Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS
"Remember that woman in the diner? She blamed beautiful, blonde Tippi of bringing the birds to town. The terror. The destruction. It's a film about sex, I guess."
While most of my time with actress Jessica Tandy was spent discussing Tennessee Williams, I had to ask about Alfred Hitchcock and "The Birds." Here is what Jessica Tandy had to say about her character--Lydia Brenner--and what Hitch told Suzanne Pleshette--as Annie "Hayworth." This conversation took place at the Hotel Wyndham in 1991.
"I liked him [Alfred Hitchcock] very much, but you should really talk to Hume [Cronyn] about him. They were much closer. They worked very well together. They trusted each other.
"At the heart of my characterization--and I told this to a man who wrote a book about Hitchcock, and he ignored it, and wrote something mean and incorrect--was the fact that Lydia was overly protective of her son. [Mitch, played by Rod Raylor]. Lydia wanted him all to herself, and Hitch was not afraid of any inferences that might be made. He had my son call me darling, and I remember touching him a lot. I don't know if it all remained in the film, but I joked with the Rod about how much we touched. I was told to be icy to Tippi [Hedren]. My mother's milk had frozen. I didn't have a man, and my functions--I'm talking now like Alfred Hitchcock--had stopped operating. This makes women cold, apparently. [Tandy laughed.]
"At one point Suzanne Pleshette asked if her character was a lesbian. 'Do you see her that way?' Hitch asked. 'I dunno,' she said. [Tandy offered a pitch-perfect imitation of Pleshette.] 'But I had an affair with Mitch! Isn't that why I'm so jealous of Tippi?' Now, Hitch felt that Mitch's rejection of Annie led to frustration and failure of 'systems' to operate. Annie was worthy of sexual attraction. [Hayworth?] but without use or desire, things shut down. Remember that woman in the diner? She blamed beautiful, blonde Tippi of bringing the birds to town. The terror. The destruction. It's a film about sex, I guess.
"'Okay,' Pleshette announced. "I'd rather play her as a lesbian than as frustrated.' Now, look how she looks at Tippi. Wonderful work. And what did Hitch do? Suzanne called us over to see something. She was laughing. The mailbox of Annie Hayworth was three times its original size and Jezebel red. What on earth was Alfred Hitchcock thinking? Ask Hume."