Tippi Hedren Talks About Being Object Of Alfred Hitchcock’s Obsession, HBO’s ‘The Girl’

Tippi Hedren was a favorite of Alfred Hitchcock, but behind the camera she was the object of his controlling and increasingly dangerous obsession.

Hedren is the subject of the new HBO movie The Girl which stars Sienna Miller. According to Access Hollywood the movie takes a look inside Alfred Hitchcock’s obsession with Hedren and his increasing harassment towards her.

Tippi Hedren was discovered by Hitchcock’s wife Alma and was then cast in the suspense thriller The Birds. Following that role Hedren allegedly became Hitchcock’s obsession.

According to Hedren:

“I think if anybody out in the audience… has been the object of someone’s obsession, [they know] it’s absolutely horrible and I was caught in this situation of being under contract, to him. It was the studio system, so there was really nobody that I could go to, to talk about [this with].”

As a single mother raising her daughter, Melanie Griffith, Tippi Hedren said she was frightened by Hitchcock’s behavior.

“I was followed, he had my handwriting analyzed,” Tippi said. “He did everything he could to – well, I don’t know what people do when they’re obsessed other than what he did. He just made my life absolutely miserable.”

The movie explores some of those incidents, including Alfred Hitchcock lunging at a tired Tippi, kissing her and positioning himself atop her.

Hedren said the situations that once frighten her now make her feel motivated to empower other women.

“I could write a book about how do you get out of situations like this for women who are in the business world,” Tippi Hedren said. “But I think [what] this film will do is give young women the opportunity to say, ‘I do not have to acquiesce to any demands put upon me that I am not interested in.’ “

The 82-year-old Hedren said watching the film dredged up some of the old feelings, though.

“I’ve never been in a screening room where nobody moved, nobody said anything,” Tippi Hedren told The Associated Press. “Until my daughter jumped up and said, ‘Well, now I have to go back into therapy.'”