MM: What do you think about the recent push to increase female representation behind the camera in Hollywood?
TH: I think it’s great! It’s wonderful, and I think it’s about time that it happened. I’m delighted to see it happening. Women are just as talented as men and they have every capability of doing whatever vocation it is, or whatever they want to do. It’s a wonderful thing that this is now happening, and I’m thrilled. I love seeing it.
MM: Do you think some of your difficulties with Hitchcock might’ve been alleviated if there had been more women around on set?
TH: You know, that’s something that has gone on since the first meeting of man and woman. It’s nothing new… it really isn’t, no matter what business you’re in. It doesn’t matter.
Tippi Hedren and Alfred Hitchcock on the set of The Birds in 1962. Courtesy of Philippe Halsman/Magnum Photos
MM: Was he a great actor’s director, in your judgment? He got the performances he was after?
TH: Oh, I think so. He proved himself over and over again in terms of his perspicacity with people, absolutely. He was a wonderful, amazing director. You just have to look at the films he did.
MM: Do you feel protective of the cinematic legacy of the work you did together?
TH: I do, I do, yes. I think people are always interested in film, especially, because it is so glamorous and it’s exciting and the actors in the films get a lot of attention—and I don’t know if that’s worthy or not—but, you know, it is an incredible business, a really awesome business to be involved with. Every film that you do is unique, and it’s a great life where you get to meet fascinating people. And I liked it, and my daughter [actress Melanie Griffith] went into it and my grandchild [actress Dakota Johnson] went into it and they both feel the same way. They like it and they love making movies.
MM: What’s your favorite scene in The Birds?
TH: Oh, wow. I think the very beginning, because it was so much fun to do, the scene in the bird shop. That was fun, and Rod Taylor was fun to work with and Jessica Tandy was wonderful—the whole picture was really amazing. And, you know, it was my first movie, so it’s nice to have really good memories.
MM: My favorite scene is the jungle gym scene. I’ve always wondered if Hitch told you to smoke a certain way, hold the cigarette a certain way?
TH: Well, I was a smoker at the time. I’m not now, I quit. As soon as I heard that smoking could kill you, and that it will kill you and make you sick, I thought “Wow, I’m smarter than this!” I put my cigarette out and I never had another one. So, no, he did not have to teach me how to smoke. I don’t recall what direction he gave me, but after seeing what’s gone on in the town of Bodega Bay and sitting there very quietly, just waiting for the school class to be over, and then looking back and seeing that [a gathering of crows, having quietly amassed in force on a jungle gym behind her], it was frightening, genuinely frightening.
MM: Smoking was perceived so differently then, like in that famous Philippe Halsman publicity photo for The Birds with the raven lighting your cigarette.
TH: Well, again, that was before they let us know cigarettes would kill you. I actually started smoking because of a commercial I was asked to do. Perry Como, the singer, had a television show, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and one of their sponsors was Chesterfield. I was chosen to be one of the women—there were three of us—and one would light the cigarette, one would take a puff on it, and then the other would blow the smoke out, and at the time I didn’t smoke so I had to learn how to do it, which is sad! All those years ago we just didn’t know that it could hurt you so horribly. But it was a good job for a long period of time, it was fun doing the show.
MM: Was it fun working with the great Philippe Halsman on that shoot?
TH: Oh, it was wonderful. We did it on the beach, so it was uncomfortable to be in that beautiful gown and walking through the sand—that was uncomfortable, but he was a fabulous photographer and it was just wonderful working with him and getting direction from him. It was a very, very good shoot. It was cold weather, though, so that made it a little difficult, but he was a consummate artist.
Tippi Hedren on the set of The Birds. Courtesy of Universal Studios
MM: Peter Bogdanovich once asked Hitch if The Birds was his vision of Judgment Day. Do you think it’s about the end of the world?
TH: It certainly could be. It’s the kind of film where it’s fun to think about what happens after the end. It just says “The End.” So, does life go on? What happens? I mean, these birds were so aggressive—did they just go away? What happened? It’s an interesting thought, and people have pondered it for a long time.
MM: I believe Camille Paglia once suggested in an essay that perhaps Melanie Daniels brought a curse to Bodega Bay with her.
TH: [Laughs] Oooh, she would have to be a very powerful woman, to be able to do that! But I don’t think so.
MM: Speaking of spells, there’s a passage in your memoir where you recall dying your hair brown on the Marnie set, hoping it would “break the spell” for Hitch. So you knew, even then, it was all about blondeness.
TH: Well, yeah, I think so. When you see a blonde in a group of people, doesn’t the blonde kind of get your attention? I mean, honestly, give me a good answer.
MM: OK, I’d have to say yes to that.
TH: [Laughs] Well, I’m silver-haired now!
MM: But you still have the blonde power?
TH: Oh yes, absolutely. It never leaves you. I’m still blonde in my brain. MM
Tippi: A Memoir is available now, courtesy of William Morrow Books. Top image photographed by Bill Dow.
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