Tippi Hedren Talks Alfred Hitchcock, Edith Head, and Her Granddaughter, Dakota Johnson Inline
Photo: Alamy1/15On her modeling career
Hedren was discovered, she says, getting off a streetcar coming home from West High School in Minneapolis. “This lady handed me her card and said: ‘Would you ask your mother to bring you down to Donaldson’s department store? We’d like to have you model in our Saturday morning fashion shows.’ I mean, that was so much fun! It was a wonderful time in my life.” After moving and working in Los Angeles, Hedren adds, “New York was waving its flag, so I got on a train. I had enough money to get me there, sitting up on the train, enough to keep me at the Barbizon for women in New York, and if I didn’t make it, I had enough to get me back on the train.”
Photo: Alamy2/15On fashion in the 1950s
Hedren largely raised daughter Melanie Griffith as a single mother, and a stylish one at that. In the 1950s, Hedren explains, “we dressed more than we do today. Jeans are almost acceptable anywhere [now], which is kind of sad. There was a dress code when I first started to model; I even wore high heels all day.”
Photo: Alamy3/15On working with Edith Head
“I loved that woman; we had a wonderful relationship and we were really, really good friends. We had fun together, too,” says Hedren. “In The Birds, I wore the same thing. You know, I had that green dress with the green jacket, but I had six of them. Well, they had to do that; the movie took six months to make. Edith Head was wonderful, she was so, so creative. I was able to sit in on a meeting with her and Alfred Hitchcock, and it was amazing the capability that she had to turn her clients around to thinking her way. She always won. She was brilliant.”
Photo: Alamy4/15On wearing fur
“In those days everybody wore fur coats and there wasn’t really that awareness about how cruel that is. I donated [this coat] to some organization that used the fur coats for dog beds. I thought, That’s perfect!”
Photo: Alamy5/15On glamour
“I knew a thing or two about fashion myself after all those years modeling,” writes Hedren in her memoir, “so Edith and I spoke the same language, which made our working together even more meaningful.” On the phone, Hedren explains that she had black and white versions of this fitted dress. “It had bones; they [were] very comfortable though—I never felt them. It’s not really bone, it was just plastic that kept the bodice straight. [This dress] was beautiful.”
Photo: Getty Images6/15On Alfred Hitchcock
Hedren says she had no problem writing about Hitchcock’s obsession and harassment. “I solved the problem before it started, so no, it wasn’t hard. He made it impossible for me to work with him anymore, though. I just said: ‘I want to get out of the contract.’ He said: ‘You have your daughter to take care of and your parents are getting older.’ I replied: ‘They wouldn’t want me to be in a situation in which I’m not happy, and I’m leaving.’ And he said: ‘I’ll ruin your career.’ ‘Do what you have to do,’ I said. It wasn’t brave, it was something I had to do. I’m not going to let anybody walk all over me!”
Photo: Everett Collection7/15On her style
“I’m generally comfortable in whatever I’m wearing for whatever event. I make sure that my clothes are my choice and they fit well and they’re accessorized well. I’m very spoiled.”
Photo: Getty Images8/15On Marnie
A “widespread belief was that the rape scene had driven Hitchcock to make Marnie in the first place,” writes Hedren in Tippi. “That a man taking his frigid, unattainable bride by force was Hitchcock’s fantasy about me. I refused to let my mind wander to that possibility. I had a job to do and a performance to give.”
Photo: Getty Images9/15On acting with Brando in A Countess From Hong Kong
“Marlon wanted to quit because of the way Charlie [Chaplin] directed, and I loved it, I just adored it. When Charlie directed, he would get out onto the set; his way of directing was acting out all of the different roles, and he was absolutely perfect at it, and then Charlie would say, ‘Okay, now you do it!’ I mean, he was a consummate actor himself before he became a director-producer. But Marlon wanted to quit; I mean he was so upset with this method of directing. Of course, [Marlon] was a Method actor and it’s an entirely different way of acting than watching somebody. I was just having a great time with all of this; I just thought it was terrific comedy. But [Marlon] didn’t quit; he was under contract so he wasn’t able to.”
Photo: Bill Dow, Courtesy of the Roar Foundation10/15On becoming an animal activist
“I did two films in Africa back-to-back [in] 1969 and 1970, and during those years environmentalists all over the world were [saying] that if we didn’t do something right then to save the wild animals . . . by the year 2000 they would all be gone. So there was a lot of awareness. My then-husband and I decided to do a movie about the animals in the wild and we chose the big cats, which was a romantic notion: They’re dangerous! They’re very dangerous! So the script was written and we handed [it] out to various animal trainers of big cats in Hollywood, and they all just came back laughing at us, saying, you’re not going to be able to do this movie . . . get your own animals to do the movie. Well, that was the romantic notion that began the whole thing. We started out with one little lion cub living in our house in Sherman Oaks and then another . . . pretty soon we had four or five running around the house, and they’re each a one-man demolition crew.” NB: Do not try this at home. Hedren, having learned firsthand how dangerous these big cats can be, is working on legislation to “prevent the breeding of exotic felines for personal possession or as pets.”
Photo: Alamy11/15On her love of animals
“Oh, I loved those elephants so much; we were so fortunate in being able to give them a home. I’m so into animal protection and the hideousness of hunting. I just look at it as blatant murder, and I hope people will be able to see animals as thinking, feeling beings that have a right to be on our planet. They have a right to have their families and they all have a job.”
Photo: Getty Images12/15On her daughter
“Melanie Griffith,” writes Hedren, “is the greatest love of my life. It’s an impossibility that I could love her more.”
Photo: Getty Images13/15On granddaughter Dakota Johnson
“Oh, she is so beautiful, [it’s] just ridiculous.”
Photo: (From left) Condé Nast Archive; Marcio Madeira14/15On Alexander McQueen’s odes to Hitchcock’s heroines
“I’m not aware of this. I think it’s great, I think it’s wonderful.”
Photo: ©AF Archive-Almay Stock Photo; jacket design, Elsie Lyons15/15Tippi: A Memoir by Tippi Hedren (William Morrow) is in stores now
