Tippi Hedren
Nathalie "Tippi" Hedren (born January 19, 1930) is an American supermodel and actress. She was discovered by Alfred Hitchcock who saw her while she was doing a diet drink commercial. He was looking for an actress who looked like Grace Kelly. Hedren appeared in The Birds and Marnie for Hitchcock.
Tippi Hedren is the mother of actress Melanie Griffith. Active in animal causes, she was sometimes billed as 'Tippi' Hedren in her early acting career
Early life
Hedren was born in New Ulm, Minnesota to a Swedish father and a German-Norwegian mother. Her father gave her the moniker "Tippi" even though her birth name is Nathalie Kay Hedren. "My father thought Nathalie was a little bit much for a brand new baby," Hedren remembered at a 2004 screening of The Birds. Tippi comes from the Swedish nickname "Tupsa" or "sweetheart".
As a teenager, Hedren took part in department store fashion shows. Her parents relocated to California while she was still a student in high school. As soon as she had her 18th birthday, she bought a ticket to New York and started her professional modeling career. Within a year she made her movie debut as one of the Petty Girls in the musical comedy The Petty Girl (1950), although in interviews she refers to The Birds as her first film. While in New York, she met and married her first husband, Peter Griffith, in 1952.[
The Birds in retrospect
At a packed house in Lancaster, California's Antelope Valley Independent Film Festival Cinema Series screening of The Birds on September 28, 2004, Hedren recounted her film career and her big acting break to a spellbound audience for almost an hour. "I said, 'Well, who is this person? Who is interested?'... Nobody would tell me who it was." Of course, it was Alfred Hitchcock, who soon announced that Hedren was his new lead actress.
She remembered the work (on location at Bodega Bay) as being dangerous and taxing. During the filming of the last attack scene, Hedren became exhausted to the point of sitting down on the middle of the set and crying. A week's rest was ordered by a doctor at that time of completing the film. "For a first film, it was a lot of work," Hedren mused. Her performance brought her a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer.[
Hedren and Hitchcock
Hitchcock's plan to mold her image went so far as insisting that her name should be printed only in single quotes -- 'Tippi' -- yet for the most part, journalists ignored the press releases with this curious dictum by the director. Strained by Hitchcock's controlling manner, Hedren declined further work with him after Marnie in 1964. "It grew to be impossible. He was a very controlling type of person, and I guess I'm not about to be controlled." Ending their professional relationship on a sour note, she remarked "He said, 'Well, I'll ruin your career.' And he did." Producers who wished to hire Hedren for acting roles had to go through Hitchcock, who would inform them that "she isn't available."
Her career after Hitchcock and Shambala Preserve
After the two films for Hitchcock, Charles Chaplin cast her with Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando in the ill-fated A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), and she appeared in several more features with roles tapering off in the 1970s and 80s. She made 40 films between 1967 and 2005.
In 1981, she produced her own film, Roar, a grueling, five-year project 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, both Hedren and her husband at the time, Noel Marshall, were attacked by lions, and Jan de Bont, the director of photography, was scalped.Roar directly led to the establishment of Hedren's Shambala Preserve, located in Acton, California between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley just north of Los Angeles. Shambala, an animal rescue preserve, houses (and has housed) the animals that appeared in Roar. Hedren lives on the site and conducts monthly tours of Shambala for the public. The preserve also houses many birds, according to Hedren. When asked about this point by an audience member, she replied, "I love birds. No, I like 'em. I do. I hate to tell you that. It spoils the whole story."
Actress - filmography
2005 Strike the Tent
2004 I Heart Huckabees
2003 Icemaker
2002 Darkwolf
1999 The Strip
1999 Dial H For Hitchcock
1999 The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story
1998 I Woke Up Early The Day I Died
1998 The Break Up
1996 Citizen Ruth
1994 Inevitable Grace
1994 Teresa's Tattoo
1994 The Birds 2: Land's End
1993 Perry Mason: The Case of the Skin Deep Scandal
1993 Murder, She Wrote: Bloodlines
1992 Through the Eyes of a Killer
1991 Shadow of a Doubt
1990 Heroes Die Hard
1990 Pacific Heights
1990 Return to Green Acres
1989 Deadly Spygames
1989 In the Cold of the Night
1985 Hitchcock, II Brivido Del Genio
1984 Foxfire Light
1981 Roar
1973 The Harrad Experiment
1971 Mr. Kingstreet's War
1970 Satan's Harvest
1970 Tiger by the Tail
1967 A Countess from Hong Kong
1965 Satan's Harvest
1964 Marnie
1963 The Birds
1955 Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Pilot
1950 The Petty Girl
Quotes
"I didn't think any amount of money was worth something that would take away what you believed in or what you stood for. I didn't want to do something my parents and daughter couldn't be proud of."
"I kinda go for the Jane Eyre type of film. I am fascinated by classics."
"I'm a loner."
"I've always had a fascination for animals. I loved watching them, and even then I thought of them as beings rather than pets. I call it a birth affect!"
"It quickly became obvious to us that not only the animals in the wild had a problem, but so did the animals in captivity."
"The female characters that Hitch would choose-he would take these women and try to tear them down, with basically the man's control. She would not want to give in, and he would insist upon it."
"it is exactly right in so many ways. Hitch was all about the chase with his blondes. I don't think he ever wanted to - how will I say? - culminate the chase."
"I'm supposed to scream if a man comes near me. And you've chosen Sean Connery, who could melt the heart of the coldest woman on earth."
"It's not for anyone who is faint of heart. It's a monumental effort to keep these animals."
"There aren't any options for these animals. You can't release them in the wild. It's either a sanctuary or death. That's why places like Bobbi's are important, because it's like an orphanage or a retirement home."
"I would love to work with Ron Howard. I think he is brilliant. I love the stories that he chooses. They're always very personal and intense. He loves a lot of emotion, and he's so well equipped to pull all of that out of the actors. I really love that kind of thing and I think that's what movies should be about."
