So I guess the biographers are all lying. Don’t think so.
It is your personal opinion that Tippi was a bad actress. I’ve seen the other movies, she wasn’t any worse than the other actresses. The Birds was definitely better than Marnie, but that wasn’t just because of Tippi’s performance.
Hitchcock was a serial sexual harasser. He singled out Tippi in particular because of his lust for her and he treated her very badly. He blacklisted her for personal reasons, it had nothing to do with her talent.
I never said Hedren was a bad actress. I said she wasn’t the greatest actress in the world which is demonstrably true. She’s very good playing the trickster socialite Melanie and out of her depth playing the psychotic Marnie. Her voice is much too high and thin for that kind of serious role and it stretched her small talent too far.
No, I don’t believe many biographies of stars or directors, which all emphasize outlandish claims of sexual misconduct. It’s what sells books. Instead, when I want to read about Hitchcock, I stick with Francois Truffaut’s book or Peter Bogdanovich’s excellent studies. Reading Donald Spoto gets one nowhere.
No Pardons: I watched Psycho last night on Turner & was again stunned by Janet Leigh’s and Anthony Perkins’ performances. The scene between them when he feeds her dinner is one of the greatest Hitchcock ever directed. I organized a dinner for her back in the 90s and she was an elegant lady who, get this, adored her “Hitch.”