Alfred Hitchcock and the obsession with blonde actresses

“LHitchcock’s view of women is not politically correct. But his films gain power over time thanks to the depth of his emotional world, delving into thedistressing complexity of the relationship between man and woman: a tumultuous mass of admiration, desire, need and desperationneither. Instinctively, men know that women have magic.” In front of Alfred Hitchcock’s blonde heroinesthe American sociologist (and feminist) Camille Paglia had no doubts: in contrast between radiant hair and mysterious soulthe English director created an unforgettable female mythology.

Alfred Hitchcock and women

Much has been said about that complex man. His brilliant tormentprojected towards great and ethereal stars, staged the ambivalence between his genius and an anguishing sense of inferiority, as the American biographer Laurence Leamer explains in Hitchcock’s Blondes: The Unforgettable Women Behind the Legendary Director’s Dark Obsession. «When I deal with sexual issues on the screen I don’t forget that, here too, suspense rules everything. If the sex is obvious, there is no more suspense. Why do I choose blonde and sophisticated actresses? We need to look for women of the world, real ladies who become whores in the bedroom. Marilyn Monroe had sex written all over her face, like Brigitte Bardot. And this is not very fine» explained “Hitch” to director François Truffaut, author of Cinema according to Hitchcock.

Born in 1899 to a strict and religious family, after a prank the father had the police incarcerate that shy five-year-old. A fiction of a few minutes, but the obsession with crime and authority never left him. Entered silent cinema as a subtitle writer, he met the young screenwriter Alma Reville as his career progressed into the world of directing. They married in 1926.

The British success brought him to Hollywood in 1937, where in the “court” of the famous producer David O. Selznick he heard the song of his first, icy siren: Ingrid Bergman had arrived from Europe with her husband Petter as a great Swedish starand, after burying a brief acting career for Nazi Germany. During the filming of I will save you with Gregory Peck (and later), Hitch boasted of Ingrid’s advances, then defined only as fantasies of a repressed man, who came to weigh over 130 kilos. After conceiving his daughter Patricia, according to many, his sexual life with Alma stopped forever. However, Bergman actually had an affair with Peck, so Hitch took revenge by beating the actor for his poor dressing style.. They followed Notorious And Lady Considine’s sin: here, Ingrid had already met Roberto Rossellini, with whom she eloped in 1949. The scandal broke Alfred’s heart.

From Grace Kelly to Kim Novak, great myths and new obsessions

Actress with a past as a model, Grace Kelly shocked him with her candid, apparent virtue“Anything can happen with a woman like that in the back of a cab,” Hitch prophesied. After a relationship with an older teacher, Grace had already seduced Gary Cooper and Clark Gable on the sets. Perfect protagonist of The perfect crimein that film Kelly shot the attempted murder scene for 12 hours a day. Bruised, she cheered up with co-star Ray Milland. It was a coincidence that James Stewart’s wife always stayed with him during the filming of The rear window? Here, as in the subsequent To Catch a Thief, Hitch’s care for Grace’s clothes was obsessive… unable to manage their intimacy (“This Grace really sleeps with everyone!” She used to exclaim). During that film, she was engaged to the American couturier Oleg Cassini, she remained only good friends with Cary Grant. His presence in the South of France was potent. After a brief acquaintance, Prince Ranieri asked her as his wife pushed by Aristotle Onassis, owner of the Monte Carlo Casino which was in crisis at the time. For the murky shipowner, a union with the big star would have attracted new American tycoons. But after her marriage she was forbidden to make any more films. Yet another “betrayal” for Alfred, who would vent all his disillusionment on the next platinum-selling star.

Sensual body and innocent look, Kim Novak was already well known. A magnetism born more from trauma than from self-esteem: raped at a young age, later diagnosed as bipolar, her fragility was not spared by the director who for Vertigo he gave her looks that made her uncomfortable. Invited to dinner by Hitch, her provincial soul was put to the test between wines, royal table cutlery and questions about art that silenced her. The morning she was supposed to shoot a naked scene under her sheets, he thought he’d make her feel more at ease… by leaving her a plucked chicken in the dressing room. The director’s prankster nature (a lover of jokes bordering on decency) was well knownbut that gesture underlined the crudeness of Alfred who declared that that “so inept” actress, only thanks to her direction, had not been terrible after all.

Eva Marie, Janet and Tippi: never confessed loves

Eva Marie Saint emerged unscathed from many pitfalls. In his clear charm, however International intrigue, the very elegant star and recent mother prevailed. With actresses considered to be on his level, Hitch always behaved like a rich gentleman with his kept woman:and Cary Grant showed up on set wearing outfits of his own taste, Eva was taken personally by Alfred shopping, supporting the erotic ideal that the director thought of in every detail for each heroine. Seeing her pouring coffee at the caterer, he stopped her in shock: «Darling, not alone. Someone will bring it to you in a porcelain cup – I don’t want the assistants to see you in a three thousand dollar suit and a Styrofoam cup!’

When Janet Leigh instead accepted the part of a woman tragically killed only a third of the way through the film, the actress was already in crisis with her husband Tony Curtis. During the filming of Psycho she was kind enough to provide little leverage for Hitch’s tricks and he still made her find the mannequin of Norman Bates’ deceased mother in the darkness of the dressing room. He gave her a stunt double for the nude scene in the shower that, instead of one day, it lasted a week, to achieve the perfection of those 45 seconds. The result? Throughout his life Leigh only bathed, tightly closing doors and windows in homes and hotels without a tubwhere he always washed himself in the showers prey to strong anxiety.

And then she, five feet tall of femininity. In Birds Tippi Hedren she was flattered by Hitch’s attentions, at her side in every shot. But when she noticed how men avoided her and actors couldn’t converse with her, it was already too late: Alfred wanted to control everything, travel and food. He even had his handwriting analyzed, admitting in an interview that until everything was concluded, it would have belonged to him.

He hit rock bottom when the two minutes in which Tippi is attacked by dozens of birds were filmed for a week, with real animals, which hit her and risked injuring her eye. In its Hedren’s autobiography described harassment and sexual advanceswhich however found very little confirmation.

Hitchcock perhaps never managed to find peace with the noblest of feelings, but he sublimated it throughout his life in his films. Because as Truffaut said during the ceremony in which, at the age of 79, the master of thrills received the lifetime achievement award from the American Film Institute: «In America you call him Hitch. In France, we call him Monsieur Hitchcock. You respect him because he shoots love scenes as if they were murders. We respect him because he shoots murder scenes as if they were love».

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