Alfred Hitchcock was one of the most active film directors and producers in the history of cinema.
Alfred Hitchcock is a really important chapter for cinema history. Check out the following facts and learn more about his life, his career, and his particular character.
- Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on the 13th of August in 1899.
- He was born in Essex.
- Alfred Hitchcock was born in a Roman Catholic family.
- His father gave him the following nickname: “little lamb without a spot”.
- The first time he attended school was at the age of 7.
- At first, he wanted to study engineering.
- So he enrolled in night classes in London.
- Eventually, he became an English film director and producer.
- His breakthrough in the industry was in 1919.
- He began his career by creating title cards featured in silent films.
- But his debut as a director was in 1925 with the film The Pleasure Garden.
- He is considered as one of the most influential and extensively studied filmmakers in the history of cinema.
- He is also known as “the Master of Suspense”.
- Even though he was “The Master of suspense” he had phobias.
- He was afraid of the police and in general of the law reinforcement.
- And he was also frightened of…eggs!
- That’s why he had never tasted an omelet!
- He directed over 50 movies
- Most of his early movies are lost.
- One of them -a silent melodrama- was found in New Zealand in 2011.
- Its name was The White Shadow.
- His movie Blackmail was the first “talkie” movie in Britain, which mean it was the first British movie with sound.
- From 1955 until 1965 he was the host of the anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
- His movies were nominated for an Oscar award 46 times.
- They were actually awarded 6 times.
- His film The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog which was created in 1927 helped to shape the thriller genre.
- Two of his 1930s thrillers are ranked among the greatest British films of the 20th century.
- These are The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938).
- In 1939 he moved to Hollywood as he was already an important director in the industry.
- He was also nominated for Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945).
- In 1945 he created his own documentary about the Holocaust named Memory of the Camps.
- But he never managed to win the Best Director Academy Award.
- He didn’t want people to see 5 of his movies which after their release were among his best movies.
- Hitchcock financed the movie himself, foregoing his normal salary in exchange for 60 percent ownership of the rights of Psycho.
- He managed to earn 6 million dollars from this movie. That’s 50 million in today’s dollars.
- Hitchcock personally contributed to writing a portion of the “Motion Pictures, Film Production” entry in the 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
- In December 1926, Hitchcock married the English-American screenwriter Alma Reville.
- Their honeymoon was in Paris, Lake Como and St. Moritz.
- He only had one daughter-Patricia.
- He died on the 29th of April in 1980 in California.
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