Hitchcock's Blondes: The Unforgettable Women Behind the Legendary Director's Dark Obsession

Bestselling author of Capotes Women Laurence Leamer shares an engrossing account of the enigmatic director Alfred Hitchcock that finally puts the dazzling actresses he cast in his legendary movies at the center of the story. Alfred Hitchcock was fixatednot just on the dark, twisty stories that became his hallmark, but also by the blond actresses who starred in many of his iconic movies. The director of North by Northwest, Rear Window, and other classic films didnt much care if they wore wigs, got their hair coloring out of a bottle, or were the rarest human specimena natural blondeas long as they shone with a golden veneer on camera. The lengths he went to in order to showcase (and often manipulate) these women would become the stuff of movie legend. But the women themselves have rarely been at the center of the story, until now. In Hitchcocks Blondes, bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer offers an intimate journey into the lives of eight legendary actresses whose stories helped chart the course of the troubled, talented directors careerfrom his early days in the British film industry, to his triumphant American debut, to his Hollywood heyday and beyond. Through the stories of June Howard-Tripp, Madeleine Carroll, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Janet Leigh, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, and Tippi Hedrenwho starred in fourteen of Hitchcocks most notable films and who bore the brunt of his fondness and sometimes fixationwe can finally start to see the enigmatic man himself. After all, his blondes (as he thought of them) knew the truths of his art, his obsessions and desires, as well as anyone. From the acclaimed author of Capotes Women comes an intimate, revealing, and thoroughly modern look at both the enduring art created by a man obsessedand the private toll that fixation took on the women in his orbit.