Tippi Hedren

Nathalie Kay "Tippi" Hedren (born January 19, 1930) is an American actress and formerfashion model with a career spanning six decades. She is primarily known for her roles in twoAlfred Hitchcock films, The Birds and Marnie, and her extensive efforts in animal rescue atShambala Preserve, an 80-acre (320,000 m²) wildlife habitat which she founded in 1983.

Hedren is the mother of actress Melanie Griffith, and they share credits on several productions, notably Pacific Heights (1990).

Early life

Hedren was born in New Ulm, Minnesota, the daughter of Dorothea Henrietta (née Eckhardt) and Bernard Carl Hedren. Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from Sweden, and her maternal ancestry was German and Norwegian.Her father ran a small general store in the small town of Lafayette, Minnesota and gave her the nickname "Tippi." "My father thought Nathalie was a little bit much for a brand new baby," Hedren explained at a 2004 screening ofThe Birds.

As a teenager, Hedren took part in department store fashion shows. Her parents relocated to California while she was still a high school student. When she reached her 18th birthday, she bought a ticket to New York and began a professional modeling career. Within a year she made her film debut (minus dialogue) as a Petty Girl model in The Petty Girl (1950) musical comedy, although in interviews she refers to The Birds (1963) as her first film.

Career

Hedren had a successful modeling career in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing on covers of national magazines, such as Life magazine. She was discovered by Hitchcock, who was watching The Today Show when he saw Hedren in a commercial for Sego, a diet drink. Hitchcock was looking for an actress who possessed something of the sophistication, self-assurance and cool-blonde sex appeal of Grace Kelly, with whom he had made three films. Hedren, expensively groomed and mentored by Hitchcock, appeared in his films The Birds and Marnie. At the time of the films' releases, she was criticized for being too passive in The Birds and too expressive in Marnie. It took years before she received respect for her work in both films from American film critics.

At a packed house in Lancaster, California's Antelope Valley Independent Film Festival Cinema Series screening of The Birds on September 28, 2004, Hedren recalled how she was mysteriously selected for a lead role: "I said, 'Well, who is this person? Who is interested?'... Nobody would tell me who it was." (It was Alfred Hitchcock, who soon announced his choice of Hedren.)

Hitchcock put Hedren through a then-costly $25,000 screen test, doing scenes from his previous films, such as Rebecca, Notorious and To Catch a Thief with actor Martin Balsam. He signed her to a multi-year exclusive personal contract, something he had done in the 1950s withVera Miles. Hitchcock's plan to mold Hedren's public image went so far as to carefully control her style of dressing and grooming. Hitchcock insisted for publicity purposes that her name should be printed only in single quotes, "Tippi". The press mostly ignored this directive from the director, who felt that the single quotes added distinction and mystery to Hedren's name. In interviews, Hitchcock compared his newcomer not only to her predecessor Grace Kelly but also to what he referred to as such "ladylike", intelligent, and stylish stars of more glamorous eras as Irene Dunne and Jean Arthur. Later, Hedren indicated that she didn't want to be known as the next Grace Kelly but rather as the first Tippi Hedren.

Her appearance in The Birds brought a wealth of publicity. In a December 1962 Look magazine cover story "Hitchcock's New Grace Kelly", Alfred Hitchcock compared her to his star of To Catch a Thief and Rear Window, saying, "'Tippi' has a faster tempo, city glibness, more humor. She displayed jaunty assuredness, pertness, an attractive throw of the head. And she memorized and read lines extraordinarily well and is sharper in expression."

Hedren said of Hitchcock, "He is subtle as a psychiatrist and never gives displaced encouragement." With the release of the film, she got a very tepid reception, the only exceptions being critic Bob Thomas ("Miss Hedren makes an impressive debut") and Time ("pleasant and ladylike, as Grace Kelly was.") Years after the film's release, she remembered the location work at Bodega Bay as dangerous and taxing, commenting, "For a first film, it was a lot of work."^{[citation needed]}

For the final attack scene in a second-floor bedroom, filmed on a closed set at Universal-International Studios, Hedren had been assured by Hitchcock that mechanical birds would be used. Instead, Hedren endured five solid days of prop men, protected by thick leather gloves, flinging dozens of live gulls, ravens and crows at her (their beaks clamped shut with elastic bands). Cary Grant visited the set and told Hedren, "I think you're the bravest lady I've ever met." In a state of exhaustion, when one of the birds gouged her cheek and narrowly missed her eye, Hedren sat down on the set and began crying.^[7] A physician ordered a week's rest, which Hedren said at the time was riddled with "nightmares filled with flapping wings". The Birds brought her a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer.

Premiere magazine chose Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels in The Birds as one of "The 100 Greatest Characters of All Time" Marnie (1964), a psychological thriller from the novel by Winston Graham, was Hedren's second Hitchcock assignment, co-starring with Sean Connery. She recalls Marnie as the favorite of her two films for Hitchcock because of the central character, an emotionally battered young woman who travels from city to city assuming various guises in order to rob her employers. On release, the film was greeted by mixed reviews and indifferent box-office. Although Hitchcock continued to have Hedren in mind for several other films afterMarnie, the actress declined any further work with him. Other directors who wanted to hire her had to go through Hitchcock, who would inform them she was unavailable. "It grew to be impossible. He was a very controlling type of person, and I guess I'm not about to be controlled", said Hedren. When Hedren tried to get out of her contract, she recalls Hitchcock telling her he'd ruin her career. "And he did: kept me under contract, kept paying me every week for almost two years to do nothing."

By the time Hitchcock sold her contract to Universal and she was fired for refusing work on one of its television shows, Hedren's career had stalled.

Charles Chaplin cast her as the sophisticated, brittle, cheated-upon wife of Marlon Brando in his shipboard comedy A Countess from Hong Kong (1967). She made more than 40 films between 1967 and 2006, including Pacific Heights, Citizen Ruth and I Heart Huckabees.^{[citation needed]} More recently, she has appeared in episodes of The 4400 in 2006 and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in 2006. She was a cast member of the night-time soap opera Fashion House in 2006. Hedren has also appeared in many independent films. In 2009, she co-starred with the late actress Brittany Murphy in the made-for-television movie Tribute.

Influence

A Louis Vuitton ad campaign in 2006 paid tribute to Hedren and Hitchcock with a modern-day interpretation of the deserted railway station opening sequence of Marnie. Her 1963 publicity picture from The Birds was the cover for Jean-Pierre Dufreigne's book Hitchcock Style(2004). In interviews, Naomi Watts has stated that her character interpretation in Mulholland Drive (2001) was influenced by the look and performances of Hedren and Kim Novak in Hitchcock films.^[12] Watts and Hedren later acted in I Heart Huckabees (2004) but didn't share any scenes together onscreen. Off-screen, the film's director David O. Russell introduced them both, and Watts has said about Hedren, "I was pretty fascinated by her then because people have often said that we're alike." Watts was once expected to star in a remake of The Birds(1963)and has dressed up as Hedren's title character from Marnie for a photo shoot for March 2008 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. In the same issue, Jodie Foster dressed up as Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels from The Birds (1963).

In another issue of Vanity Fair, the magazine referred to January Jones's character in Mad Men as "Tippi Hedren's soul sister from Marnie". The New York Times television critic earlier had echoed the same sentiment in his review of Mad Men. Actress Tea Leoni said that her character in the film Manure (2009) is made up to look like Hedren.

Shambala Preserve

May 2006: Shambala benefit stage production of The Birds in Hollywood, California. (L-R) Shambala supporter Don Norte, Veronica Cartwright, playwright David Cerda, Tippi Hedren and Shambala supporter Kevin Norte.

In 1981, Hedren produced Roar, an 11-year project that ended up costing $17 million and starring dozens of African lions. "This was probably one of the most dangerous films that Hollywood has ever seen", remarked the actress. "It's amazing no one was killed." During the production of Roar, Hedren, her husband at the time, Noel Marshall, and daughter Melanie were attacked by lions; Jan de Bont, the director of photography, was scalped. She later co-wrote the book Cats of Shambala (1985) about the experience. Roar made only $2 million worldwide. Hedren ended her marriage to Marshall a year later in 1982. The film directly led to the 1983 establishment of the non-profit Roar Foundation and Hedren's Shambala Preserve, located at the edge of the Mojave Desert in Acton, California between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley 40 miles (64 km) northeast of Los Angeles. Shambala currently houses some 70 animals, including African lions, Siberian andBengal tigers, leopards, servals, mountain lions and bobcats. Hedren lives on the Shambala site and conducts monthly tours of the preserve for the public. Hedren took in and cared for Togar, a lion that belonged to Anton LaVey, after he was told by San Francisco officials that he couldn't keep a fully grown lion as a house pet. More recently, Shambala became the new home for Michael Jackson’s two Bengal tigers, Sabu and Thriller, after he decided to close his zoo at his Neverland Valley Ranch in Los Olivos, California. On December 3, 2007,Shambala Preserve made headlines when Chris Orr, a caretaker for the animals, was mauled by a tiger named Alexander.

Several documentaries have focused on Shambala Preserve, including the 30-minute Lions: Kings of the Serengeti (1995), narrated by Melanie Griffith, and Animal Planet's Life with Big Cats (1998), which won the Genesis Award for best documentary in 1999. The animals at the preserve served as the initial inspiration for the life's work of artist A. E. London, who started her career working for Hedren.

Personal life

Hedren met and married actor/producer Peter Griffith in 1952. Their daughter, actress Melanie Griffith, was born on August 9, 1957. They were divorced in 1961. She married her then-agent Noel Marshall, who later produced three of her films, in 1964; they divorced in 1982. She married businessman Luis Barrenechea in 1985 and divorced in 1995.^[17] Since 2002 she has been married to veterinarian Martin Dinnes.

Hedren has three grandchildren from daughter Griffith: musician Alexander Bauer, actress and model Dakota Johnson and Stella Banderas. Her son-in-law is actor Antonio Banderas.

In a Los Angeles Times article, Hedren was described as being a pivotal figure in the modern development of Vietnamese owned-nail salons in the United States. Drawn to the plight of refugees from the Vietnam War, she began visiting a tent city at Hope Village, and in 1975, helped Vietnamese immigrants by having her manicurist teach them the skills of the trade and working with a local beauty school to help them find jobs.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Other notes
2010	Batman: The Brave and the Bold	Queen Hippolyta	Animated series
2009	Tribute	Mrs. Hennessey	TV movie
2008	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	Karen Rosenthal (1 episode, 2008)
2008	Her Morbid Desires	Aunt Gloria
2007	Dead Write	Minnie
2005	The Last Confederate: The Story of Robert Adams	Grandmother Adams
	Diamond Zero	Eleanor Kelly
2004	I Heart Huckabees	Mary Jane Hutchinson
	Raising Genius	Grandma Babe
	Return to Babylon	Mrs. Peabody
2003	Rose's Garden	Rose
	DarkWolf	Mary
	Searching for Haizmann	Dr. Michelle Labner
	111 Gramercy Park	Mrs. Granville
	IceMaker	Mrs. Kelly
	Julie and Jack	Julie McNeal
2001	Tea with Grandma	Grandma Rae
	Ice Cream Sundae	Lady
2000	Mind Rage	Dr. Wilma Randolph
1999	Replacing Dad	Dixie
	The Darklings	Martha Jackson
	The Storytellers	Lillian Glosner
1998	I Woke Up Early The Day I Died	Maylinda Austed
	Break Up	Mom
	Exposé	unknown
1997	Mulligans	Dottie
1996	Citizen Ruth	Jessica Weiss
1994	Inevitable Grace	Dr. Marcia Stevens
	Treacherous Beauties	Lettie Hollister
	The Birds II: Land's End	Helen
	Teresa's Tattoo	Evelyn Hill
1993	Perry Mason: The Case of the Skin-Deep Scandal	Beverly Courtney
	Murder, she wrote	Catherine Noble
1992	Through the Eyes of a Killer	Mrs. Bellano
1991	Shadow of a Doubt	Mrs. Mathewson
	In the Heat of the Night	Annabelle Van Buren
1990	Pacific Heights	Florence Peters
	Return to Green Acres	Arlenn
1989	Deadly Spygames	Chastity
1985	Alfred Hitchcock Presents	Waitress
1984	Terror in the Aisles	archival appearance
1982	Foxfire Light	Elizabeth Morgan
1981	Roar	Madeline
1976	Where the Wind Dies	unknown
1973	The Harrad Experiment	Margaret Tenhausen
	Mr. Kingstreet's War	Maggie Kingstreet
1970	Satan's Harvest	Marla Oaks
1968	Tiger by the Tail	Rita Armstrong
1967	A Countess from Hong Kong	Martha
1964	Marnie	Marnie Edgar
1963	The Birds	Melanie Daniels	Golden Globe
1950	The Petty Girl	Ice Box Petty Girl	uncredited

Awards

• Most Promising Newcomer Award by Photoplay for The Birds (1963).
• Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress for The Birds (1963).
• Life Achievement Award in France at The Beauvais Film Festival Cinemalia (1994)
• Life Achievement Award in Spain by The Fundacion Municipal De Cine (1995).
• The Helen Woodward Animal Center's Annual Humane Award (1995)
• Founder's Award from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (1996)
• "Lion and Lamb Award" from Wildhaven (1997)
• "Woman of Vision" Award by Women of Film and Video in Washington, D.C. (1999).
• Presidential Medal for her work in film from Hofstra University (1999).
• "Best Actress in a Comedy Short" Award in the short film Mulligans! (2000) at the Method Fest, Independent Film Festival (2000).
• "Best Actress" Award for the short film Tea With Grandma (2002) from the New York International Independent Film Festival (2002).
• Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on January 23, 2003.
• Women of Los Angeles Annual Hope is a Woman Honor (2003)^[21]
• PAWS Companion for Life Award (2004)^[22]
• "Best Actress" Award for the short film Rose's Garden from LA TV Short Film Festival (2004)
• Animal Rights Advocacy Award at Artivist Film Festival (2004).
• Living Legacy Award (2005)
• "Humanitarian Award" - Bahá'í Faith
• Conservationist of the Year—Dino Award given by the Las Vegas Natural History Museum (2006)
• Lifetime Achievement Award—Riverside Film Festival (2007)
• Jules Verne "Nature" Award—The 1st Annual Jules Verne Adventure Film Festival of Los Angeles (2007)
• Smithsonian salutes Legendary Ladies of Screen and Stage (2008)-Hedren donated her original scripts for The Birds (1963), Marnie (1964) and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) with annotations made during the making of these films.
• Academy of Art University's 2nd Epidemic Film Festival Award (2008)-honoring her illustrious acting career
• Jules Verne Legendaire Award (2008)
• "When a Woman Wills She Will!" Award by the Woman’s Club of Hollywood (2009)
• Workhouse's first Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award (2009)
• Received the First Star on the Orinda Theater Walk of Fame (2009)
• Received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 24th Annual Genesis Awards show from the Humane Society of the United States(2010)
• BraveHeart Award (2010)
• Who-Manitarian Award (2010)

Nathalie Kay "Tippi" Hedren (born January 19, 1930) is an American actress and formerfashion model with a career spanning six decades. She is primarily known for her roles in twoAlfred Hitchcock films, The Birds and Marnie, and her extensive efforts in animal rescue atShambala Preserve, an 80-acre (320,000 m²) wildlife habitat which she founded in 1983.

Hedren is the mother of actress Melanie Griffith, and they share credits on several productions, notably Pacific Heights (1990).

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