambala became the new home for Michael Jackson
’s two Bengal tigers, Sabu and Thriller, after he decided to close his zoo at his Neverland Valley Ranch in Los Olivos, California
. On December 3, 2007, Shambala Preserve made headlines when Chris Orr, a caretaker for the animals, was mauled by a tiger named Alexander.
Several documentaries have focused on Shambala Preserve, including the 30-minute Lions: Kings of the Serengeti (1995), narrated by Melanie Griffith, and Animal Planet
's Life with Big Cats (1998), which won the Genesis Award for best documentary in 1999. The animals at the preserve served as the initial inspiration for the life's work of artist A. E. London
, who started her career working for Hedren.
in 1952. Their daughter, actress Melanie Griffith
, was born on August 9, 1957. They were divorced in 1961. She married her then-agent Noel Marshall
, who later produced three of her films, in 1964; they divorced in 1982. She married businessman Luis Barrenechea in 1985 and divorced in 1995.
Hedren has three grandchildren from daughter Griffith: musician Alexander Bauer, actress and model Dakota Johnson
and Stella Banderas. Her current son-in-law is actor Antonio Banderas
.
In a Los Angeles Times
article and featured on a CBC news story, Hedren was described as being a pivotal figure in the modern development of Vietnam
ese owned-nail salons in the United States and later spread rapidly along the East and to Canada. Drawn to the plight of refugees from the Vietnam War
, she began visiting a tent city at Hope Village, and in 1975, helped Vietnamese immigrants, primarily female, by having her manicurist
teach them the skills of the trade and working with a local beauty school to help them find jobs. In Canada, the nail parlour industry is now dominated by Vietnamese immigrants and refugees.
People of the United States
The people of the United States, also known as simply Americans or American people, are the inhabitants or citizens of the United States. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
actress and former fashion model with a career spanning six decades. She is primarily known for her roles in two Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
films, The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
and Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
, and her extensive efforts in animal rescue at Shambala Preserve
Shambala Preserve
Shambala Preserve is a wild animal preserve established in 1972 and located in Acton, California, a desert community 10 miles southwest of Palmdale, off of State Route 14 and Sierra Highway.-About:...
, an 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) wildlife habitat which she founded in 1983.
Hedren is the mother of Academy Award nominee Melanie Griffith
Melanie Griffith
Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. She is an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance in the 1988 film Working Girl...
, and they share credits on several productions, notably Pacific Heights
Pacific Heights (1990 film)
Pacific Heights is a 1990 thriller film directed by John Schlesinger and starring Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine, and Michael Keaton. Griffith's real-life mother Tippi Hedren has a cameo as a rich older woman who is conned by Keaton's character. The original music score was composed by Hans...
(1990).
Early life
Hedren was born in New Ulm, MinnesotaNew Ulm, Minnesota
New Ulm is a city in Brown County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 13,522 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Brown County....
in 1930 to Dorothea Henrietta (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Eckhardt) and Bernard Carl Hedren. Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, and her maternal ancestry was German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
and Norwegian
Norwegians
Norwegians constitute both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway. They share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language. Norwegian people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in United States, Canada and Brazil.-History:Towards the end of the 3rd...
. Her father ran a small general store in the small town of Lafayette, Minnesota
Lafayette, Minnesota
Lafayette is a city in Nicollet County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 504 at the 2010 census. It is a small farming community just outside of the larger town of New Ulm, Minnesota....
and gave her the nickname "Tippi." "My father thought Nathalie was a little bit much for a brand new baby," Hedren explained at a 2004 screening of The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
.
As a teenager, Hedren took part in department store fashion shows. Her parents relocated to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
while she was still a high school student. When she reached her 18th birthday, she bought a ticket to New York and began a professional modeling career. Within a year she made her film debut (minus dialogue) as a Petty Girl model in The Petty Girl
The Petty Girl
The Petty Girl is a musical romantic comedy film starring Robert Cummings and Joan Caulfield. Cummings portrays painter George Petty.-Plot:...
(1950) musical comedy, although in interviews she refers to The Birds (1963) as her first film.
Career
Hedren had a successful modeling career in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing on covers of national magazines, such as LifeLife (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine. She was discovered by Hitchcock, who was watching The Today Show when he saw Hedren in a commercial for Sego, a diet drink. Hitchcock was looking for an actress who possessed something of the sophistication, self-assurance and cool-blonde sex appeal of Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...
, with whom he had made three films. Hedren, expensively groomed and mentored by Hitchcock, appeared in his films The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
and Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
. At the time of the films' releases, she was criticized for being too passive in The Birds and too expressive in Marnie. It took years before she received respect for her work in both films from American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
film critics.
At a packed house in Lancaster, California
Lancaster, California
Lancaster is a charter city in northern Los Angeles County, in the high desert, near the Kern County line. Lancaster currently ranks as the 30th largest city in California, and the 148th largest city in the United States. Lancaster is the principal city within the Antelope Valley...
's Antelope Valley
Antelope Valley
The Antelope Valley in California, United States, is located in northern Los Angeles County and the southeastern portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert...
Independent Film Festival Cinema Series screening of The Birds on September 28, 2004, Hedren recalled how she was mysteriously selected for a lead role: "I said, 'Well, who is this person? Who is interested?'... Nobody would tell me who it was." (It was Alfred Hitchcock, who soon announced his choice of Hedren.)
Hitchcock put Hedren through a then-costly $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
25,000 screen test, doing scenes from his previous films, such as Rebecca, Notorious and To Catch a Thief
To Catch a Thief
To Catch a Thief is a 1952 thriller novel by David Dodge. John Robie is a retired American jewel thief, formerly known as Le Chat , who now spends his time tending to the rose garden in his villa on the Côte d'Azur. Following a series of recent jewel robberies on the Riviera that resemble his...
with actor Martin Balsam
Martin Balsam
Martin Henry Balsam was an American actor. He is known for his Oscar-winning role as "Arnold Burns" in A Thousand Clowns and his role as "Detective Milton Arbogast" in Psycho.- Early life :...
. He signed her to a multi-year exclusive personal contract, something he had done in the 1950s with Vera Miles
Vera Miles
Vera Miles is an American film actress who gained popularity for starring in films such as The Searchers, The Wrong Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Psycho and Psycho II.-Early life:...
. Hitchcock's plan to mold Hedren's public image went so far as to carefully control her style of dressing and grooming. Hitchcock insisted for publicity purposes that her name should be printed only in single quotes, "Tippi". The press mostly ignored this directive from the director, who felt that the single quotes added distinction and mystery to Hedren's name. In interviews, Hitchcock compared his newcomer not only to her predecessor Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...
but also to what he referred to as such "ladylike", intelligent, and stylish stars of more glamorous eras as Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
and Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur was an American actress and a major film star of the 1930s and 1940s. She remains arguably the epitome of the female screwball comedy actress. As James Harvey wrote in his recounting of the era, "No one was more closely identified with the screwball comedy than Jean Arthur...
. Later, Hedren indicated that she didn't want to be known as the next Grace Kelly but rather as the first Tippi Hedren.
Her appearance in The Birds brought a wealth of publicity. In a December 1962 Look
Look (American magazine)
Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...
magazine cover story "Hitchcock's New Grace Kelly", Alfred Hitchcock compared her to his star of To Catch a Thief and Rear Window
Rear Window
Rear Window is a 1954 American suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by John Michael Hayes and based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder"...
, saying, "'Tippi' has a faster tempo, city glibness, more humor. She displayed jaunty assuredness, pertness, an attractive throw of the head. And she memorized and read lines extraordinarily well and is sharper in expression."
Hedren said of Hitchcock, "He is subtle as a psychiatrist and never gives displaced encouragement." With the release of the film, she got a very tepid reception, the only exceptions being critic Bob Thomas ("Miss Hedren makes an impressive debut") and Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
("pleasant and ladylike, as Grace Kelly was.") Years after the film's release, she remembered the location work at Bodega Bay
Bodega Bay, California
Bodega Bay is a town and census-designated place in Sonoma County, California, United States. The population was 1,077 at the 2010 census. The town is on the eastern side of Bodega Harbor, an inlet of Bodega Bay on the Pacific coast....
as dangerous and taxing, commenting, "For a first film, it was a lot of work."
For the final attack scene in a second-floor bedroom, filmed on a closed set at Universal-International Studios, Hedren had been assured by Hitchcock that mechanical birds would be used. 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). Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
visited the set and told Hedren, "I think you're the bravest lady I've ever met." 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. A physician ordered a week's rest, which Hedren said at the time was riddled with "nightmares filled with flapping wings". The Birds brought her a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer.
Premiere
Premiere (magazine)
Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...
magazine chose Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels in The Birds as one of "The 100 Greatest Characters of All Time". Marnie (1964), a psychological thriller
Psychological thriller
Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the broad ranged thriller with heavy focus on characters. However, it often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre, along with the typical traits of the thriller genre...
from the novel by Winston Graham
Winston Graham
Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE was an English novelist, best known for the The Poldark Novel series of historical fiction.-Biography:...
, was Hedren's second Hitchcock assignment, co-starring with Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
. She recalls Marnie as the favorite of her two films for Hitchcock because of the central character, an emotionally battered young woman who travels from city to city assuming various guises in order to rob her employers. On release, the film was greeted by mixed reviews and indifferent box-office returns. Although Hitchcock continued to have Hedren in mind for several other films after Marnie, the actress declined any further work with him. Other directors who wanted to hire her had to go through Hitchcock, who would inform them she was unavailable. "It grew to be impossible. He was a very controlling type of person, and I guess I'm not about to be controlled", said Hedren. When Hedren tried to get out of her contract, she recalls Hitchcock telling her he'd ruin her career. "And he did: kept me under contract, kept paying me every week for almost two years to do nothing."
By the time Hitchcock sold her contract to Universal and she was fired for refusing work on one of its television shows, Hedren's career had stalled.
On April 13, 2011, at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY, Hedren stated in an interview with Turner Classic Movies' Ben Mankiewicz, prior to a screening of The Birds, that because she refused Hitchcock’s sexual advances, Hitchcock effectively stunted her career.
Charles Chaplin cast her as the sophisticated, brittle, cheated-upon wife of Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
in his shipboard comedy A Countess from Hong Kong
A Countess from Hong Kong
A Countess from Hong Kong is a 1967 British comedy film and the last film directed by Charlie Chaplin. It was one of two films Chaplin directed in which he did not play a major role , and his only color film. Chaplin's cameo marked his final screen appearance...
(1967). She made more than 40 films between 1967 and 2006, including Pacific Heights
Pacific Heights (1990 film)
Pacific Heights is a 1990 thriller film directed by John Schlesinger and starring Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine, and Michael Keaton. Griffith's real-life mother Tippi Hedren has a cameo as a rich older woman who is conned by Keaton's character. The original music score was composed by Hans...
, Citizen Ruth
Citizen Ruth
Citizen Ruth is a 1996 film that tells a story of a poor, irresponsible and pregnant woman who unexpectedly attracts attention from those involved in the debate about the morality and legality of abortion. The film stars Laura Dern, Swoosie Kurtz, Mary Kay Place, Kurtwood Smith and Kelly Preston,...
and I Heart Huckabees. More recently, she has appeared in episodes of The 4400
The 4400
The 4400 is a science fiction TV series produced by CBS Paramount Network Television in association with Sky Television, Renegade 83, and American Zoetrope for USA Network. The show was created and written by Scott Peters and René Echevarria, and it stars Joel Gretsch and Jacqueline McKenzie...
in 2006 and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
in 2006. She was a cast member of the night-time soap opera Fashion House
Fashion House
Fashion House is an American telenovela that aired at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT Monday through Saturday on MyNetworkTV stations. The series premiered on September 5, 2006 and concluded on December 5, 2006...
in 2006. Hedren has also appeared in many independent films. In 2009, she co-starred with actress Brittany Murphy
Brittany Murphy
Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack , known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress and singer. She starred in films such as Clueless, Just Married, Girl Interrupted, Spun, 8 Mile, Uptown Girls, Sin City, Happy Feet, and Riding in Cars with Boys...
in the made-for-television movie Tribute
Tribute (2009 film)
Tribute, also known as Nora Roberts' Tribute, is a 2009 made-for-tv movie directed by Martha Coolidge, which stars Brittany Murphy and Jason Lewis. The film is based on the Nora Roberts novel of the same name. And is part of the Nora Roberts 2009 movie collection, which also includes; Northern...
.
Along with Kim Novak
Kim Novak
Kim Novak is an American film and television actress. She began her career with her roles in Pushover and Phffft! but achieved greater prominence in the 1955 film Picnic...
, Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint is an American actress who has starred in films, on Broadway, and on television in a career spanning seven decades. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama film On the Waterfront , and later starred in the thriller film North by...
and Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....
, she will participate to the Motion Picture Academy Tribute to the “Hitchcock Blondes” (2011).
Influence
A Louis VuittonLouis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton Malletier – commonly referred to as Louis Vuitton , or shortened to LV – is a French fashion house founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label is well known for its LV monogram, which is featured on most products, ranging from luxury trunks and leather goods to ready-to-wear, shoes,...
ad campaign in 2006 paid tribute to Hedren and Hitchcock with a modern-day interpretation of the deserted railway station opening sequence of Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
. Her 1963 publicity picture from The Birds was the cover for Jean-Pierre Dufreigne's book Hitchcock Style (2004). In interviews, Naomi Watts
Naomi Watts
Naomi Ellen Watts is a British actress. Watts began her career in Australian television, where she appeared in series such as Hey Dad..! , Brides of Christ , and Home and Away . Her film debut was the 1986 drama For Love Alone...
has stated that her character interpretation in Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive (film)
Mulholland Drive is a 2001 American neo-noir psychological thriller written and directed by David Lynch, starring Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, and Laura Harring. The surrealist film was highly acclaimed by many critics and earned Lynch the Prix de la mise en scène at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival...
(2001) was influenced by the look and performances of Hedren and Kim Novak
Kim Novak
Kim Novak is an American film and television actress. She began her career with her roles in Pushover and Phffft! but achieved greater prominence in the 1955 film Picnic...
in Hitchcock films. Watts and Hedren later acted in I Heart Huckabees (2004) but didn't share any scenes together onscreen. Off-screen, the film's director David O. Russell
David O. Russell
David Owen Russell is an American film director and screenwriter. He has been praised for the loose, comic energy that characterizes his work, and is notorious for his explosive confrontations with cast members.-Early life:...
introduced them both, and Watts has said about Hedren, "I was pretty fascinated by her then because people have often said that we're alike." Watts was once expected to star in a remake of The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
(1963) and has dressed up as Hedren's title character from Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
for a photo shoot for March 2008 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. In the same issue, Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
dressed up as Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels from The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
(1963).
In another issue of Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
, the magazine referred to January Jones
January Jones
January Kristen Jones is an American actress. She is best known for playing Betty Draper on Mad Men.-Early life:...
's character in Mad Men
Mad Men
Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each...
as "Tippi Hedren's soul sister from Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
". The New York Times television critic earlier had echoed the same sentiment in his review of Mad Men
Mad Men
Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each...
. January Jones said that she "takes it a compliment of sorts" when compared to Grace Kelly and Hedren. Actress Tea Leoni
Téa Leoni
Elizabeth Téa Pantaleoni , better known by her stage name Téa Leoni, is an American actress. She has starred in a wide range of films including Jurassic Park III, The Family Man, Deep Impact, Fun with Dick and Jane, Spanglish, Bad Boys, and Ghost Town.-Early life:Leoni was born in New York City...
said that her character in the film Manure (2009) is made up to look like Hedren.
Shambala Preserve
Roar (film)
Roar is a film starring Tippi Hedren and Noel Marshall. In addition to starring in the film, Marshall also directed and wrote the film, producing it entirely with his then-wife, Tippi. Tippi's real-life daughter Melanie Griffith plays her on-screen daughter, also named Melanie...
, an 11-year project that ended up costing $17 million and starring dozens of African lions. "This was probably one of the most dangerous films that Hollywood has ever seen", remarked the actress. "It's amazing no one was killed." During the production of Roar, Hedren, her husband at the time, Noel Marshall
Noel Marshall
Noel Marshall was an agent in Hollywood, California in the 1960s. He later became the executive producer of the 1973 horror film The Exorcist...
, and daughter Melanie were attacked by lions; Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan...
, the director of photography, was scalped. She later co-wrote the book Cats of Shambala (1985) about the experience. Roar made only $2 million worldwide. Hedren ended her marriage to Marshall a year later in 1982. The film directly led to the 1983 establishment of the non-profit Roar Foundation and Hedren's Shambala Preserve
Shambala Preserve
Shambala Preserve is a wild animal preserve established in 1972 and located in Acton, California, a desert community 10 miles southwest of Palmdale, off of State Route 14 and Sierra Highway.-About:...
, located at the edge of the Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
in Acton, California
Acton, California
Acton was founded in 1887 by gold miners who were working in the Red Rover Mine. It was named after Acton, Massachusetts by one of the miners. Two of the best-known gold mines located in Acton were the Red Rover mine and the Governors mine. Mining of gold, copper, and titanium ore continued into...
between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley
Santa Clarita Valley
The Santa Clarita Valley is the valley of the Santa Clara River in Southern California. It stretches through Los Angeles County and Ventura County. Its main population center is the city of Santa Clarita. The valley was part of the Rancho San Francisco Mexican land grant...
40 miles (64.4 km) northeast of Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. Shambala currently houses some 70 animals, including African lions, Siberian and Bengal tiger
Bengal Tiger
The Bengal tiger is a tiger subspecies native to the Indian subcontinent that in 2010 has been classified as endangered by IUCN...
s, leopard
Leopard
The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...
s, serval
Serval
The serval , Leptailurus serval or Caracal serval, known in Afrikaans as Tierboskat, "tiger-forest-cat", is a medium-sized African wild cat. DNA studies have shown that the serval is closely related to the African golden cat and the caracal...
s, mountain lions and bobcat
Bobcat
The bobcat is a North American mammal of the cat family Felidae, appearing during the Irvingtonian stage of around 1.8 million years ago . With twelve recognized subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to northern Mexico, including most of the continental United States...
s. Hedren lives on the Shambala site and conducts monthly tours of the preserve for the public. Hedren took in and cared for Togar, a lion that belonged to Anton LaVey
Anton LaVey
Anton Szandor LaVey , born Howard Stanton Levey, was the founder of the Church of Satan as well as a writer, occultist, and musician...
, after he was told by San Francisco officials that he couldn't keep a fully grown lion as a house pet. More recently, Shambala became the new home for Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
’s two Bengal tigers, Sabu and Thriller, after he decided to close his zoo at his Neverland Valley Ranch in Los Olivos, California
Los Olivos, California
Los Olivos is a census-designated place in Santa Barbara County, California. The ZIP Code is 93441, and the community is inside area code 805...
. On December 3, 2007, Shambala Preserve made headlines when Chris Orr, a caretaker for the animals, was mauled by a tiger named Alexander.
Several documentaries have focused on Shambala Preserve, including the 30-minute Lions: Kings of the Serengeti (1995), narrated by Melanie Griffith, and Animal Planet
Animal Planet
Animal Planet is an American cable tv specialty channel that launched on October 1, 1996. It is distributed by Discovery Communications. A high-definition simulcast of the channel launched on September 1, 2007.-History:...
's Life with Big Cats (1998), which won the Genesis Award for best documentary in 1999. The animals at the preserve served as the initial inspiration for the life's work of artist A. E. London
A. E. London
Anne E. London is an American artist and conservationist. Her art was greatly affected by a trip to a refuge for retired media animals, after which she started to focus on doing dramatic pieces that provide emotive portraits of wild animals, especially endangered species...
, who started her career working for Hedren.
Personal life
Hedren met and married actor/producer Peter GriffithPeter Griffith
Peter Atwill Griffith was an American film actor.-Life and career:Griffith was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Hilda and Ben E. Griffith. He had two sisters, Jennifer and Jessica Griffith. Griffith was a veteran in the U.S. Army serving in the Korean War...
in 1952. Their daughter, actress Melanie Griffith
Melanie Griffith
Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. She is an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance in the 1988 film Working Girl...
, was born on August 9, 1957. They were divorced in 1961. She married her then-agent Noel Marshall
Noel Marshall
Noel Marshall was an agent in Hollywood, California in the 1960s. He later became the executive producer of the 1973 horror film The Exorcist...
, who later produced three of her films, in 1964; they divorced in 1982. She married businessman Luis Barrenechea in 1985 and divorced in 1995.
Hedren has three grandchildren from daughter Griffith: musician Alexander Bauer, actress and model Dakota Johnson
Dakota Johnson
Dakota Mayi Johnson is an American fashion model and actress. She is the daughter of actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith and the granddaughter of actress Tippi Hedren.-Career:...
and Stella Banderas. Her current son-in-law is actor Antonio Banderas
Antonio Banderas
José Antonio Domínguez Banderas , better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer...
.
In a Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
article and featured on a CBC news story, Hedren was described as being a pivotal figure in the modern development of Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
ese owned-nail salons in the United States and later spread rapidly along the East and to Canada. Drawn to the plight of refugees from the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, she began visiting a tent city at Hope Village, and in 1975, helped Vietnamese immigrants, primarily female, by having her manicurist
Manicure
A manicure is a cosmetic beauty treatment for the fingernails and hands performed at home or in a nail salon. A manicure treatment is not only a treatment for the natural nails but also for the hands. A manicure consists of filing, shaping of the free edge, treatments, massage of the hand and the...
teach them the skills of the trade and working with a local beauty school to help them find jobs. In Canada, the nail parlour industry is now dominated by Vietnamese immigrants and refugees.
Filmography
Nathalie Kay "Tippi" Hedren (born January 19, 1930) is an AmericanPeople of the United States
The people of the United States, also known as simply Americans or American people, are the inhabitants or citizens of the United States. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
actress and former fashion model with a career spanning six decades. She is primarily known for her roles in two Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
films, The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
and Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
, and her extensive efforts in animal rescue at Shambala Preserve
Shambala Preserve
Shambala Preserve is a wild animal preserve established in 1972 and located in Acton, California, a desert community 10 miles southwest of Palmdale, off of State Route 14 and Sierra Highway.-About:...
, an 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) wildlife habitat which she founded in 1983.
Hedren is the mother of Academy Award nominee Melanie Griffith
Melanie Griffith
Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. She is an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance in the 1988 film Working Girl...
, and they share credits on several productions, notably Pacific Heights
Pacific Heights (1990 film)
Pacific Heights is a 1990 thriller film directed by John Schlesinger and starring Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine, and Michael Keaton. Griffith's real-life mother Tippi Hedren has a cameo as a rich older woman who is conned by Keaton's character. The original music score was composed by Hans...
(1990).
Early life
Hedren was born in New Ulm, MinnesotaNew Ulm, Minnesota
New Ulm is a city in Brown County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 13,522 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Brown County....
in 1930 to Dorothea Henrietta (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Eckhardt) and Bernard Carl Hedren. Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, and her maternal ancestry was German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
and Norwegian
Norwegians
Norwegians constitute both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway. They share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language. Norwegian people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in United States, Canada and Brazil.-History:Towards the end of the 3rd...
. Her father ran a small general store in the small town of Lafayette, Minnesota
Lafayette, Minnesota
Lafayette is a city in Nicollet County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 504 at the 2010 census. It is a small farming community just outside of the larger town of New Ulm, Minnesota....
and gave her the nickname "Tippi." "My father thought Nathalie was a little bit much for a brand new baby," Hedren explained at a 2004 screening of The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
.
As a teenager, Hedren took part in department store fashion shows. Her parents relocated to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
while she was still a high school student. When she reached her 18th birthday, she bought a ticket to New York and began a professional modeling career. Within a year she made her film debut (minus dialogue) as a Petty Girl model in The Petty Girl
The Petty Girl
The Petty Girl is a musical romantic comedy film starring Robert Cummings and Joan Caulfield. Cummings portrays painter George Petty.-Plot:...
(1950) musical comedy, although in interviews she refers to The Birds (1963) as her first film.
Career
Hedren had a successful modeling career in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing on covers of national magazines, such as LifeLife (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine. She was discovered by Hitchcock, who was watching The Today Show when he saw Hedren in a commercial for Sego, a diet drink. Hitchcock was looking for an actress who possessed something of the sophistication, self-assurance and cool-blonde sex appeal of Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...
, with whom he had made three films. Hedren, expensively groomed and mentored by Hitchcock, appeared in his films The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
and Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
. At the time of the films' releases, she was criticized for being too passive in The Birds and too expressive in Marnie. It took years before she received respect for her work in both films from American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
film critics.
At a packed house in Lancaster, California
Lancaster, California
Lancaster is a charter city in northern Los Angeles County, in the high desert, near the Kern County line. Lancaster currently ranks as the 30th largest city in California, and the 148th largest city in the United States. Lancaster is the principal city within the Antelope Valley...
's Antelope Valley
Antelope Valley
The Antelope Valley in California, United States, is located in northern Los Angeles County and the southeastern portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert...
Independent Film Festival Cinema Series screening of The Birds on September 28, 2004, Hedren recalled how she was mysteriously selected for a lead role: "I said, 'Well, who is this person? Who is interested?'... Nobody would tell me who it was." (It was Alfred Hitchcock, who soon announced his choice of Hedren.)
Hitchcock put Hedren through a then-costly $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
25,000 screen test, doing scenes from his previous films, such as Rebecca, Notorious and To Catch a Thief
To Catch a Thief
To Catch a Thief is a 1952 thriller novel by David Dodge. John Robie is a retired American jewel thief, formerly known as Le Chat , who now spends his time tending to the rose garden in his villa on the Côte d'Azur. Following a series of recent jewel robberies on the Riviera that resemble his...
with actor Martin Balsam
Martin Balsam
Martin Henry Balsam was an American actor. He is known for his Oscar-winning role as "Arnold Burns" in A Thousand Clowns and his role as "Detective Milton Arbogast" in Psycho.- Early life :...
. He signed her to a multi-year exclusive personal contract, something he had done in the 1950s with Vera Miles
Vera Miles
Vera Miles is an American film actress who gained popularity for starring in films such as The Searchers, The Wrong Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Psycho and Psycho II.-Early life:...
. Hitchcock's plan to mold Hedren's public image went so far as to carefully control her style of dressing and grooming. Hitchcock insisted for publicity purposes that her name should be printed only in single quotes, "Tippi". The press mostly ignored this directive from the director, who felt that the single quotes added distinction and mystery to Hedren's name. In interviews, Hitchcock compared his newcomer not only to her predecessor Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...
but also to what he referred to as such "ladylike", intelligent, and stylish stars of more glamorous eras as Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
and Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur was an American actress and a major film star of the 1930s and 1940s. She remains arguably the epitome of the female screwball comedy actress. As James Harvey wrote in his recounting of the era, "No one was more closely identified with the screwball comedy than Jean Arthur...
. Later, Hedren indicated that she didn't want to be known as the next Grace Kelly but rather as the first Tippi Hedren.
Her appearance in The Birds brought a wealth of publicity. In a December 1962 Look
Look (American magazine)
Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...
magazine cover story "Hitchcock's New Grace Kelly", Alfred Hitchcock compared her to his star of To Catch a Thief and Rear Window
Rear Window
Rear Window is a 1954 American suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by John Michael Hayes and based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder"...
, saying, "'Tippi' has a faster tempo, city glibness, more humor. She displayed jaunty assuredness, pertness, an attractive throw of the head. And she memorized and read lines extraordinarily well and is sharper in expression."
Hedren said of Hitchcock, "He is subtle as a psychiatrist and never gives displaced encouragement." With the release of the film, she got a very tepid reception, the only exceptions being critic Bob Thomas ("Miss Hedren makes an impressive debut") and Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
("pleasant and ladylike, as Grace Kelly was.") Years after the film's release, she remembered the location work at Bodega Bay
Bodega Bay, California
Bodega Bay is a town and census-designated place in Sonoma County, California, United States. The population was 1,077 at the 2010 census. The town is on the eastern side of Bodega Harbor, an inlet of Bodega Bay on the Pacific coast....
as dangerous and taxing, commenting, "For a first film, it was a lot of work."
For the final attack scene in a second-floor bedroom, filmed on a closed set at Universal-International Studios, Hedren had been assured by Hitchcock that mechanical birds would be used. 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). Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
visited the set and told Hedren, "I think you're the bravest lady I've ever met." 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. A physician ordered a week's rest, which Hedren said at the time was riddled with "nightmares filled with flapping wings". The Birds brought her a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer.
Premiere
Premiere (magazine)
Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...
magazine chose Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels in The Birds as one of "The 100 Greatest Characters of All Time". Marnie (1964), a psychological thriller
Psychological thriller
Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the broad ranged thriller with heavy focus on characters. However, it often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre, along with the typical traits of the thriller genre...
from the novel by Winston Graham
Winston Graham
Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE was an English novelist, best known for the The Poldark Novel series of historical fiction.-Biography:...
, was Hedren's second Hitchcock assignment, co-starring with Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
. She recalls Marnie as the favorite of her two films for Hitchcock because of the central character, an emotionally battered young woman who travels from city to city assuming various guises in order to rob her employers. On release, the film was greeted by mixed reviews and indifferent box-office returns. Although Hitchcock continued to have Hedren in mind for several other films after Marnie, the actress declined any further work with him. Other directors who wanted to hire her had to go through Hitchcock, who would inform them she was unavailable. "It grew to be impossible. He was a very controlling type of person, and I guess I'm not about to be controlled", said Hedren. When Hedren tried to get out of her contract, she recalls Hitchcock telling her he'd ruin her career. "And he did: kept me under contract, kept paying me every week for almost two years to do nothing."
By the time Hitchcock sold her contract to Universal and she was fired for refusing work on one of its television shows, Hedren's career had stalled.
On April 13, 2011, at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY, Hedren stated in an interview with Turner Classic Movies' Ben Mankiewicz, prior to a screening of The Birds, that because she refused Hitchcock’s sexual advances, Hitchcock effectively stunted her career.
Charles Chaplin cast her as the sophisticated, brittle, cheated-upon wife of Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
in his shipboard comedy A Countess from Hong Kong
A Countess from Hong Kong
A Countess from Hong Kong is a 1967 British comedy film and the last film directed by Charlie Chaplin. It was one of two films Chaplin directed in which he did not play a major role , and his only color film. Chaplin's cameo marked his final screen appearance...
(1967). She made more than 40 films between 1967 and 2006, including Pacific Heights
Pacific Heights (1990 film)
Pacific Heights is a 1990 thriller film directed by John Schlesinger and starring Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine, and Michael Keaton. Griffith's real-life mother Tippi Hedren has a cameo as a rich older woman who is conned by Keaton's character. The original music score was composed by Hans...
, Citizen Ruth
Citizen Ruth
Citizen Ruth is a 1996 film that tells a story of a poor, irresponsible and pregnant woman who unexpectedly attracts attention from those involved in the debate about the morality and legality of abortion. The film stars Laura Dern, Swoosie Kurtz, Mary Kay Place, Kurtwood Smith and Kelly Preston,...
and I Heart Huckabees. More recently, she has appeared in episodes of The 4400
The 4400
The 4400 is a science fiction TV series produced by CBS Paramount Network Television in association with Sky Television, Renegade 83, and American Zoetrope for USA Network. The show was created and written by Scott Peters and René Echevarria, and it stars Joel Gretsch and Jacqueline McKenzie...
in 2006 and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
in 2006. She was a cast member of the night-time soap opera Fashion House
Fashion House
Fashion House is an American telenovela that aired at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT Monday through Saturday on MyNetworkTV stations. The series premiered on September 5, 2006 and concluded on December 5, 2006...
in 2006. Hedren has also appeared in many independent films. In 2009, she co-starred with actress Brittany Murphy
Brittany Murphy
Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack , known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress and singer. She starred in films such as Clueless, Just Married, Girl Interrupted, Spun, 8 Mile, Uptown Girls, Sin City, Happy Feet, and Riding in Cars with Boys...
in the made-for-television movie Tribute
Tribute (2009 film)
Tribute, also known as Nora Roberts' Tribute, is a 2009 made-for-tv movie directed by Martha Coolidge, which stars Brittany Murphy and Jason Lewis. The film is based on the Nora Roberts novel of the same name. And is part of the Nora Roberts 2009 movie collection, which also includes; Northern...
.
Along with Kim Novak
Kim Novak
Kim Novak is an American film and television actress. She began her career with her roles in Pushover and Phffft! but achieved greater prominence in the 1955 film Picnic...
, Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint is an American actress who has starred in films, on Broadway, and on television in a career spanning seven decades. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama film On the Waterfront , and later starred in the thriller film North by...
and Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....
, she will participate to the Motion Picture Academy Tribute to the “Hitchcock Blondes” (2011).
Influence
A Louis VuittonLouis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton Malletier – commonly referred to as Louis Vuitton , or shortened to LV – is a French fashion house founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label is well known for its LV monogram, which is featured on most products, ranging from luxury trunks and leather goods to ready-to-wear, shoes,...
ad campaign in 2006 paid tribute to Hedren and Hitchcock with a modern-day interpretation of the deserted railway station opening sequence of Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
. Her 1963 publicity picture from The Birds was the cover for Jean-Pierre Dufreigne's book Hitchcock Style (2004). In interviews, Naomi Watts
Naomi Watts
Naomi Ellen Watts is a British actress. Watts began her career in Australian television, where she appeared in series such as Hey Dad..! , Brides of Christ , and Home and Away . Her film debut was the 1986 drama For Love Alone...
has stated that her character interpretation in Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive (film)
Mulholland Drive is a 2001 American neo-noir psychological thriller written and directed by David Lynch, starring Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, and Laura Harring. The surrealist film was highly acclaimed by many critics and earned Lynch the Prix de la mise en scène at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival...
(2001) was influenced by the look and performances of Hedren and Kim Novak
Kim Novak
Kim Novak is an American film and television actress. She began her career with her roles in Pushover and Phffft! but achieved greater prominence in the 1955 film Picnic...
in Hitchcock films. Watts and Hedren later acted in I Heart Huckabees (2004) but didn't share any scenes together onscreen. Off-screen, the film's director David O. Russell
David O. Russell
David Owen Russell is an American film director and screenwriter. He has been praised for the loose, comic energy that characterizes his work, and is notorious for his explosive confrontations with cast members.-Early life:...
introduced them both, and Watts has said about Hedren, "I was pretty fascinated by her then because people have often said that we're alike." Watts was once expected to star in a remake of The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
(1963) and has dressed up as Hedren's title character from Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
for a photo shoot for March 2008 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. In the same issue, Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
dressed up as Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels from The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
(1963).
In another issue of Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
, the magazine referred to January Jones
January Jones
January Kristen Jones is an American actress. She is best known for playing Betty Draper on Mad Men.-Early life:...
's character in Mad Men
Mad Men
Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each...
as "Tippi Hedren's soul sister from Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
". The New York Times television critic earlier had echoed the same sentiment in his review of Mad Men
Mad Men
Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each...
. January Jones said that she "takes it a compliment of sorts" when compared to Grace Kelly and Hedren. Actress Tea Leoni
Téa Leoni
Elizabeth Téa Pantaleoni , better known by her stage name Téa Leoni, is an American actress. She has starred in a wide range of films including Jurassic Park III, The Family Man, Deep Impact, Fun with Dick and Jane, Spanglish, Bad Boys, and Ghost Town.-Early life:Leoni was born in New York City...
said that her character in the film Manure (2009) is made up to look like Hedren.
Shambala Preserve
Roar (film)
Roar is a film starring Tippi Hedren and Noel Marshall. In addition to starring in the film, Marshall also directed and wrote the film, producing it entirely with his then-wife, Tippi. Tippi's real-life daughter Melanie Griffith plays her on-screen daughter, also named Melanie...
, an 11-year project that ended up costing $17 million and starring dozens of African lions. "This was probably one of the most dangerous films that Hollywood has ever seen", remarked the actress. "It's amazing no one was killed." During the production of Roar, Hedren, her husband at the time, Noel Marshall
Noel Marshall
Noel Marshall was an agent in Hollywood, California in the 1960s. He later became the executive producer of the 1973 horror film The Exorcist...
, and daughter Melanie were attacked by lions; Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan...
, the director of photography, was scalped. She later co-wrote the book Cats of Shambala (1985) about the experience. Roar made only $2 million worldwide. Hedren ended her marriage to Marshall a year later in 1982. The film directly led to the 1983 establishment of the non-profit Roar Foundation and Hedren's Shambala Preserve
Shambala Preserve
Shambala Preserve is a wild animal preserve established in 1972 and located in Acton, California, a desert community 10 miles southwest of Palmdale, off of State Route 14 and Sierra Highway.-About:...
, located at the edge of the Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
in Acton, California
Acton, California
Acton was founded in 1887 by gold miners who were working in the Red Rover Mine. It was named after Acton, Massachusetts by one of the miners. Two of the best-known gold mines located in Acton were the Red Rover mine and the Governors mine. Mining of gold, copper, and titanium ore continued into...
between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley
Santa Clarita Valley
The Santa Clarita Valley is the valley of the Santa Clara River in Southern California. It stretches through Los Angeles County and Ventura County. Its main population center is the city of Santa Clarita. The valley was part of the Rancho San Francisco Mexican land grant...
40 miles (64.4 km) northeast of Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. Shambala currently houses some 70 animals, including African lions, Siberian and Bengal tiger
Bengal Tiger
The Bengal tiger is a tiger subspecies native to the Indian subcontinent that in 2010 has been classified as endangered by IUCN...
s, leopard
Leopard
The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...
s, serval
Serval
The serval , Leptailurus serval or Caracal serval, known in Afrikaans as Tierboskat, "tiger-forest-cat", is a medium-sized African wild cat. DNA studies have shown that the serval is closely related to the African golden cat and the caracal...
s, mountain lions and bobcat
Bobcat
The bobcat is a North American mammal of the cat family Felidae, appearing during the Irvingtonian stage of around 1.8 million years ago . With twelve recognized subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to northern Mexico, including most of the continental United States...
s. Hedren lives on the Shambala site and conducts monthly tours of the preserve for the public. Hedren took in and cared for Togar, a lion that belonged to Anton LaVey
Anton LaVey
Anton Szandor LaVey , born Howard Stanton Levey, was the founder of the Church of Satan as well as a writer, occultist, and musician...
, after he was told by San Francisco officials that he couldn't keep a fully grown lion as a house pet. More recently, Shambala became the new home for Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
’s two Bengal tigers, Sabu and Thriller, after he decided to close his zoo at his Neverland Valley Ranch in Los Olivos, California
Los Olivos, California
Los Olivos is a census-designated place in Santa Barbara County, California. The ZIP Code is 93441, and the community is inside area code 805...
. On December 3, 2007, Shambala Preserve made headlines when Chris Orr, a caretaker for the animals, was mauled by a tiger named Alexander.
Several documentaries have focused on Shambala Preserve, including the 30-minute Lions: Kings of the Serengeti (1995), narrated by Melanie Griffith, and Animal Planet
Animal Planet
Animal Planet is an American cable tv specialty channel that launched on October 1, 1996. It is distributed by Discovery Communications. A high-definition simulcast of the channel launched on September 1, 2007.-History:...
's Life with Big Cats (1998), which won the Genesis Award for best documentary in 1999. The animals at the preserve served as the initial inspiration for the life's work of artist A. E. London
A. E. London
Anne E. London is an American artist and conservationist. Her art was greatly affected by a trip to a refuge for retired media animals, after which she started to focus on doing dramatic pieces that provide emotive portraits of wild animals, especially endangered species...
, who started her career working for Hedren.
Personal life
Hedren met and married actor/producer Peter GriffithPeter Griffith
Peter Atwill Griffith was an American film actor.-Life and career:Griffith was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Hilda and Ben E. Griffith. He had two sisters, Jennifer and Jessica Griffith. Griffith was a veteran in the U.S. Army serving in the Korean War...
in 1952. Their daughter, actress Melanie Griffith
Melanie Griffith
Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. She is an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance in the 1988 film Working Girl...
, was born on August 9, 1957. They were divorced in 1961. She married her then-agent Noel Marshall
Noel Marshall
Noel Marshall was an agent in Hollywood, California in the 1960s. He later became the executive producer of the 1973 horror film The Exorcist...
, who later produced three of her films, in 1964; they divorced in 1982. She married businessman Luis Barrenechea in 1985 and divorced in 1995.
Hedren has three grandchildren from daughter Griffith: musician Alexander Bauer, actress and model Dakota Johnson
Dakota Johnson
Dakota Mayi Johnson is an American fashion model and actress. She is the daughter of actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith and the granddaughter of actress Tippi Hedren.-Career:...
and Stella Banderas. Her current son-in-law is actor Antonio Banderas
Antonio Banderas
José Antonio Domínguez Banderas , better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer...
.
In a Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
article and featured on a CBC news story, Hedren was described as being a pivotal figure in the modern development of Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
ese owned-nail salons in the United States and later spread rapidly along the East and to Canada. Drawn to the plight of refugees from the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, she began visiting a tent city at Hope Village, and in 1975, helped Vietnamese immigrants, primarily female, by having her manicurist
Manicure
A manicure is a cosmetic beauty treatment for the fingernails and hands performed at home or in a nail salon. A manicure treatment is not only a treatment for the natural nails but also for the hands. A manicure consists of filing, shaping of the free edge, treatments, massage of the hand and the...
teach them the skills of the trade and working with a local beauty school to help them find jobs. In Canada, the nail parlour industry is now dominated by Vietnamese immigrants and refugees.
Filmography
Nathalie Kay "Tippi" Hedren (born January 19, 1930) is an AmericanPeople of the United States
The people of the United States, also known as simply Americans or American people, are the inhabitants or citizens of the United States. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
actress and former fashion model with a career spanning six decades. She is primarily known for her roles in two Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
films, The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
and Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
, and her extensive efforts in animal rescue at Shambala Preserve
Shambala Preserve
Shambala Preserve is a wild animal preserve established in 1972 and located in Acton, California, a desert community 10 miles southwest of Palmdale, off of State Route 14 and Sierra Highway.-About:...
, an 80 acres (323,748.8 m²) wildlife habitat which she founded in 1983.
Hedren is the mother of Academy Award nominee Melanie Griffith
Melanie Griffith
Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. She is an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance in the 1988 film Working Girl...
, and they share credits on several productions, notably Pacific Heights
Pacific Heights (1990 film)
Pacific Heights is a 1990 thriller film directed by John Schlesinger and starring Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine, and Michael Keaton. Griffith's real-life mother Tippi Hedren has a cameo as a rich older woman who is conned by Keaton's character. The original music score was composed by Hans...
(1990).
Early life
Hedren was born in New Ulm, MinnesotaNew Ulm, Minnesota
New Ulm is a city in Brown County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 13,522 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Brown County....
in 1930 to Dorothea Henrietta (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Eckhardt) and Bernard Carl Hedren. Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, and her maternal ancestry was German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
and Norwegian
Norwegians
Norwegians constitute both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway. They share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language. Norwegian people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in United States, Canada and Brazil.-History:Towards the end of the 3rd...
. Her father ran a small general store in the small town of Lafayette, Minnesota
Lafayette, Minnesota
Lafayette is a city in Nicollet County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 504 at the 2010 census. It is a small farming community just outside of the larger town of New Ulm, Minnesota....
and gave her the nickname "Tippi." "My father thought Nathalie was a little bit much for a brand new baby," Hedren explained at a 2004 screening of The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
.
As a teenager, Hedren took part in department store fashion shows. Her parents relocated to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
while she was still a high school student. When she reached her 18th birthday, she bought a ticket to New York and began a professional modeling career. Within a year she made her film debut (minus dialogue) as a Petty Girl model in The Petty Girl
The Petty Girl
The Petty Girl is a musical romantic comedy film starring Robert Cummings and Joan Caulfield. Cummings portrays painter George Petty.-Plot:...
(1950) musical comedy, although in interviews she refers to The Birds (1963) as her first film.
Career
Hedren had a successful modeling career in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing on covers of national magazines, such as LifeLife (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine. She was discovered by Hitchcock, who was watching The Today Show when he saw Hedren in a commercial for Sego, a diet drink. Hitchcock was looking for an actress who possessed something of the sophistication, self-assurance and cool-blonde sex appeal of Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...
, with whom he had made three films. Hedren, expensively groomed and mentored by Hitchcock, appeared in his films The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
and Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
. At the time of the films' releases, she was criticized for being too passive in The Birds and too expressive in Marnie. It took years before she received respect for her work in both films from American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
film critics.
At a packed house in Lancaster, California
Lancaster, California
Lancaster is a charter city in northern Los Angeles County, in the high desert, near the Kern County line. Lancaster currently ranks as the 30th largest city in California, and the 148th largest city in the United States. Lancaster is the principal city within the Antelope Valley...
's Antelope Valley
Antelope Valley
The Antelope Valley in California, United States, is located in northern Los Angeles County and the southeastern portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert...
Independent Film Festival Cinema Series screening of The Birds on September 28, 2004, Hedren recalled how she was mysteriously selected for a lead role: "I said, 'Well, who is this person? Who is interested?'... Nobody would tell me who it was." (It was Alfred Hitchcock, who soon announced his choice of Hedren.)
Hitchcock put Hedren through a then-costly $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
25,000 screen test, doing scenes from his previous films, such as Rebecca, Notorious and To Catch a Thief
To Catch a Thief
To Catch a Thief is a 1952 thriller novel by David Dodge. John Robie is a retired American jewel thief, formerly known as Le Chat , who now spends his time tending to the rose garden in his villa on the Côte d'Azur. Following a series of recent jewel robberies on the Riviera that resemble his...
with actor Martin Balsam
Martin Balsam
Martin Henry Balsam was an American actor. He is known for his Oscar-winning role as "Arnold Burns" in A Thousand Clowns and his role as "Detective Milton Arbogast" in Psycho.- Early life :...
. He signed her to a multi-year exclusive personal contract, something he had done in the 1950s with Vera Miles
Vera Miles
Vera Miles is an American film actress who gained popularity for starring in films such as The Searchers, The Wrong Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Psycho and Psycho II.-Early life:...
. Hitchcock's plan to mold Hedren's public image went so far as to carefully control her style of dressing and grooming. Hitchcock insisted for publicity purposes that her name should be printed only in single quotes, "Tippi". The press mostly ignored this directive from the director, who felt that the single quotes added distinction and mystery to Hedren's name. In interviews, Hitchcock compared his newcomer not only to her predecessor Grace Kelly
Grace Kelly
Grace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...
but also to what he referred to as such "ladylike", intelligent, and stylish stars of more glamorous eras as Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
and Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur was an American actress and a major film star of the 1930s and 1940s. She remains arguably the epitome of the female screwball comedy actress. As James Harvey wrote in his recounting of the era, "No one was more closely identified with the screwball comedy than Jean Arthur...
. Later, Hedren indicated that she didn't want to be known as the next Grace Kelly but rather as the first Tippi Hedren.
Her appearance in The Birds brought a wealth of publicity. In a December 1962 Look
Look (American magazine)
Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...
magazine cover story "Hitchcock's New Grace Kelly", Alfred Hitchcock compared her to his star of To Catch a Thief and Rear Window
Rear Window
Rear Window is a 1954 American suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by John Michael Hayes and based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder"...
, saying, "'Tippi' has a faster tempo, city glibness, more humor. She displayed jaunty assuredness, pertness, an attractive throw of the head. And she memorized and read lines extraordinarily well and is sharper in expression."
Hedren said of Hitchcock, "He is subtle as a psychiatrist and never gives displaced encouragement." With the release of the film, she got a very tepid reception, the only exceptions being critic Bob Thomas ("Miss Hedren makes an impressive debut") and Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
("pleasant and ladylike, as Grace Kelly was.") Years after the film's release, she remembered the location work at Bodega Bay
Bodega Bay, California
Bodega Bay is a town and census-designated place in Sonoma County, California, United States. The population was 1,077 at the 2010 census. The town is on the eastern side of Bodega Harbor, an inlet of Bodega Bay on the Pacific coast....
as dangerous and taxing, commenting, "For a first film, it was a lot of work."
For the final attack scene in a second-floor bedroom, filmed on a closed set at Universal-International Studios, Hedren had been assured by Hitchcock that mechanical birds would be used. 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). Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
visited the set and told Hedren, "I think you're the bravest lady I've ever met." 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. A physician ordered a week's rest, which Hedren said at the time was riddled with "nightmares filled with flapping wings". The Birds brought her a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer.
Premiere
Premiere (magazine)
Premiere was an American and New York City-based film magazine published by Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., published between the years 1987 and 2007. The original version of the magazine, Première , was started in France in 1976 and is still being published there.-History:The magazine originally...
magazine chose Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels in The Birds as one of "The 100 Greatest Characters of All Time". Marnie (1964), a psychological thriller
Psychological thriller
Psychological thriller is a specific sub-genre of the broad ranged thriller with heavy focus on characters. However, it often incorporates elements from the mystery and drama genre, along with the typical traits of the thriller genre...
from the novel by Winston Graham
Winston Graham
Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE was an English novelist, best known for the The Poldark Novel series of historical fiction.-Biography:...
, was Hedren's second Hitchcock assignment, co-starring with Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
. She recalls Marnie as the favorite of her two films for Hitchcock because of the central character, an emotionally battered young woman who travels from city to city assuming various guises in order to rob her employers. On release, the film was greeted by mixed reviews and indifferent box-office returns. Although Hitchcock continued to have Hedren in mind for several other films after Marnie, the actress declined any further work with him. Other directors who wanted to hire her had to go through Hitchcock, who would inform them she was unavailable. "It grew to be impossible. He was a very controlling type of person, and I guess I'm not about to be controlled", said Hedren. When Hedren tried to get out of her contract, she recalls Hitchcock telling her he'd ruin her career. "And he did: kept me under contract, kept paying me every week for almost two years to do nothing."
By the time Hitchcock sold her contract to Universal and she was fired for refusing work on one of its television shows, Hedren's career had stalled.
On April 13, 2011, at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY, Hedren stated in an interview with Turner Classic Movies' Ben Mankiewicz, prior to a screening of The Birds, that because she refused Hitchcock’s sexual advances, Hitchcock effectively stunted her career.
Charles Chaplin cast her as the sophisticated, brittle, cheated-upon wife of Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
in his shipboard comedy A Countess from Hong Kong
A Countess from Hong Kong
A Countess from Hong Kong is a 1967 British comedy film and the last film directed by Charlie Chaplin. It was one of two films Chaplin directed in which he did not play a major role , and his only color film. Chaplin's cameo marked his final screen appearance...
(1967). She made more than 40 films between 1967 and 2006, including Pacific Heights
Pacific Heights (1990 film)
Pacific Heights is a 1990 thriller film directed by John Schlesinger and starring Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine, and Michael Keaton. Griffith's real-life mother Tippi Hedren has a cameo as a rich older woman who is conned by Keaton's character. The original music score was composed by Hans...
, Citizen Ruth
Citizen Ruth
Citizen Ruth is a 1996 film that tells a story of a poor, irresponsible and pregnant woman who unexpectedly attracts attention from those involved in the debate about the morality and legality of abortion. The film stars Laura Dern, Swoosie Kurtz, Mary Kay Place, Kurtwood Smith and Kelly Preston,...
and I Heart Huckabees. More recently, she has appeared in episodes of The 4400
The 4400
The 4400 is a science fiction TV series produced by CBS Paramount Network Television in association with Sky Television, Renegade 83, and American Zoetrope for USA Network. The show was created and written by Scott Peters and René Echevarria, and it stars Joel Gretsch and Jacqueline McKenzie...
in 2006 and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
in 2006. She was a cast member of the night-time soap opera Fashion House
Fashion House
Fashion House is an American telenovela that aired at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT Monday through Saturday on MyNetworkTV stations. The series premiered on September 5, 2006 and concluded on December 5, 2006...
in 2006. Hedren has also appeared in many independent films. In 2009, she co-starred with actress Brittany Murphy
Brittany Murphy
Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack , known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress and singer. She starred in films such as Clueless, Just Married, Girl Interrupted, Spun, 8 Mile, Uptown Girls, Sin City, Happy Feet, and Riding in Cars with Boys...
in the made-for-television movie Tribute
Tribute (2009 film)
Tribute, also known as Nora Roberts' Tribute, is a 2009 made-for-tv movie directed by Martha Coolidge, which stars Brittany Murphy and Jason Lewis. The film is based on the Nora Roberts novel of the same name. And is part of the Nora Roberts 2009 movie collection, which also includes; Northern...
.
Along with Kim Novak
Kim Novak
Kim Novak is an American film and television actress. She began her career with her roles in Pushover and Phffft! but achieved greater prominence in the 1955 film Picnic...
, Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint
Eva Marie Saint is an American actress who has starred in films, on Broadway, and on television in a career spanning seven decades. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the drama film On the Waterfront , and later starred in the thriller film North by...
and Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland , known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is a British American actress. She and her elder sister Olivia de Havilland are two of the last surviving leading ladies from Hollywood of the 1930s....
, she will participate to the Motion Picture Academy Tribute to the “Hitchcock Blondes” (2011).
Influence
A Louis VuittonLouis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton Malletier – commonly referred to as Louis Vuitton , or shortened to LV – is a French fashion house founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label is well known for its LV monogram, which is featured on most products, ranging from luxury trunks and leather goods to ready-to-wear, shoes,...
ad campaign in 2006 paid tribute to Hedren and Hitchcock with a modern-day interpretation of the deserted railway station opening sequence of Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
. Her 1963 publicity picture from The Birds was the cover for Jean-Pierre Dufreigne's book Hitchcock Style (2004). In interviews, Naomi Watts
Naomi Watts
Naomi Ellen Watts is a British actress. Watts began her career in Australian television, where she appeared in series such as Hey Dad..! , Brides of Christ , and Home and Away . Her film debut was the 1986 drama For Love Alone...
has stated that her character interpretation in Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive (film)
Mulholland Drive is a 2001 American neo-noir psychological thriller written and directed by David Lynch, starring Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, and Laura Harring. The surrealist film was highly acclaimed by many critics and earned Lynch the Prix de la mise en scène at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival...
(2001) was influenced by the look and performances of Hedren and Kim Novak
Kim Novak
Kim Novak is an American film and television actress. She began her career with her roles in Pushover and Phffft! but achieved greater prominence in the 1955 film Picnic...
in Hitchcock films. Watts and Hedren later acted in I Heart Huckabees (2004) but didn't share any scenes together onscreen. Off-screen, the film's director David O. Russell
David O. Russell
David Owen Russell is an American film director and screenwriter. He has been praised for the loose, comic energy that characterizes his work, and is notorious for his explosive confrontations with cast members.-Early life:...
introduced them both, and Watts has said about Hedren, "I was pretty fascinated by her then because people have often said that we're alike." Watts was once expected to star in a remake of The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
(1963) and has dressed up as Hedren's title character from Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
for a photo shoot for March 2008 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. In the same issue, Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
dressed up as Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels from The Birds
The Birds (film)
The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
(1963).
In another issue of Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
, the magazine referred to January Jones
January Jones
January Kristen Jones is an American actress. She is best known for playing Betty Draper on Mad Men.-Early life:...
's character in Mad Men
Mad Men
Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each...
as "Tippi Hedren's soul sister from Marnie
Marnie (film)
Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:...
". The New York Times television critic earlier had echoed the same sentiment in his review of Mad Men
Mad Men
Mad Men is an American dramatic television series created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on Sunday evenings on the American cable network AMC and are produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its fourth season on October 17, 2010. Each...
. January Jones said that she "takes it a compliment of sorts" when compared to Grace Kelly and Hedren. Actress Tea Leoni
Téa Leoni
Elizabeth Téa Pantaleoni , better known by her stage name Téa Leoni, is an American actress. She has starred in a wide range of films including Jurassic Park III, The Family Man, Deep Impact, Fun with Dick and Jane, Spanglish, Bad Boys, and Ghost Town.-Early life:Leoni was born in New York City...
said that her character in the film Manure (2009) is made up to look like Hedren.
Shambala Preserve
Roar (film)
Roar is a film starring Tippi Hedren and Noel Marshall. In addition to starring in the film, Marshall also directed and wrote the film, producing it entirely with his then-wife, Tippi. Tippi's real-life daughter Melanie Griffith plays her on-screen daughter, also named Melanie...
, an 11-year project that ended up costing $17 million and starring dozens of African lions. "This was probably one of the most dangerous films that Hollywood has ever seen", remarked the actress. "It's amazing no one was killed." During the production of Roar, Hedren, her husband at the time, Noel Marshall
Noel Marshall
Noel Marshall was an agent in Hollywood, California in the 1960s. He later became the executive producer of the 1973 horror film The Exorcist...
, and daughter Melanie were attacked by lions; Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan...
, the director of photography, was scalped. She later co-wrote the book Cats of Shambala (1985) about the experience. Roar made only $2 million worldwide. Hedren ended her marriage to Marshall a year later in 1982. The film directly led to the 1983 establishment of the non-profit Roar Foundation and Hedren's Shambala Preserve
Shambala Preserve
Shambala Preserve is a wild animal preserve established in 1972 and located in Acton, California, a desert community 10 miles southwest of Palmdale, off of State Route 14 and Sierra Highway.-About:...
, located at the edge of the Mojave Desert
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...
in Acton, California
Acton, California
Acton was founded in 1887 by gold miners who were working in the Red Rover Mine. It was named after Acton, Massachusetts by one of the miners. Two of the best-known gold mines located in Acton were the Red Rover mine and the Governors mine. Mining of gold, copper, and titanium ore continued into...
between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley
Santa Clarita Valley
The Santa Clarita Valley is the valley of the Santa Clara River in Southern California. It stretches through Los Angeles County and Ventura County. Its main population center is the city of Santa Clarita. The valley was part of the Rancho San Francisco Mexican land grant...
40 miles (64.4 km) northeast of Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. Shambala currently houses some 70 animals, including African lions, Siberian and Bengal tiger
Bengal Tiger
The Bengal tiger is a tiger subspecies native to the Indian subcontinent that in 2010 has been classified as endangered by IUCN...
s, leopard
Leopard
The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...
s, serval
Serval
The serval , Leptailurus serval or Caracal serval, known in Afrikaans as Tierboskat, "tiger-forest-cat", is a medium-sized African wild cat. DNA studies have shown that the serval is closely related to the African golden cat and the caracal...
s, mountain lions and bobcat
Bobcat
The bobcat is a North American mammal of the cat family Felidae, appearing during the Irvingtonian stage of around 1.8 million years ago . With twelve recognized subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to northern Mexico, including most of the continental United States...
s. Hedren lives on the Shambala site and conducts monthly tours of the preserve for the public. Hedren took in and cared for Togar, a lion that belonged to Anton LaVey
Anton LaVey
Anton Szandor LaVey , born Howard Stanton Levey, was the founder of the Church of Satan as well as a writer, occultist, and musician...
, after he was told by San Francisco officials that he couldn't keep a fully grown lion as a house pet. More recently, Shambala became the new home for Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
’s two Bengal tigers, Sabu and Thriller, after he decided to close his zoo at his Neverland Valley Ranch in Los Olivos, California
Los Olivos, California
Los Olivos is a census-designated place in Santa Barbara County, California. The ZIP Code is 93441, and the community is inside area code 805...
. On December 3, 2007, Shambala Preserve made headlines when Chris Orr, a caretaker for the animals, was mauled by a tiger named Alexander.
Several documentaries have focused on Shambala Preserve, including the 30-minute Lions: Kings of the Serengeti (1995), narrated by Melanie Griffith, and Animal Planet
Animal Planet
Animal Planet is an American cable tv specialty channel that launched on October 1, 1996. It is distributed by Discovery Communications. A high-definition simulcast of the channel launched on September 1, 2007.-History:...
's Life with Big Cats (1998), which won the Genesis Award for best documentary in 1999. The animals at the preserve served as the initial inspiration for the life's work of artist A. E. London
A. E. London
Anne E. London is an American artist and conservationist. Her art was greatly affected by a trip to a refuge for retired media animals, after which she started to focus on doing dramatic pieces that provide emotive portraits of wild animals, especially endangered species...
, who started her career working for Hedren.
Personal life
Hedren met and married actor/producer Peter GriffithPeter Griffith
Peter Atwill Griffith was an American film actor.-Life and career:Griffith was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Hilda and Ben E. Griffith. He had two sisters, Jennifer and Jessica Griffith. Griffith was a veteran in the U.S. Army serving in the Korean War...
in 1952. Their daughter, actress Melanie Griffith
Melanie Griffith
Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. She is an Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance in the 1988 film Working Girl...
, was born on August 9, 1957. They were divorced in 1961. She married her then-agent Noel Marshall
Noel Marshall
Noel Marshall was an agent in Hollywood, California in the 1960s. He later became the executive producer of the 1973 horror film The Exorcist...
, who later produced three of her films, in 1964; they divorced in 1982. She married businessman Luis Barrenechea in 1985 and divorced in 1995.
Hedren has three grandchildren from daughter Griffith: musician Alexander Bauer, actress and model Dakota Johnson
Dakota Johnson
Dakota Mayi Johnson is an American fashion model and actress. She is the daughter of actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith and the granddaughter of actress Tippi Hedren.-Career:...
and Stella Banderas. Her current son-in-law is actor Antonio Banderas
Antonio Banderas
José Antonio Domínguez Banderas , better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer...
.
In a Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
article and featured on a CBC news story, Hedren was described as being a pivotal figure in the modern development of Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
ese owned-nail salons in the United States and later spread rapidly along the East and to Canada. Drawn to the plight of refugees from the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, she began visiting a tent city at Hope Village, and in 1975, helped Vietnamese immigrants, primarily female, by having her manicurist
Manicure
A manicure is a cosmetic beauty treatment for the fingernails and hands performed at home or in a nail salon. A manicure treatment is not only a treatment for the natural nails but also for the hands. A manicure consists of filing, shaping of the free edge, treatments, massage of the hand and the...
teach them the skills of the trade and working with a local beauty school to help them find jobs. In Canada, the nail parlour industry is now dominated by Vietnamese immigrants and refugees.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Other notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Cousin Sarah Cousin Sarah Cousin Sarah is a horror film planned for release in October 2011. Directed by Jenni Gold, the film stars Linda Blair. Produced by Multi-Valence Productions in association with Willoughby Pictures, the story is by Alexander Garcia, with Alexander Garcia as the writer, and Nathaniel Morin as... |
Betty | pre-production |
| 2010 | Batman: The Brave and the Bold Batman: The Brave and the Bold Batman: The Brave and the Bold is an American animated television series based in part on the DC Comics series The Brave and the Bold which features two or more super heroes coming together to solve a crime or foil a super villain... |
Queen Hippolyta | Animated series |
| 2009 | Tribute Tribute (2009 film) Tribute, also known as Nora Roberts' Tribute, is a 2009 made-for-tv movie directed by Martha Coolidge, which stars Brittany Murphy and Jason Lewis. The film is based on the Nora Roberts novel of the same name. And is part of the Nora Roberts 2009 movie collection, which also includes; Northern... |
Mrs. Hennessey | TV movie |
| 2008 | Birdemic: Shock and Terror Birdemic: Shock and Terror Birdemic: Shock and Terror is a 2008 independent horror film written, directed, and produced by James Nguyen. The leading cast is made up of Alan Bagh and Whitney Moore... |
Actor on TV | archive footage |
| CSI: Crime Scene Investigation CSI: Crime Scene Investigation CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is an American crime drama television series, which premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000. The show was created by Anthony E. Zuiker and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer... |
Karen Rosenthal (1 episode, 2008) | ||
| Her Morbid Desires | Aunt Gloria | ||
| 2007 | Dead Write | Minnie | |
| 2006 | Fashion House Fashion House Fashion House is an American telenovela that aired at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT Monday through Saturday on MyNetworkTV stations. The series premiered on September 5, 2006 and concluded on December 5, 2006... |
Doris Thompson | |
| 2005 | The Last Confederate: The Story of Robert Adams | Grandmother Adams | |
| Diamond Zero | Eleanor Kelly | ||
| The 4400 The 4400 The 4400 is a science fiction TV series produced by CBS Paramount Network Television in association with Sky Television, Renegade 83, and American Zoetrope for USA Network. The show was created and written by Scott Peters and René Echevarria, and it stars Joel Gretsch and Jacqueline McKenzie... |
Lily Moore Tyler, aged | ||
| 2004 | I Heart Huckabees | Mary Jane Hutchinson | |
| Raising Genius Raising Genius Raising Genius is a comedy starring Justin Long, Wendie Malick, Ed Begley, Jr., Stephen Root, Danica McKellar, Mark DeCarlo, Tippi Hedren, Shirley Jones, Clint Howard, and Sam Huntington about a teenage genius who locks himself in his bathroom for three months, in order to work out his formulas... |
Grandma Babe | ||
| Return to Babylon Return to Babylon Return to Babylon is an upcoming silent film. It was directed by Alex Monty Canawati and written by Matt Riddlehoover. It stars an ensemble cast of Jennifer Tilly, María Conchita Alonso, Ione Skye, Debi Mazar, and Tippi Hedren.-Plot:... |
Mrs. Peabody | ||
| 2003 | Rose's Garden | Rose | |
| DarkWolf | Mary | ||
| Searching for Haizmann | Dr. Michelle Labner | ||
| 111 Gramercy Park | Mrs. Granville | ||
| IceMaker | Mrs. Kelly | ||
| Julie and Jack | Julie McNeal | ||
| 2001 | Tea with Grandma | Grandma Rae | |
| Ice Cream Sundae | Lady | ||
| 2000 | Mind Rage | Dr. Wilma Randolph | |
| 1999 | Replacing Dad Replacing Dad Replacing Dad is a 1999 television film directed by Joyce Chopra. Based on a Shelley Fraser Mickle novel, the film stars Mary McDonnell, William Russ, and Jack Coleman.- Plot :... |
Dixie | |
| The Darklings | Martha Jackson | ||
| The Storytellers | Lillian Glosner | ||
| 1998 | I Woke Up Early The Day I Died I Woke Up Early The Day I Died I Woke Up Early The Day I Died is a camp comedy film written by Edward D. Wood, Jr.. The film, directed by Aris Iliopulos, stars Billy Zane, Tippi Hedren, Ron Perlman, and Christina Ricci, among many others.-Production:... |
Maylinda Austed | |
| Break Up Break Up (1998 film) Break Up is a 1998 thriller starring Bridget Fonda, Kiefer Sutherland, and Steven Weber.- Cast :* Bridget Fonda as Jimmy Dade* Hart Bochner as Frankie Dade* Kiefer Sutherland as Officer John Box* Steven Weber as Officer Andrew Ramsey... |
Mom | ||
| Expose | unknown | ||
| 1997 | Mulligans | Dottie | |
| 1996 | Citizen Ruth Citizen Ruth Citizen Ruth is a 1996 film that tells a story of a poor, irresponsible and pregnant woman who unexpectedly attracts attention from those involved in the debate about the morality and legality of abortion. The film stars Laura Dern, Swoosie Kurtz, Mary Kay Place, Kurtwood Smith and Kelly Preston,... |
Jessica Weiss | |
| 1994 | Inevitable Grace | Dr. Marcia Stevens | |
| Treacherous Beauties | Lettie Hollister | ||
| The Birds II: Land's End The Birds II: Land's End The Birds II: Land's End is the 1994 television movie sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 classic The Birds. It stars Brad Johnson, Chelsea Field, James Naughton, and Tippi Hedren, in a role different from the one she played in the original Hitchcock film. The original music score was composed by Ron... |
Helen | ||
| Teresa's Tattoo | Evelyn Hill | ||
| 1993 | Perry Mason: The Case of the Skin-Deep Scandal | Beverly Courtney | |
| Murder, she wrote Murder, She Wrote Murder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series,... |
Catherine Noble | ||
| 1992 | Through the Eyes of a Killer | Mrs. Bellano | |
| 1991 | Shadow of a Doubt | Mrs. Mathewson | |
| In the Heat of the Night | Annabelle Van Buren | ||
| 1990 | Pacific Heights | Florence Peters | |
| Return to Green Acres | Arlenn | ||
| 1989 | Deadly Spygames | Chastity | |
| 1985 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents Alfred Hitchcock Presents Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades... |
Waitress | |
| 1984 | Terror in the Aisles Terror in the Aisles Terror in the Aisles is a 1984 documentary film about horror films featuring clips from Friday the 13th I and/or II, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween I and II, Jaws 1 and 2, Alien, John Carpenter's The Thing, The Shining and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and The Birds. The film is hosted by... |
archival appearance | |
| 1982 | Foxfire Light | Elizabeth Morgan | |
| 1981 | Roar Roar (film) Roar is a film starring Tippi Hedren and Noel Marshall. In addition to starring in the film, Marshall also directed and wrote the film, producing it entirely with his then-wife, Tippi. Tippi's real-life daughter Melanie Griffith plays her on-screen daughter, also named Melanie... |
Madeline | |
| 1976 | The Bionic Woman | Susan Victor | |
| 1976 | Where the Wind Dies | unknown | |
| 1973 | The Harrad Experiment The Harrad Experiment The Harrad Experiment is a movie about a fictional Harrad College where the students learn about sexuality and experiment with each other... |
Margaret Tenhausen | |
| Mr. Kingstreet's War | Maggie Kingstreet | ||
| 1970 | Satan's Harvest | Marla Oaks | |
| 1968 | Tiger by the Tail | Rita Armstrong | |
| 1967 | A Countess from Hong Kong A Countess from Hong Kong A Countess from Hong Kong is a 1967 British comedy film and the last film directed by Charlie Chaplin. It was one of two films Chaplin directed in which he did not play a major role , and his only color film. Chaplin's cameo marked his final screen appearance... |
Martha | |
| 1964 | Marnie Marnie (film) Marnie is a 1964 psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on the novel of the same name by Winston Graham. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. The original film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.-Plot:... |
Marnie Edgar | |
| 1963 | The Birds The Birds (film) The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few... |
Melanie Daniels | Golden Globe |
| 1950 | The Petty Girl The Petty Girl The Petty Girl is a musical romantic comedy film starring Robert Cummings and Joan Caulfield. Cummings portrays painter George Petty.-Plot:... |
Ice Box Petty Girl | uncredited |
Awards
- Most Promising Newcomer Award by PhotoplayPhotoplayPhotoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines. It was founded in 1911 in Chicago, the same year that J. Stuart Blackton founded a similar magazine entitled Motion Picture Story...
for The Birds (1963) - Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - ActressGolden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - ActressThe Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress originated in 1948. Between 1954 and 1965, multiple winners were announced. The category was discontinued following the 1983 ceremonies.-Winners:*1948: Lois Maxwell*1950: Mercedes McCambridge...
for The Birds (1963) - Life Achievement Award in France at The Beauvais Film Festival Cinemalia (1994)
- Life Achievement Award in Spain by the Fundacion Municipal De Cine (1995)
- The Helen Woodward Animal Center's Annual Humane Award (1995)
- Founder's Award from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to AnimalsAmerican Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to AnimalsThe American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing cruelty towards animals...
(1996) - Lion and Lamb Award from Wildhaven (1997)
- Woman of Vision Award from Women of Film and Video in Washington, D.C. (1999)
- Presidential Medal for her work in film from Hofstra University (1999)
- "Best Actress in a Comedy Short" Award in the short film Mulligans! (2000) at the Method Fest, Independent Film Festival (2000)
- "Best Actress" Award for the short film Tea With Grandma (2002) from the New York International Independent Film Festival (2002)
- Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of FameHollywood Walk of FameThe Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
on January 23, 2003 - Women of Los Angeles Annual Hope is a Woman Honor (2003)
- PAWS Companion for Life Award (2004)
- "Best Actress" Award for the short film Rose's Garden from the Los Angeles TV Short Film Festival (2004)
- Animal Rights Advocacy Award at Artivist Film Festival (2004)
- Living Legacy Award (2005)
- Conservationist of the Year—Dino Award from the Las Vegas Natural History MuseumLas Vegas Natural History MuseumThe Las Vegas Natural History Museum is a private, nonprofit natural history museum that is located in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada. The Museum opened on July 16, 1991, and is located across Las Vegas Boulevard from the Lied Discovery Children's Museum, as part of the downtown area known as the...
(2006) - Lifetime Achievement Award—Riverside Film Festival (2007)
- Jules Verne "Nature" Award — the 1st Annual Jules Verne Adventure Film Festival of Los Angeles (2007)
- Academy of Art University's 2nd Epidemic Film Festival Award (2008)
- Jules Verne Legendaire Award (2008)
- "When a Woman Wills She Will!" Award by the Woman's Club of Hollywood (2009)
- Workhouse's first Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award (2009)
- Received the First Star on the Orinda Theater Walk of Fame (2009)
- Received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 24th Annual Genesis Awards show from the Humane Society of the United StatesHumane SocietyA humane society may be a group that aims to stop human or animal suffering due to cruelty or other reasons, although in many countries, it is now used mostly for societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals...
(2010) - BraveHeart Award (2010)
- Who-Manitarian Award (2010)
- Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce at its 90th Annual Installation & Awards Luncheon (2011)
- "The Women Together Award" from the United Nations (2011)
- Vietnamese-American Marton Saint Award from the Boat People SOS Organization (2011)
- Omni Youth Humanitarian/Career Achievement award (2011)
External links
- Tippi Hedren at NNDBNNDBThe Notable Names Database , produced by Soylent Communications, the same entity that produces Rotten, Daily Rotten, Dr. Sputnik's Society Pages and Penny Postcards, is an online database of biographical details of over 36,000 people of note...
- Tippi Hedren's Roar Foundation and the Shambala Preserve
- TV Interview with Tippi Hedren, March 6, 2005 (free online viewing)
- TV Interview with Tippi Hedren on location at Shambala, 2008 (free online viewing)
- Book interview with Tippi Hedren Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie
