Alfred Hitchcock British Director (1899–1980)

Early life

Alfred Hitchcock was a British film director and producer, born on 13 August 1899 in Leytonstone. His schooling is recorded at Salesian College, which he left in 1908, and at Tower Hamlets College, where his studies ended in 1914. He is also listed as having attended the University of London.

Career

Hitchcock's earliest screen credit is The Call of Youth, dated 1921. Over the following decades his name became attached to 75 screen entries, a list that runs from 1921 to Hitchcock/Truffaut, dated 2015. He is credited as director on 66 titles and as writer on 19.

Among his earlier titles is The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, released in 1927, on which he is credited as both director and writer. In the 1930s he directed The 39 Steps in 1935 and The Lady Vanishes in 1938, both among his better documented titles.

The early 1940s began with Rebecca, which appeared in 1940, the same year as Foreign Correspondent, for which he again took a writing credit alongside the directing one. Suspicion followed in 1941 and Shadow of a Doubt in 1943. Spellbound came out in 1945 and Notorious in 1946, the latter credited to him as writer as well as director. In 1948 he made Rope.

The 1950s were an especially full decade. Strangers on a Train dates from 1951, and Dial M for Murder and Rear Window both belong to 1954. To Catch a Thief followed in 1955, as did The Trouble with Harry, and he directed The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956. Vertigo came in 1958, and North by Northwest in 1959. Other titles on his list of notable works include Lifeboat, I Confess, Stage Fright, Saboteur, Mr. & Mrs. Smith and The Wrong Man.

Psycho was released in 1960, and it is the film of his with the greatest number of Wikipedia language editions. The Birds followed in 1963 and Marnie in 1964. He directed Torn Curtain in 1966 and Topaz in 1969, the latter with a writing credit. Frenzy appeared in 1972, and Family Plot in 1976 is the last of his notable directing works. The genres most closely linked to his output are suspense and horror.

Recognition

Hitchcock received twelve recorded awards and honours and five nominations. His honours include the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, won in 1967. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director five times, for Rebecca (nominated in 1941), Lifeboat (1945), Spellbound (1946), Rear Window (1955) and Psycho (1961), without winning in that category.

In 1971 he received the BAFTA Fellowship and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award. He was named a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1979, the same year he received the AFI Life Achievement Award. Earlier, in 1960, he was recognised with an Edgar Award. His other honours include being made a Knight of the Legion of Honour and an Officer of Arts and Letters, a Silver Shell for Best Director, a Saturn Award, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Personal life

In 1926 Hitchcock married Alma Reville, and the marriage lasted until 1980. The couple had one child, Pat Hitchcock. Hitchcock died on 29 April 1980.