Alfred Hitchcock
The “Master of Suspense,”Alfred Hitchcock, is one of the most influential, successful, and recognized film producers and directors of all time. Alfred, who was born on August 13, 1899, and died from a heart attack on April 29, 1980, is renowned for his unique and dramatic thriller and suspense films, often based on a combination of fear and fantasy. At one time, the title of “greatest film director ever” was bestowed up him by the magazine Entertainment Weekly.
Alfred was born as Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock in London, , and began his directing career with silent films and British films before tackling the film industry in 1939. He officially applied for American citizenship in 1956 and lived with his family on a California estate from 1940 until 1972.
Alfred Hitchcock directed almost sixty major films throughout his career and lifetime, which spanned six decades and almost fifty-five years. His vast and extensive film repertoire includes eleven silent films during the 1920s, sixteen British films during the 1930s, and then thirty-two American films, spanning from 1940 until 1976.
Interestingly, only one of Hitchcock’s many films won an Academy Award for Best Picture, although an additional four were nominated. The winner was 1940s Rebecca, which starred Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine.
Hitchcock, somewhat surprisingly, never received an Academy Award for Best Director. Some say the reason for this may have been that his films were always more popular with his audiences than with the critics. However, near the end of the 1950s, some new French critics emerged, including Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and Francois Truffat, and finally promoted Hitchcock’s work. In 1967, near the end of his film career, Hitchcock was honored with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement.
His first completed and credited film was the 1925 silent film, The Pleasure Garden, starring Virginia Valli, Carmelita Geraghty, and Miles Mander. It was a commercial failure, but Hitchcock soon bounced back with his third silent film and first thriller, the critically acclaimed The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), starring Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney, June Tripp, Malcolm Keen, and Ivor Novello. Blackmail, released in 1929, was Alfred’s first British film as well as the first-ever British talkie, featuring Anny Ondra, Sara Allgood, and Charles Paton.
After the release of his debut American film and Academy Award winner, Rebecca), his next film was in the 1940 Foreign Correspondent, with actresses Anny Ondra and Sara Allgood and actor Charles Paton. Hitchcock’s last film, four years before his death, was 1976’s Family Plot, a Universal Pictures film starring Bruce Dern, Karen Black, Barbara Harris, William Devane, and Cathleen Nesbitt.
Alfred Hitchocock directed some of the best suspense thrillers of all time. A short list of some his best known work includes: The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1934 with Peter Lorre and again in 1956 with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day; The 39 Steps with Robert Dorat; Rebecca in 1940 with Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine; Mr. & Mrs. Smith in 1941 (remade in 2005 directed by Doug Liman starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie); Dial M for Murder in 1954 with Ray Millard, Grace Kelly and Robert Cummings; Rear Window in 1954 as well with Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly;North by Northwest in 1959 with Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason and Martin Landau; and perhaps Hitchcock’s most famous film Psycho in 1960 with Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh and Vera Miles.
Hitchcock also brought his own style to the small screen with Alfred Hitchcock Presents on air from 1955 through 1961. The first 2 seasons are currently available on DVD.
In 1980, Hitchcock was honored as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, just four months before his death from renal failure at his Bel-Air, Los Angeles home.
Hitchcock’s wife, Alma Reville, whom he married in 1926, died two years after him in 1982. They had one daughter together, Patricia Hitchcock.
Alfred Hitchcock remains an inspiration to many directors, producers, actors, and filmmakers today, for his creative genius and innovative techniques in directing that changed the field of directing. |
