When The Birds actress Tippi Heldren called Alfred Hitchcock ‘evil’ for mistreatment on sets

The Birds, the 1963 movie by Alfred Hitchcock, completes 60 years of release this year. The film, which floored everyone with its inventive concept and execution, stood out particularly for how it created a conceivable scenario, a believable world where a swarm of birds terrorise an entire town. However, amidst all the praise and compliments about the film, people end up ignoring one of the most unfortunate outcomes of this film’s production - the mistreatment of film’s lead actress Tippi Heldren from Hitchcock himself. 

Heldren was earlier told about use of mechanical birds on sets

Today, most film industries are extremely careful of safety hazards on the sets, and go the extra mile to ensure physical wellbeing of actors, especially during the shoot of action sequences or stunts. However, these precautions were certainly not part of the guidelines during the shoot of The Birds, where the actress was coerced to shoot with real birds for 5 days at a stretch where her character is relentlessly attacked by them.

Before the film’s shoot began, Heldren had the complete knowledge of the film’s script as well as the sequences involved in the shoot. However, she was also told that the crew would use mechanical birds on the sets for all the sequences, including the ones where her character is attacked by birds.

Heldren shot with real birds for 5 days straight

However, one day on the sets, Hitchcock sent his assistant director James H Brown to Hedren’s dressing room, to inform the actress that the actress had to shoot with real birds that day. As Heldren recalled in her book later on, “I was never frightened, I was just overwhelmed and in some form of shock, and I just kept saying to myself over and over again, ‘I won’t let him break me. I won’t let him break me.’” By the last day of that scene shoot, Heldren was practically on the verge of collapse. 

Earlier, Hitchcock had the actress’ dresser wrap bands of fabric around her dress, so that some of the birds could be attached to the elastic. However, after one of the shoulders pecked her too close to her eye, Heldren lost her cool and snapped at Hitchcock “I’m done!” before bursting into tears. Unfortunately, everyone on the sets decided to leave her alone instead of providing any consolation. 

Heldren said Hitchcock was ‘deviant to the point of dangerous’

When The Birds released, Heldren received great praise from critics and audience alike. Infact, even Hitchcock himself went out of his way to praise Heldren’s performance, comparing her to his favourite Grace Kelly. However, Heldren hadn’t forgiven Hitchcock for the mistreatment on sets of The Birds. Years later, in an interview around 2012, the actress said about the director, “We are dealing with a brain here that was an unusual genius, and evil, and deviant, almost to the point of dangerous, because of the effect that he could have on people that were totally unsuspecting.”