The Girl

Have you seen the trailer for The Girl, HBO's upcoming movie about Tippi Hedren, Alfred Hitchcock, and the making of The Birds?  It looks fascinating and more than a little bit creepy. 

The Girl tells the story of how Hitchcock grew obsessed with Hedren during and after the making of the film, much like one of his famously twisted characters.  The Girl's trailer hints at an interesting backstory: Hitchcock promised Hedren that they would use mechanical birds to shoot one of the attack scenes in the movie.  The morning of the shoot, the assistant director told Hedren that they would be using real birds after all, and for the next five days, they hurled pigeons, ravens, and gulls at her over and over again (and even tied them to her!).  Cary Grant visited the set and told her that she was the bravest woman he'd ever met.  She ultimately broke down and a doctor stopped filming for a week.  (Read more about it here.)  

Something else you probably didn't know about Tippi Hedren: she lived with lions!  Hedren and her family (including her daughter Melanie Griffith) adopted a lion as their house pet in the 1970s.  Life Magazine did a story about them.  Aren't the pictures just insane?  (File these under: "Stars . . . not so like us after all.")

Will you watch The Girl?

PS: Another famous Tippi. 

(Images: Portrait of Tippi Hedren with bird via Pinterest (original photo credit unknown); The Birds promotional poster via Monster Mania; lion pictures from Life Magazine via Retronaut)