Alfred Joseph Hitchcock

Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born in London on Aug. 13, 1899, to a poultry dealer, greengrocer and fruit importer and the former Emma Whelan. He graduated from St. Ignatius College, a Jesuit school in London, where he studied engineering, and took art courses at the University of London. In childhood incidents, he developed a lifelong fear of the police and punishment, major influences on his movies. At about the age of 5, he was sent by his father with a note to a local police chief, who locked him in a cell for five minutes. In releasing him, the officer said, "That's what we do to naughty boys." Mr. Hitchcock later said he could never forget "the sound and the solidity of that closing cell door and the bolt." Mr. Hitchcock attributed his fear of punishment to ritual beatings of the hands with a hard rubber strop, administered for infractions at St. Ignatius, that he recalled "was like going to the gallows." Became a Draftsman He worked briefly as a technical calculator for a cable company, but soon abandoned technology for art, becoming an advertising layout draftsman for a London department store. In his teens, he was determined to break into film making, and by brashness and ability he won a job in 1920 writing and illustrating title cards for silent pictures. He rose quickly, to script writer, art director and assistant director. By 1925, Mr. Hitchcock had become a director, making a melodrama called "The Pleasure Garden" on a shoestring budget in Munich, West Germany. He began shaping his genre with "The Lodger," about Jack the Ripper. Early influences, he said, were German Expressionistic and American films. In 1926, he married Alma Reville, his assistant, who collaborated on many of his movies as a writer, adviser and general assistant. Their daughter, Patricia, acted in a number of his movies and television thrillers. The pictorial and technical innovations of Mr. Hitchcock's early melodramas garnered him increasing praise. In 1929, he directed "Blackmail," Britain's first widely successful talking feature. In the 30's, he won international acclaim for his pacesetting spy thrillers, including "The Man Who Knew Too Much"; "The 39 Steps"; "Secret Agent"; "Sabotage," called "The Woman Alone" in the United States, and "The Lady Vanishes." Lured to Hollywood David O. Selznick lured Mr. Hitchcock to Hollywood, with its incomparable technical facilities, and he stayed, becoming an American citizen. His first American production, the adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Gothic novel "Rebecca," with Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, began a long string of successes. In the film maker's early years in Hollywood, he created a stir when he quipped that "all actors are children" and "should be treated like cattle." He later showed particular disdain for Method school actors. But he never raised his voice on a set and never argued with a performer in front of the crew. A number of stars later described him as a vividly persuasive man who knew exactly what he wanted in a picture--and got it. Despite his recent illness, the director was reportedly at work at Universal Studios on a new film, a spy story to be called "The Short Night." With him at his death were his wife, Alma; his daughter, Patricia, and his three grandchildren. In the last year of his life, Mr. Hitchcock, although a United States citizen, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of his native Britain. In contrast with the disordered Hitchcockian cinema world, the moviemaker's personal life was routinized, stable and serene. Unless he was shooting a film or out promoting one, he rarely ventured away from his home or office, according to Richard Schickel, who interviewed him for a public-television series, "The Men Who Made the Movies," in 1975. The director had a measured, courtly manner and wore dark suits, white shirts and conservative narrow ties. He was a gourmet and wine connoisseur, and, with a 5-foot-8-inch frame, his weight once soared to 290 pounds, though he tried to keep it down by dieting to about 220 pounds. He avoided exercise and fiction, and voraciously read contemporary biographies, travel books and true- crime accounts. He increased his fame and fortune by lending his name to, and supervising for decades, popular suspense anthologies and magazines with tales by many writers. Mr. Hitchcock was a noted practical joker whose favorite prank was telling a tantalizing story in a loud voice to a companion in an elevator, perfectly timing his exit just before the punch line and then bowing politely to the intrigued but frustrated passengers.