Tippi Hedren

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tippi Hedren (1965)
Tippi Hedren (1998)
Tippi Hedren with her daughter Melanie Griffith in 2014

Tippi Hedren (* 19th January 1930 as Nathalie Kay Hedren in New Ulm , Minnesota ) is an American actress . She achieved greater fame in the 1960s through her leading roles in the Hitchcock films The Birds and Marnie .

life and career

Tippi Hedren was born in Minnesota to German and Scandinavian ancestors. After Grace Kelly became Princess of Monaco, Hedren became the “favorite blonde ” of Alfred Hitchcock , who discovered her in a 1961 commercial for the diet drink Sego. After a long search he found a successor for Kelly in her. Previously, Hedren had only played a small role in the film The Scandalous Girl and otherwise worked as a photo model. Hitchcock gave Hedren the female lead in his films The Birds and Marnie . In 1964, she received the Golden Globe for Best Young Actress for Die Vögel . While The Birds became one of Hitchcock's most famous films, Marnie, while solid financial results, received only mixed audiences and film reviews. Heden's acting performance as a kleptomaniac secretary in Marnie , plagued by mental health problems, was repeatedly highlighted, especially by later critics. The US critic Richard Brody described her in 2016 as one of the best performances in all of film history.

Hitchcock's interest in Hedren went beyond business. He was downright infatuated with the cool-looking, blonde actress and ordered that Tippi's name in connection with his films could only be mentioned in single quotation marks, i.e. 'Tippi'. Hedren accused Hitchcock in her biography in 2016 of having sexually molested her several times and described him as a "pervert". He wanted to take her in completely, threw himself on her and groped. The 2012 British television movie The Girl is about the mounting tension in the relationship between Hedren (played by Sienna Miller ) and Hitchcock (played by Toby Jones ). Hedren herself described her feelings towards Hitchcock today with the words: “Gratitude and disgust. Respect and bewilderment. "

After she had turned down his sexual advances with Marnie on the film set and he no longer wanted to work with her, Hitchcock kept her under contract for two more years. He turned down role offers for her without consulting her to damage her career and only let her out of her contract after two years. A little later she received the offer to play Marlon Brando's wife in a supporting role , directed by Charlie Chaplin in his last film The Countess of Hong Kong . However, with the three-year break, Hedren's film career had already lost momentum and it never achieved the same level of success as with the two Hitchock films.

After The Countess of Hong Kong , Hedren appeared only sporadically in B-movies and TV series over the next few years . In 1981 she starred in the big cat spectacle Roar, produced by her then husband Noel Marshall . In 1983, she founded the Roar Foundation, which converted the Acton rotary site about 40 kilometers northeast of Los Angeles on the edge of the Mojave Desert into a private reserve for big cats called the Shambala Preserve. Hedren lives here next to around 60 big cats including lions , tigers and ligers as well as cheetahs and pumas . She has also been in front of the camera for movies and television series, including Alexander Payne's political satire Baby Business (1996) and as an older lady in the elevator in David O. Russell's comedy I Heart Huckabees (2004).

family

Hedren was married three times: Her first husband Peter Griffith (1952–1961) was followed by Noel Marshall (1964–1982) and Luis Barrenecha (1985–1995). She was engaged to the vet Martin Dinnes from 2002 to 2008.

Her daughter Melanie Griffith (* 1957), who was married to Peter Griffith, is also an actress, as is her daughter and Hedren's granddaughter Dakota Johnson .

Filmography (selection)

Awards

Awards received

Publications

Tippi: A memoir . William Morrow, New York, 2016, ISBN 978-0062469038

Web links

Commons : Tippi Hedren  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Condé Nast: "Marnie" Is the Cure for Hitchcock Mania. Retrieved December 16, 2019 .
  2. Holger Kreitling: Hedren & Hitchcock: "It was sexual, it was perverse and it was ugly" . November 1, 2016 ( welt.de [accessed December 16, 2019]).
  3. ^ Tippi Hedren describes Alfred Hitchcock as a "pervert". November 1, 2016, accessed December 16, 2019 .
  4. Tippi Hedren: "Hitchcock said that he would ruin my career" - derStandard.de. Retrieved December 16, 2019 (Austrian German).
  5. Verena Lueken: Tippi Hedren turns 90: What would a picture of horror be without a woman? ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed January 20, 2020]).
  6. Tippi Hedren: The day I learned about Charlie Chaplin's bizarre directing style with Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren . In: The Guardian . November 27, 2016, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed December 16, 2019]).
  7. Brent Lang, Brent Lang: Tippi Hedren Recounts What Happened When She Turned Down Alfred Hitchcock's Advances. In: Variety. December 13, 2017, accessed December 16, 2019 .