HBO's The Girl: Was Alfred Hitchcock an 'evil' sexual deviant? - The Week

In a panel about HBO's upcoming filmThe Girl, Tippi Hedren said the infamous director once blackmailed her for refusing his sexual advances. Photo: Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP

HBO's The Girl: Was Alfred Hitchcock an 'evil' sexual deviant? - The Week:

Sadly from Hitch centric film fights over Vertigo, the next Hitchzeitgeist will undoubtedly be the return of the "mad 'Cock".

Fascinating that some birds don't sing until there's no one left to provide another tune.  No one I know who knew Hitchcock backs 'Tippi's story.  And, as she admits, even if her slander has some basis in reality, she sure was lucky it was Hitch-cock. Otherwise, she would walked off into the San Francisco city as another gilded model.

From the article:

In a 2011 interview, Hedren told Ben Mankiewicz of Turner Classic Movies that Hitchcock turned on her because she had refused his sexual advances. Speaking at the panel last week, Hedren called Hitchcock, who died 32 years ago, "an extremely sad character," who was an "unusual genius, and evil, and deviant, almost to the point of [being] dangerous." Hedren's story is the basis for the upcoming HBO film starring Sienna Miller as Hedren and Toby Jones as Hitchcock, which is itself based on the book Spellbound by Beauty.

Did he mistreat any of his other lead actresses?
Reports are mixed. Though rumors about Hitchcock's ill treatment of his leading ladies have long circulated, the late Janet Leigh, who starred in the director's Psycho, once said that Hitchcock was never untoward with her;Vertigo star Kim Novak never leveled any accusations. According to Hedren, though, Vera Miles, who played Janet Leigh's sister in Psycho,refused to work with Hitchcock again after the 1960 film, but was similarly held hostage by her contract.