Tippi Hedren

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors

  1. Julie Andrews, Torn Curtain, 1965. Samantha Eggar, Eva Marie Saint (from North By North West) and, naturally, his (unsuccessful) discovery Tippi Hedren, from The Birds and Marnie), were in the Hitchcock frame for the film forced upon The Old Master by Universal. So were the stars: Andrews and Paul Newman. As Hitch told me in London on April 21, 966: Casting is the first compromise.

  2. Julie Christie, Fahrenheit, 1966.      For his first film in colour – and his only one in English – nouvelle vague icon François Truffaut wanted Hedren (or Jane Fonda) as Montag’s wife, Linda, and Jean Seberg as his lover, Clarisse. However, Alfred Hitchcock made it clear than spending ten hours a day for a week being interviewed for their famous book was one thing, lending his precious (and contracted) discovery was quite a different matter. (The réalisateur did nab Hitch’s favourite composer, Bernard Herrman, however). Truffaut then decided that Christie – en route to her Darling Oscar and Doctor Zhivago – should play both sides of Ray Bradbury’s coin. Precisely the reason why a jealous Terence Stamp quit and his ditto replacement, Oskar Werner, loathed the film. (Just not quite as much as Truffaut loathed Werner!)

  3. Emmaline Henry, Harrad Summer, 1974.      In her final film, Emmaline subbed for an  unavailable Tippi (who created the role in The Harrad Experiment, 1973) .The actress best remembered as Amanda Bellows in  I Dream of Jeannie, TV, 1965-1970, died of brain disease in 1979.
  4. Besedka Johnson, Starlet, 2012.     All change for director Sean Baker’s excellent film. Dakotaabove Johnson (daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith) had first been sought to co-star with her grandmother, Hedren. But another famous daughter, Mariel Hemingway’s Dree, took over the porn actress (unsimulated naughty bits supplied by porn star Zoe Voss) and another Johnson, became her granny-figure. Dree did not have the title rôle; that was her pet Chihuahua! Besedka had dreamt of acting since 15. This was her first and last film. She died just after the 2013 release at age 87. Dakota went on into the Fifty Shades of Grey soft-core-bore franchise…with a butt double as her’s was tattooed. Zoe’s would have been better. 

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  4