Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies

By Donald Spoto

Book Overview

"The trouble today is that we don't torture women enough." -Alfred Hitchcock It is remarkable how infrequently, over a period of more than fifty years, Alfred Hitchcock spoke about the beautiful, legendary and talented actresses he directed. And when he did, his remarks were mostly indifferent and often hostile. But his leading ladies greatly enriched his films, even as many of them achieved international stardom precisely because of their work for Hitchcock-among the dozens of women were Madeleine Carroll, Joan Fontaine, Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren. Yet he maintained a stony, insistent silence about the quality of their performances and their contributions to his art. Spellbound by Beauty -the final volume in master biographer Donald Spoto's Hitchcock trilogy that began with The Art of Alfred Hitchcock and continued with The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock -is the fascinating, complex and finally tragic story of the great moviemaker and his female stars, the unusual ideas of sex and romance that inform his films and the Hollywood dreams that often became nightmares. Rich with fresh revelations based on previously undisclosed tapes, new interviews, private correspondence and personal papers made available only to the author, this thoughtful, compassionate yet explosive portrait details Hitchcock's outbursts of cruelty, the shocking humor and the odd amalgam of adoration and contempt that time and again characterized Hitchcock's obsessive relationships with women-and that also, paradoxically, fed his genius. He insisted, for example, that Madeleine Carroll submit herself to painful physical demands during the making of The 39 Steps. He harbored a poignantly unrequited love for Ingrid Bergman. He meticulously and deliberately constructed Grace Kelly's image. Finally, he stalked, harassed and abused Tippi Hedren. His treatment of his daughter, Pat, was certainly unusual, while his strange marriage to his sometime collaborator Alma Reville was a union that (according to Hitchcock himself) was forever chaste after one incident. Spellbound by Beauty offers important insights into the life of a brilliant, powerful, eccentric and tortured artist, and it corrects a major gap in movie history by paying tribute at last to those extraordinarily talented actresses who gave so much to his films. From the Hardcover edition.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307351300
• ISBN13: 9780307351302
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Harmony
• Length: 324 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Terrific!

I have always enjoyed Spoto's books about the film industry, and this one is superb. Having already mastered Hitchcock and his work in other books, this one takes the Master a step further. In short, Hitchcock was a "weirdo" who harrassed his leading ladies all through the making of his classic films. He told them dirty stories, propositioned them, and harrassed them in eras where that was acceptable and allowable. But it must have worked, as his leading actresses all were superb in his films, with one, Joan Fontaine, winning the only acting Oscar for a Hitch film, "Suspicion." AH was terrible to Tippi Hedren, Anne Baxter, and Diane Baker, but somehow he was in love unfailingly with Ingrid Bergman, who worked with him in 3 movies. A fascinating book - highly recommended!

Spoto returns to the subject he knows better than anyone.

Few film historians have the understanding of Hitchcock that Donald Spoto possesses. He sat at the master's arm during the making of Family Plot. He has previously written about Hitchcock in two other fine books, but here, unburdened by the need for censorship, Spoto offers his most uncompromising view of the obsessions and quirks that were an undeniable, if unattractive part of Alfred Hitchcock. Spoto is an artist of the first rank and this is one of his best.