Master of thriller and suspense British born Alfred Hitchcock kicks off FemaleFirst's Greatest Directors series.In a career that has spanned sixty years Hitchcock directed more than fifty movies as well as pioneering techniques in the genre of suspense and thriller that would influence generations of filmmakers that would follow him.Despite a string of films, including The Birds, Rebecca and Psycho, all now considered movie classics Hitchcock never won an Oscar for Best Director and only Rebecca won a Best Picture Academy Award in 1940.Youngest of three children he studied at the school for Engineering and navigation before becoming a draftsman and advertising designer when he graduated.During this time, due to his interest in photography, a young Hitchcock began work in film in London. In 1920, at the age of 21, he got his first full time job at Islington Studios designing the titles for silent movies.His directing debut The Pleasure Garden in 1925 was a commercial failure but then he moved in the thriller genre, a section of the industry he would master.
In 1927 he released The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog to critical and commercial success. Over the next few years Hitchcock cemented his growing reputation as a rising star in the British film industry releasing Blackmail, Juno and the Paycock and Murder!
In 1935 he made and released the 39 Steps, starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll, and it is widely regarded as one of his best movies in the early part of his career.
By the end of the 1930s Hitchcock was the best director within the British film industry and Hollywood beckoned.
In 1940 Hitchcock made Rebecca his first American movie.
Starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine the film followed widower Maxim de Winter and his new bride.
But the servants in his Cornwall home are reluctant to accept the new Mrs. de Winter as the lady of the house remaining loyal to his first wife Rebecca, who died under mysterious circumstances.
The housekeeper Mrs Danvers is obsessed with the dead Rebecca, keeping her former bedroom as a shrine. The constant presence of Rebecca begins to haunt the new lady of the house as she begins to doubt her relationship with her husband.
The film won an Oscar for Best Picture as well as receiving nominations for Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, Judith Anderson and Hitchcock himself.
By 1941 Hitchcock had also moved into the producing aspect of the movie industry directing and producing Suspicion for which Joan Fonatine won a Best Actress Oscar for her role.
The 1950s and 60s were the peak of the director's career releasing a collection of commercial and critical successful movies that have gone on to achieve 'classic' status including Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, Vertigo and North by Northwest.
1960 was the year that Hitchcock's most famous movie Psycho was released. The director used an unorthodox plot structure by killing off leading lady Janet Leigh at the end of the first act of the film.
The shower scene became one of the most influential moments in cinema history and is often considered as one of the most terrifying scenes ever filmed.
Despite never winning a Best Director Oscar he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science in 1967 for a lifetime achievement.
Alfred Hitchcock died in 1980 of renal failure he was eighty years old.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw