May 8, 2026
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Spot-On with Hitch Biographer Donald Spoto
by Doniphan Blair
Writer Donald Spoto's publicity photo must be a few years old but still captures his twinkle. photo: courtesy D. SpotoALTHOUGH DONALD SPOTO CAN CUT
with the best of them, he appears a paradigm of tact, especially in his older gay man incarnation, now living in Europe, although there was a wry smile playing around his lips when I first met him.
Not only has Spoto threaded the hierarchies of Hollywood for decades, as our royal biographer—almost 20 books on film stars or directors, he crossed the pond to cover the actual royals, the Windsors and Princess Diana, and then the biggest star of them all—god!
Indeed, while everyone else was doing the '60s, Spoto obtained a PhD in New Testament Studies from Fordham University and even took the cloth for a while, a perfect beginning for a discrete and understanding investigator.
Born in a New York City suburb in 1941, he went on to teach theology, mysticism and Biblical literature at Fairfield University in Connecticut, only turning from theology to cinema in the '70s. His critically-acclaimed "The Art of Alfred Hitchcock" (1976) made him one of the few critics to champion Hitchcock, helping initiated his rehabilitation from "B" movie or thriller director status.
But after writing books on Sidney Pollack and Tennessee Williams, Spoto developed another specialty, the screen goddess, starting with Dietrich and Lenya before moving in the 1990s to Monroe, Taylor, Bergman, Hepburn, Kelly and Crawford, with occasional detours to actors like Dean (1996) and Olivier (1992), and some actual saints, like Francis of Assisi (2002) and Joan of Arc (2007).
Before that spate of bestsellers, however, there was the traumatic actress story of Tippi Hedren, who became a close friend. She didn't get a full biography because her career was sadly cut short by the shocking events revealed—with imminent tact and fairness—in "The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock", published in 1983, and followed up with "Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and his Leading Ladies" (2008).
Spoto's big book, 'The Dark Side of Genuis' blew the lid off an American icon. photo: courtesy D. SpotoSpoto waited until three years after his subject died to tell how Ms. Hedren was humiliated and abused in "The Birds" (1963), notably with a week of having live birds thrown at her, only to have to endure actual declarations of love during the making of "Marnie" (1964). His implosion, following her rejection, crippled the film's completion as well her career.
After getting those stories out of his system, Spoto return to his first study for "The Hidden Jesus" (1998), a rational and conversational attempt to unravel the life of a man who changed humanity far more then any film star.
"The Bible was, of course, written by human beings," Spoto explains, "Although those writers (and this author) affirm that they have been touched by transcendent realities, they were nevertheless bound by the constraints of their own languages. All human discourse is metaphor."
By then he had been teaching at University of Southern California (1987) and in London, at the British Film Institute (1980-86), where he recently consulted on "The Girl" an HBO/BBC project based on his books and starring Toby Jones as Hitchcock and Sienna Miller as Hedren (2012).
Currently living in Denmark, with husband Ole Flemming Larsen, a Danish artist and administrator, Spoto also follows his old studies by remaining a dedicated humanist, serving on the boards of Human Rights Watch, Death Penalty Focus and the Youth Law Center, which is in the San Francisco.
On October 15, he came to San Francisco to participate in a panel discussion about film and receive an honorary PhD from the Academy of Art University. Just before the event, he sat down with me in a hallway of San Francisco’s Four Seasons Hotel, since the meeting rooms were booked, for a wide-ranging and lively discussion.
A bit of his trademark wry smile, right when we sat down to chat in a hotel corridor. photo: D. BlairCineSource: I saw you last night. That was lovely but a little constricting. I felt the big question in the room was: Was Hitchcock a feminist?
Donald Spoto: I happen to think feminism is an old-fashioned word. It goes along with granny dresses, round eyeglasses and sitting on the curb strumming a guitar.
As long as one accepts the equality of the sexes, what is the meaning of the word 'feminist'? It's like talking about racism. Don't you think it's a bad idea to be a racist—hello!
But if we use a generalized definition of the term, I would say Hitchcock was a feminist. He worked with his wife and focused on female protagonists who were not just eye candy but fully embedded in the plot.
That is absolutely true.
Of course, he was extremely ambivalent about women. He admired them and was in awe of some. As you know, the gesture most done to women in his films is: Strangle Them! How many pictures can we name where there is this gesture: 'Strangers on a Train' [1951], 'Dail M for Murder' [1954]...
So he veered from extreme devotion, perhaps from his mother or whatever, to extreme antagonism?
Like all really creative men, he found the ambivalence in men towards women. Fellini—also a great friend of mine—adored women but they aren't always well treated in his films... at all.
It isn't until late in his career, 'Giulietta degli Spiriti' ['Juliet of the Spirits' 1976] starring his wife again, that he begins to come to terms with the anima and the incredible sensitivity that women have innately.
Imagine the stories Spoto could tell if he relaxed his traditional tact. photo: D. BlairBut Hitchcock seemed to have a certain romanticism. In 'Young and Innocent' [1937] the woman is the focal point, her judgment and morality, is the fulcrum of the film. And that happens in quite a few of his films.
Oh yes, but [as I said] he is ambivalent. I mean he adores Madeleine Elster in 'Vertigo' [1958] and he can't wait to kill her.
Hitchcock always quoted to me the famous line from Oscar Wilde: 'A man kills the thing he loves.' He constantly quoted that to me. Finally, at lunch [one time] I said, 'Yes, Hitch, you told me this a lot before.'
Perhaps that's the filmmaker in him: He leaves it up to the audience to decide whether a women is a romantic value or not.
Oh yes, quite so, you're absolutely right.
Jumping back to 'Vertigo', do you agree that it is the greatest film ever made?
I always think that when people say that they are telling us more about themselves than the picture. It is the 'Oscar mentality.' What is this best picture of the year? This is schoolboy talk. The best actress—feh!
That said, it has been my favorite picture since I was 15 years old.
But there are other great films. I have always thought it was unfair to compare 'Vertigo' with, say, 'Singing in the Rain' (1952), or 'Double Indemnity' (1944), or 'Rear Window' (1955) —
Or 'Lawrence of Arabia' (1962)?
Exactly.
Although 'Vertigo' was panned when it came out [in 1958], as a fever dream, it seemed to predict the '60s.
In many ways, yes, indeed.
Like 'Dr. Caligari' predicted Hitler, great art intuits the future.
Yes!
Even using Jimmy Stewart was so odd because you would never associate that story with Jimmy Stewart. He was the straight man.
Absolutely. I think the choice of Stewart in those four films [also 'Rope' 1948, 'Rear Window' 1954, and 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' 1956] was brilliant.
A lot about celebrity amuses Spoto since, for him, it is all in the context of religion. photo: D. Blair[But] Stewart had no idea what Hitchcock was doing. He had no idea he was a destructive villainous character in those four pictures.
He teaches his students how to commit murder and get away with it with a free conscience in 'Rope'. In 'Rear Window', he treats Grace Kelly contemptibly, contemptibly! In 'The Man Who Knew Too Much', he lords it over his wife and son and treats Doris Day appallingly. And in 'Vertigo', of course, he is a pathological case.
I think Stewart is terrific as an actor but he didn't have the remotest idea what those films were about. I asked him, 'How did you feel about playing this recurring character who was essentially a negative character and a deeply troubled aspect of Hitch himself?'
Jimmy Stewart said, 'Well, I don't really think about those things very much.' OK [laughs].
Cary Grant was something else. He thought constantly about this, which is what made his performances brilliant, just brilliant.
Is Grant really our greatest—
Yes! Ahhh!
And he did come to the defense of Tippi Hedren [while Hitch was torturing her during the making of 'The Birds'].
He certainly did.
What did you think of 'The Girl'? [the 2012 television movie, based on Spoto's book]?
Tippi and I were knocked out by it. We thought they will never be able to capture it but we are going to support them because we have read the script and had many meetings and their approach seemed right.
We hoped it was going to be good but we could have never dared hoped it would be as wonderful as it was. I am so impressed by it.
I was present for the very first screening for the cast when it was finished in London in May of 2012. There we were, in a small screening room in Soho [London]: Toby Jones and Sienna Miller and I, and the director [Julian Jarrold] and the producer [Amanda Jenks].
When it was over, they wanted me to say something. I said, 'I was terribly moved and it validated all my hopes.' Sienna burst into tears, you know. Toby came up and gave me a big hug. I have very high regard for it—very high!
They could have pushed the envelope, gone out for vulgar scenes, done it a bit more [racy]. I thought it was a wonderful picture
I thought the other one, 'Hitchcock' [Sacha Gervasi, 2012] was pretty good.
I didn't see it. I didn't want to see it because I was told by people involved that more than half of it was made up—major events that never happened. For example, Alma [Hitchcock's wife] never had an affair with Whitfield Cook—never!
Spoto and his good friend Diane Baker before their presentation on a panel at the SF Academy of Art. photo: D. BlairSome people said just having her played by the great English actress Helen Mirren was itself not verisimilitude. I thought it was a pretty good rendition; it introduced his perversions. What do you think of people who dismiss that? Laura Truffaut says that her father said, 'Oh that psycho-sexual stuff is bull.'
Well, Truffaut said something very different in his book, in the original and the revised version, as well as to me. [Of course] he could have had different feelings at different times and have said something different to his daughter.
He was a great friend to me. He put me in one of his films, a lovely guy.
And his controversy with Godard was so sad—
Yes!
Although you were the front runner on exposing the dirt on Hitchcock, you still seem to revere him to the stars?
Absolutely. I don't think that treating the full humanity of someone is at all in conflict with admiring them greatly. I said on the 'Today Show' recently that I revered Hitchcock. I loved him then and I love him now.
His full humanity doesn't cancel that out. I don't expect Alfred Hitchcock or any other human being to be perfect or saintly. [laughs]
My understanding of his obsession with Tippi is that as he got to the height of his powers—and every other director was sleeping with their first lady—so Hitchcock is saying: 'What am I chopped liver?' As you explained, he selected Tippi because she was [less experienced], not a Grace Kelly or Marlene Dietrich.
That's right.
He thought he could finally pull it off.
He couldn't and wouldn't have been able to. [In fact, he] chose her because he knew she would say no. Had she said yes, he wouldn't have known what to do.
There is a line in 'The Girl' that supports that. When [the] Alma [character] finds him on the phone, she says, 'If she had taken her knickers off, you would have been lost.' He made no secret of the things he should have. Essentially he was impotent.
So he didn't have, as some thought, an affair with Joan Harrison [a screenwriter who was his secretary in the 1930s].
Spoto consulted on the recent BBC/HBO film, 'The Girl' starring Toby Jones and Sienna Miller. photo: courtesy BBC/HBOHitch worked very well with Joan Harrison but certainly there was never any affair between them. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know anything about Hitchcock or Harrison.
He was so lonely. He had no friends, he had no one to confide in, he was terrified of his wife. He was so emotionally shut off from the world, from people. It is terrifically sad.
I got to know him as well as anyone did in the last period of his life. I began as an acolyte and admirer with that first book 'The Art of Alfred Hitchcock'. Hitch appreciated it. He made a tape for it.
But he was just terribly lonely. It was his own fault, if you will, he couldn't confide in people and I report that with enormous compassion. Had he made an effort, can you imagine the level of friendship and mentorship he could've had?
As Tippi has often said to me, 'Had he been different we would have been friends for life, he would have been my mentor, I would have gone to him and he would have given me help.'
George Cukor gave help to actors and actresses, who went on to do films other than his own, throughout his life. Cukor would invite them for lunch on Sunday and help them with roles. [Hitchcock] could have been a pater familias—it's really sad.
Tippi, whom I also interviewed, seems like a real saint. I sensed that as soon as she introduced herself on the phone.
She has been one of my closest friends. I was honored to be the first person in whom she confided this period of her life. We are very close.
We have been through a lot together and I treasure her friendship. When you are Tippi's friend you are a friend for life. She is just honest and true. Tippi and I have travelled the world together doing Hitchcock programs.
Now you were getting those revelations from her shortly after you were the so-called acolyte of Hitchcock? That must have been wrenching for you.
No it wasn't. I'll tell you. I met and interviewed her for 'The Art of Alfred Hitchcock' [his first book on Hitchcock 1967]. And Hitch was still living—that was seven years before he died.
Tippi and I agreed we would withhold that card of the story as long as he was alive. Of course, over the years, I was talking to her more and more and getting everything in context.
He died, of course, in April of 1980. I [got the] contract for the 'The Dark Side of Genius [: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock' 1983] in July. Then for the next three years, we would go deeper and deeper together. She had never discussed this with anyone, not even her husband, but she trusted me. We have been friends now for 38 years—more than half my life.
That's beautiful. Now, at the time of your first book, Hitchcock was still considered a 'B' director?
Yes, that is why I wrote the book. I tried to correct that.
You were swimming up stream?
Yes, that is right.
Spoto receives an honorary PhD from the SF Academy of Art President Dr. Elisa Stevens. photo: D. BlairWhen did that finally shift?
Well, I was part of it with the 'The Art of Alfred Hitchcock'. [But] I wasn't the only one: there was Truffaut in France and Robin Wood in England.
Actually, 'The Art of Alfred Hitchcock' was the beginning of my friendship with Fellini. The funny thing was—initially I was astonished but not when I thought about it—Fellini's favorite film of all time was 'The Birds'.
It is poetic. It's a metaphor; it can't be accessed as a linear, with a beginning, middle and end movie—it's right up Fellini's alley.
Kind of humorous, too.
Exactly. I loved Fellini. He was a funny, warm, special person. We got on famously.
In 'La Dolce Vita' he really predicts the whole paparazzi thing—nails it to a cross.
Absolutely.
Speaking of which, is there any tie-in between religion and celebrities being our new religious figures? Or film as our new religion? Or is it just a coincidence that you are into [film and religion].
I think it is kind of pathetic if people make movies a substitute for anything. That diminishes film. They are what they are.
[Film and religion] are the same in that they are manmade but I make a big distinction between religion and theology. Religions are systems of manmade articulations, an attempt to talk about what you can't talk about and that changes from era to era. It is very different from theological constructs.
I have always thought that art in its finest form always asks the same questions as do the great theologians of history.
But elevating folks to celebrity status—
Well that's hilarious, really funny and sad. I have known so many great celebrities in my career—I could sit here all evening and drop names. Ingrid [Bergman] hated it and so left it all. This is something Ingrid and I talked about every time we met.
I think it is rather sad that people take an actor and ask them to bear a greater burden than any actor would bear. They are human beings who have a certain degree of talent—or not!—[and] I don't think we should ask more of them. I have too much respect for the great actors to put them in a place they can't support.
Unfortunately when their face is FIFTY FEET high and people dream about them—
Exactly. The sad thing is—and perhaps I reveal my age when I say—perhaps you had a greater reason for [celebrity worship] fifty or sixty years ago than you do today. I don't quite understand the elevation of some of these young [actors] today. I could understand the adulation for someone like Ingrid Bergman—she was simply one of the greatest actresses of all time.
But there were also great actors who were never famous, who played small roles or who were primarily stage actors and are all but forgotten. Unfortunately, these deeply talented kids, which I had the opportunity to see at work [at the Academy of Art], I don't think any of them have ever heard of Peggy Ashcroft [acclaimed late in life for a role in 'A Passage to India' 1984].
That's a name that I almost bow my head to—that's a talent! That's why I wouldn't ask the people to support a bigger role.
I guess the director or writer has a bit more responsibility since they are not just the image.
Quite right.
Are you able to speak with Patricia [Hitchcock, his daughter]?
Nobody is really. When I first contacted her, when I started the biography, she said, 'My father didn't want a biography'—now we know why. She said, 'My hands are tied, I can't cooperate.'
Poor Pat, she is in the position of being the keeper of the flame, which is the last role in the world she wanted. Her relationship with her father was tangled, complex and unhappy. When you see the extra material on the DVDs, it's very sad.
'Daddy was just down to earth. He'd come home from work and we'd have dinner and lots of laughs—he was just a normal father.'
This is just hilarious nonsense. No man who made 'Strangers on a Train'[1951] and 'Psycho' [1960] and 'Frenzy' [1972], just to name three, could be a normal laughing grandpa. This is just nonsense. But she's got to say this.
Is she deeply injured?
No, no, she is happily married.
Did Hitch preserve a certain stability in his home life?
I don't know. I was never part of that. His relationship with his wife, Alma, was very complicated. She was his mother, his muse; he was frightened of her.
All the people who knew the Hitchcocks socially—let's start with Else Grandalf in 1927 and Else became a great friend of mine—and Anne Todd, as well. Anyone in his circle knew that it was a very strange and troubled marriage. Had she predeceased him, he would have fallen to pieces—fallen to pieces!
We are left with the great mystery: Why Alma simply didn't say to Hitch, regarding Tippi, 'Stop it. You're humiliating yourself, you're torturing this woman.' This is a great mystery. Tippi and I have never figured it out.
She must have noticed something was going south.
Oh she did. Tippi and I have often theorized that, after all those years of standing in his shadow and seeing him make a fool of himself so many times, she was finally willing to just let him do it to the final, nth degree.
Perhaps it was a little like polygamy, where the first wife runs things and the second wife is the bait, does Saturday night service, etc.
[laughs] Exactly.
The thing about Alma is that she hated sex; the idea of sex was repellent to her. That made the marriage very easy in one sense [since] Hitchcock didn't think much of it either. He built this wall of flesh around himself that made any type of intimacy impossible.
But he was very sexual intellectually?
Oh yes. He was especially interested in the 'biways' [of sexuality]. The writers were all privy to this. I spoke to so many of them, from Charles Bennett until the end. They all knew from having spent so much time with him that Hitchcock was fascinated by everything that wasn't run-of-the-mill, vanilla sex.
He was much more interested in homosexual sex, lesbian sex, in all the alternatives. He was fascinated by it and tried to get people to tell him more—beyond just a director having to understand some of his characters.
Arthur Laurents [playwright, Hitch writer] understood all of this—Arthur was brilliant at understanding Hitchcock.
When Arthur and Farley [Granger, actor, notably 'Rope' and 'Strangers on a Train'] were lovers, Hitch all but said, 'What do you do and how often?' Not that either would have answered him. Arthur was frank and open but he wasn't ill-mannered.
I read some where that Hitch would invite the writers over and get the writer drunk and then flirt with the writer's wife.
I don't think it was writers so much as a certain number of actors. He treated some of them very badly. He knew Montgomery Cliff had a drinking problem. So he got Montgomery Cliff drunk which wasn't nice. He did this to a number of people.
What does it show? It's a way of exerting control over others. You are superior to them and 'You play them like an organ'—to use Hitch's own phrase.
Why didn't he ever try to work with Marilyn?
Oh, she was totally and completely not his type of blonde, not at all. He was never interested in the dumb blonde. He wanted one who was either profoundly elegant or could be made to appear so. She would have come to the movie with so much public baggage. She had an image that even she couldn't change. She wasn't dumb at all but she could never project otherwise.
I feel her greatest film was 'The Misfits' [1961] in which she deeply embodied the injured female.
Oh she was wonderful, she was wonderful.
That is one of the greatest films of all time.
Absolutely—underrated. She was a deeply gifted woman and I knew people who knew her very, very well. They wept at the public image that was so false, so false—they adored her. People who knew her simply adored her. She was the most thoughtful and caring, generous, loving person.
The studio just had to encourage this false image of the stupid, addicted—you know. She never took drugs for recreation. She was a good person.
She spoke out on political issues to her political 'contacts.'
Exactly and in so doing she disobeyed the studio, which didn't want her to appear bright and thoughtful. Hurray for Hollywood! [laughs]
Another one of our pet theories we call 'AphrodisiaCriminality'.
I know what Aphrodisia means but what does that mean?
In 'Marnie', 'To Catch a Thief', 'Rear Window' there's a deep imbedding of criminality and sex. In 'Marnie' it's over-the-top and of course Diane [Baker] is fabulous in that—
Oh my gosh!
She embodies that vibe [in 'Marnie'] even though she is not a criminal. She wants to get in on the passion.
That's right.
That seems to me to be one of his explorations.
The alternative is to tell a nice, comfortable story about normal people having a life—the end! There's no story there. He's a story teller and stories have to do something different, otherwise where are you? Blondie and Dagwood. [laughs]
Are there any underrated gems of the Hitchcock oeuvre you can point to?
Oh yes. Oh yes! I think one his master works is 'The Paradine Case' [1947]. It's dismissed by even his admirers: 'talky nonsense'. I think it's so brilliant, it takes my breath away. I watch it once a month and each time, 'Oh my god, I missed that last time. This is brilliant.'
Straight line, of course, from 'The Paradine Case' to 'Vertigo'. Gregory Peck, Anne Todd, Alisa Valli, Ethyl Barrymore, Charles Laughton, Charles Coburn—it's simply brilliant.
A man invents an image of a woman: she is so wonderful and mystical and so beautiful and great [but] she is nothing of the sort—I mean it's 'Vertigo'. It's a marvelous, marvelous picture.
Now there's a few almost metaphysical things that Hitchcock does, like in 'To Catch a Thief' the camera veers off and has life of its in own. It seems that he anthropomorphizes the camera.
Yes always. He's entirely in control of every single camera movement. What he was the master of, since day one, was subjective-objective cross-tracking. The power of his camera derives from subjective-objective cross-tracking.
A great example of that, of course, is Vera Miles as Lila Crane climbing up the hill toward the house in 'Psycho'. So you have her point of view moving towards the door then you have the house's point of view.
You pull back as she comes closer and she is looking straight out and you are forced to feel, 'I have got to get in that house to find out the secret.'
But, at the same time you feel, 'I don't want to go near, this place is a house of horrors.' And he does that in every film, there is a moment of cross-tracking, a subjective-objective [feeling] and that imbues his films. It's the camera that enables you to have these contradictory feelings.
A lot of people feel he did it all visually and then he pieced in the dialogue.
That's why he often let clever actors either make up dialogue or misread it and he didn't care.
Important moments—bloop!—had to be on target but generally he was quite content [with improv]. There are moments in 'To Catch a Thief' when you have Cary Grant and Brigitte Auber and Grace Kelly in the water—which of course is an indoor tank at Paramount—that scene in Cannes most of that is made up on the spot.
The three were having so much fun and getting into this jesting mood and the assistant director turned to Hitch and he said, 'Keep rolling.' And its delightful.
He didn't really admit to a lot of improv.
No, no. In fact he constantly said, 'Oh no, we have no improv.' Everything is on the page. [But] he can be caught out in some of these delightful misrepresentations.
For example, he said, 'In 'Rear Window' when Grace makes her entrance and she goes towards Jimmy Stewart to kiss him and he says, 'I shook the camera to give that effect.' Well, this is nonsense. You can't shake the camera. What happens is he double printed every frame to get this wonderful sort of mystical look.
When she breaks frame, I can still see it from my viewing as a 15 year-old, it's the greatest entrance of a first lady in cinema history.
There you go. And Grace had such fun. I talked to her about that shot—'Oh yes, Hitch always used to tell people he shook the camera. The camera would fallen on the floor, we would've been killed, it was a [large] Vistavision camera.'
She of all the leading ladies seemed to know how to play Hitch like his own violin?
Ingrid, too. Oh yes but [Kelly] was such a sweetheart.
But, as you said, she just wanted to be a mother, she didn't want to be a star.
That's exactly right, she hated Hollywood.
So in a sense these women were already feminists in the '50s, fully living their own lives?
Absolutely. Well I really have to run otherwise I will be late for this event...
Doniphan Blair is a writer, filmmaker, musician and graphic designer, not to mention scoff-law and editor/publisher of this rag, currently residing in Oakland and who can be reached .
Posted on Dec 04, 2013 - 11:39 AM
by Doniphan Blair
Writer Donald Spoto's publicity photo must be a few years old but still captures his twinkle. photo: courtesy D. Spotowith the best of them, he appears a paradigm of tact, especially in his older gay man incarnation, now living in Europe, although there was a wry smile playing around his lips when I first met him.
Not only has Spoto threaded the hierarchies of Hollywood for decades, as our royal biographer—almost 20 books on film stars or directors, he crossed the pond to cover the actual royals, the Windsors and Princess Diana, and then the biggest star of them all—god!
Indeed, while everyone else was doing the '60s, Spoto obtained a PhD in New Testament Studies from Fordham University and even took the cloth for a while, a perfect beginning for a discrete and understanding investigator.
Born in a New York City suburb in 1941, he went on to teach theology, mysticism and Biblical literature at Fairfield University in Connecticut, only turning from theology to cinema in the '70s. His critically-acclaimed "The Art of Alfred Hitchcock" (1976) made him one of the few critics to champion Hitchcock, helping initiated his rehabilitation from "B" movie or thriller director status.
But after writing books on Sidney Pollack and Tennessee Williams, Spoto developed another specialty, the screen goddess, starting with Dietrich and Lenya before moving in the 1990s to Monroe, Taylor, Bergman, Hepburn, Kelly and Crawford, with occasional detours to actors like Dean (1996) and Olivier (1992), and some actual saints, like Francis of Assisi (2002) and Joan of Arc (2007).
Before that spate of bestsellers, however, there was the traumatic actress story of Tippi Hedren, who became a close friend. She didn't get a full biography because her career was sadly cut short by the shocking events revealed—with imminent tact and fairness—in "The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock", published in 1983, and followed up with "Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and his Leading Ladies" (2008).
Spoto's big book, 'The Dark Side of Genuis' blew the lid off an American icon. photo: courtesy D. SpotoAfter getting those stories out of his system, Spoto return to his first study for "The Hidden Jesus" (1998), a rational and conversational attempt to unravel the life of a man who changed humanity far more then any film star.
"The Bible was, of course, written by human beings," Spoto explains, "Although those writers (and this author) affirm that they have been touched by transcendent realities, they were nevertheless bound by the constraints of their own languages. All human discourse is metaphor."
By then he had been teaching at University of Southern California (1987) and in London, at the British Film Institute (1980-86), where he recently consulted on "The Girl" an HBO/BBC project based on his books and starring Toby Jones as Hitchcock and Sienna Miller as Hedren (2012).
Currently living in Denmark, with husband Ole Flemming Larsen, a Danish artist and administrator, Spoto also follows his old studies by remaining a dedicated humanist, serving on the boards of Human Rights Watch, Death Penalty Focus and the Youth Law Center, which is in the San Francisco.
On October 15, he came to San Francisco to participate in a panel discussion about film and receive an honorary PhD from the Academy of Art University. Just before the event, he sat down with me in a hallway of San Francisco’s Four Seasons Hotel, since the meeting rooms were booked, for a wide-ranging and lively discussion.
A bit of his trademark wry smile, right when we sat down to chat in a hotel corridor. photo: D. BlairDonald Spoto: I happen to think feminism is an old-fashioned word. It goes along with granny dresses, round eyeglasses and sitting on the curb strumming a guitar.
As long as one accepts the equality of the sexes, what is the meaning of the word 'feminist'? It's like talking about racism. Don't you think it's a bad idea to be a racist—hello!
But if we use a generalized definition of the term, I would say Hitchcock was a feminist. He worked with his wife and focused on female protagonists who were not just eye candy but fully embedded in the plot.
That is absolutely true.
Of course, he was extremely ambivalent about women. He admired them and was in awe of some. As you know, the gesture most done to women in his films is: Strangle Them! How many pictures can we name where there is this gesture: 'Strangers on a Train' [1951], 'Dail M for Murder' [1954]...
So he veered from extreme devotion, perhaps from his mother or whatever, to extreme antagonism?
Like all really creative men, he found the ambivalence in men towards women. Fellini—also a great friend of mine—adored women but they aren't always well treated in his films... at all.
It isn't until late in his career, 'Giulietta degli Spiriti' ['Juliet of the Spirits' 1976] starring his wife again, that he begins to come to terms with the anima and the incredible sensitivity that women have innately.
Imagine the stories Spoto could tell if he relaxed his traditional tact. photo: D. BlairOh yes, but [as I said] he is ambivalent. I mean he adores Madeleine Elster in 'Vertigo' [1958] and he can't wait to kill her.
Hitchcock always quoted to me the famous line from Oscar Wilde: 'A man kills the thing he loves.' He constantly quoted that to me. Finally, at lunch [one time] I said, 'Yes, Hitch, you told me this a lot before.'
Perhaps that's the filmmaker in him: He leaves it up to the audience to decide whether a women is a romantic value or not.
Oh yes, quite so, you're absolutely right.
Jumping back to 'Vertigo', do you agree that it is the greatest film ever made?
I always think that when people say that they are telling us more about themselves than the picture. It is the 'Oscar mentality.' What is this best picture of the year? This is schoolboy talk. The best actress—feh!
That said, it has been my favorite picture since I was 15 years old.
But there are other great films. I have always thought it was unfair to compare 'Vertigo' with, say, 'Singing in the Rain' (1952), or 'Double Indemnity' (1944), or 'Rear Window' (1955) —
Or 'Lawrence of Arabia' (1962)?
Exactly.
Although 'Vertigo' was panned when it came out [in 1958], as a fever dream, it seemed to predict the '60s.
In many ways, yes, indeed.
Like 'Dr. Caligari' predicted Hitler, great art intuits the future.
Yes!
Even using Jimmy Stewart was so odd because you would never associate that story with Jimmy Stewart. He was the straight man.
Absolutely. I think the choice of Stewart in those four films [also 'Rope' 1948, 'Rear Window' 1954, and 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' 1956] was brilliant.
A lot about celebrity amuses Spoto since, for him, it is all in the context of religion. photo: D. BlairHe teaches his students how to commit murder and get away with it with a free conscience in 'Rope'. In 'Rear Window', he treats Grace Kelly contemptibly, contemptibly! In 'The Man Who Knew Too Much', he lords it over his wife and son and treats Doris Day appallingly. And in 'Vertigo', of course, he is a pathological case.
I think Stewart is terrific as an actor but he didn't have the remotest idea what those films were about. I asked him, 'How did you feel about playing this recurring character who was essentially a negative character and a deeply troubled aspect of Hitch himself?'
Jimmy Stewart said, 'Well, I don't really think about those things very much.' OK [laughs].
Cary Grant was something else. He thought constantly about this, which is what made his performances brilliant, just brilliant.
Is Grant really our greatest—
Yes! Ahhh!
And he did come to the defense of Tippi Hedren [while Hitch was torturing her during the making of 'The Birds'].
He certainly did.
What did you think of 'The Girl'? [the 2012 television movie, based on Spoto's book]?
Tippi and I were knocked out by it. We thought they will never be able to capture it but we are going to support them because we have read the script and had many meetings and their approach seemed right.
We hoped it was going to be good but we could have never dared hoped it would be as wonderful as it was. I am so impressed by it.
I was present for the very first screening for the cast when it was finished in London in May of 2012. There we were, in a small screening room in Soho [London]: Toby Jones and Sienna Miller and I, and the director [Julian Jarrold] and the producer [Amanda Jenks].
When it was over, they wanted me to say something. I said, 'I was terribly moved and it validated all my hopes.' Sienna burst into tears, you know. Toby came up and gave me a big hug. I have very high regard for it—very high!
They could have pushed the envelope, gone out for vulgar scenes, done it a bit more [racy]. I thought it was a wonderful picture
I thought the other one, 'Hitchcock' [Sacha Gervasi, 2012] was pretty good.
I didn't see it. I didn't want to see it because I was told by people involved that more than half of it was made up—major events that never happened. For example, Alma [Hitchcock's wife] never had an affair with Whitfield Cook—never!
Spoto and his good friend Diane Baker before their presentation on a panel at the SF Academy of Art. photo: D. BlairWell, Truffaut said something very different in his book, in the original and the revised version, as well as to me. [Of course] he could have had different feelings at different times and have said something different to his daughter.
He was a great friend to me. He put me in one of his films, a lovely guy.
And his controversy with Godard was so sad—
Yes!
Although you were the front runner on exposing the dirt on Hitchcock, you still seem to revere him to the stars?
Absolutely. I don't think that treating the full humanity of someone is at all in conflict with admiring them greatly. I said on the 'Today Show' recently that I revered Hitchcock. I loved him then and I love him now.
His full humanity doesn't cancel that out. I don't expect Alfred Hitchcock or any other human being to be perfect or saintly. [laughs]
My understanding of his obsession with Tippi is that as he got to the height of his powers—and every other director was sleeping with their first lady—so Hitchcock is saying: 'What am I chopped liver?' As you explained, he selected Tippi because she was [less experienced], not a Grace Kelly or Marlene Dietrich.
That's right.
He thought he could finally pull it off.
He couldn't and wouldn't have been able to. [In fact, he] chose her because he knew she would say no. Had she said yes, he wouldn't have known what to do.
There is a line in 'The Girl' that supports that. When [the] Alma [character] finds him on the phone, she says, 'If she had taken her knickers off, you would have been lost.' He made no secret of the things he should have. Essentially he was impotent.
So he didn't have, as some thought, an affair with Joan Harrison [a screenwriter who was his secretary in the 1930s].
Spoto consulted on the recent BBC/HBO film, 'The Girl' starring Toby Jones and Sienna Miller. photo: courtesy BBC/HBOHe was so lonely. He had no friends, he had no one to confide in, he was terrified of his wife. He was so emotionally shut off from the world, from people. It is terrifically sad.
I got to know him as well as anyone did in the last period of his life. I began as an acolyte and admirer with that first book 'The Art of Alfred Hitchcock'. Hitch appreciated it. He made a tape for it.
But he was just terribly lonely. It was his own fault, if you will, he couldn't confide in people and I report that with enormous compassion. Had he made an effort, can you imagine the level of friendship and mentorship he could've had?
As Tippi has often said to me, 'Had he been different we would have been friends for life, he would have been my mentor, I would have gone to him and he would have given me help.'
George Cukor gave help to actors and actresses, who went on to do films other than his own, throughout his life. Cukor would invite them for lunch on Sunday and help them with roles. [Hitchcock] could have been a pater familias—it's really sad.
Tippi, whom I also interviewed, seems like a real saint. I sensed that as soon as she introduced herself on the phone.
She has been one of my closest friends. I was honored to be the first person in whom she confided this period of her life. We are very close.
We have been through a lot together and I treasure her friendship. When you are Tippi's friend you are a friend for life. She is just honest and true. Tippi and I have travelled the world together doing Hitchcock programs.
Now you were getting those revelations from her shortly after you were the so-called acolyte of Hitchcock? That must have been wrenching for you.
No it wasn't. I'll tell you. I met and interviewed her for 'The Art of Alfred Hitchcock' [his first book on Hitchcock 1967]. And Hitch was still living—that was seven years before he died.
Tippi and I agreed we would withhold that card of the story as long as he was alive. Of course, over the years, I was talking to her more and more and getting everything in context.
He died, of course, in April of 1980. I [got the] contract for the 'The Dark Side of Genius [: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock' 1983] in July. Then for the next three years, we would go deeper and deeper together. She had never discussed this with anyone, not even her husband, but she trusted me. We have been friends now for 38 years—more than half my life.
That's beautiful. Now, at the time of your first book, Hitchcock was still considered a 'B' director?
Yes, that is why I wrote the book. I tried to correct that.
You were swimming up stream?
Yes, that is right.
Spoto receives an honorary PhD from the SF Academy of Art President Dr. Elisa Stevens. photo: D. BlairWell, I was part of it with the 'The Art of Alfred Hitchcock'. [But] I wasn't the only one: there was Truffaut in France and Robin Wood in England.
Actually, 'The Art of Alfred Hitchcock' was the beginning of my friendship with Fellini. The funny thing was—initially I was astonished but not when I thought about it—Fellini's favorite film of all time was 'The Birds'.
It is poetic. It's a metaphor; it can't be accessed as a linear, with a beginning, middle and end movie—it's right up Fellini's alley.
Kind of humorous, too.
Exactly. I loved Fellini. He was a funny, warm, special person. We got on famously.
In 'La Dolce Vita' he really predicts the whole paparazzi thing—nails it to a cross.
Absolutely.
Speaking of which, is there any tie-in between religion and celebrities being our new religious figures? Or film as our new religion? Or is it just a coincidence that you are into [film and religion].
I think it is kind of pathetic if people make movies a substitute for anything. That diminishes film. They are what they are.
[Film and religion] are the same in that they are manmade but I make a big distinction between religion and theology. Religions are systems of manmade articulations, an attempt to talk about what you can't talk about and that changes from era to era. It is very different from theological constructs.
I have always thought that art in its finest form always asks the same questions as do the great theologians of history.
But elevating folks to celebrity status—
Well that's hilarious, really funny and sad. I have known so many great celebrities in my career—I could sit here all evening and drop names. Ingrid [Bergman] hated it and so left it all. This is something Ingrid and I talked about every time we met.
I think it is rather sad that people take an actor and ask them to bear a greater burden than any actor would bear. They are human beings who have a certain degree of talent—or not!—[and] I don't think we should ask more of them. I have too much respect for the great actors to put them in a place they can't support.
Unfortunately when their face is FIFTY FEET high and people dream about them—
Exactly. The sad thing is—and perhaps I reveal my age when I say—perhaps you had a greater reason for [celebrity worship] fifty or sixty years ago than you do today. I don't quite understand the elevation of some of these young [actors] today. I could understand the adulation for someone like Ingrid Bergman—she was simply one of the greatest actresses of all time.
But there were also great actors who were never famous, who played small roles or who were primarily stage actors and are all but forgotten. Unfortunately, these deeply talented kids, which I had the opportunity to see at work [at the Academy of Art], I don't think any of them have ever heard of Peggy Ashcroft [acclaimed late in life for a role in 'A Passage to India' 1984].
That's a name that I almost bow my head to—that's a talent! That's why I wouldn't ask the people to support a bigger role.
I guess the director or writer has a bit more responsibility since they are not just the image.
Quite right.
Are you able to speak with Patricia [Hitchcock, his daughter]?
Nobody is really. When I first contacted her, when I started the biography, she said, 'My father didn't want a biography'—now we know why. She said, 'My hands are tied, I can't cooperate.'
Poor Pat, she is in the position of being the keeper of the flame, which is the last role in the world she wanted. Her relationship with her father was tangled, complex and unhappy. When you see the extra material on the DVDs, it's very sad.
'Daddy was just down to earth. He'd come home from work and we'd have dinner and lots of laughs—he was just a normal father.'
This is just hilarious nonsense. No man who made 'Strangers on a Train'[1951] and 'Psycho' [1960] and 'Frenzy' [1972], just to name three, could be a normal laughing grandpa. This is just nonsense. But she's got to say this.
Is she deeply injured?
No, no, she is happily married.
Did Hitch preserve a certain stability in his home life?
I don't know. I was never part of that. His relationship with his wife, Alma, was very complicated. She was his mother, his muse; he was frightened of her.
All the people who knew the Hitchcocks socially—let's start with Else Grandalf in 1927 and Else became a great friend of mine—and Anne Todd, as well. Anyone in his circle knew that it was a very strange and troubled marriage. Had she predeceased him, he would have fallen to pieces—fallen to pieces!
We are left with the great mystery: Why Alma simply didn't say to Hitch, regarding Tippi, 'Stop it. You're humiliating yourself, you're torturing this woman.' This is a great mystery. Tippi and I have never figured it out.
She must have noticed something was going south.
Oh she did. Tippi and I have often theorized that, after all those years of standing in his shadow and seeing him make a fool of himself so many times, she was finally willing to just let him do it to the final, nth degree.
Perhaps it was a little like polygamy, where the first wife runs things and the second wife is the bait, does Saturday night service, etc.
[laughs] Exactly.
The thing about Alma is that she hated sex; the idea of sex was repellent to her. That made the marriage very easy in one sense [since] Hitchcock didn't think much of it either. He built this wall of flesh around himself that made any type of intimacy impossible.
But he was very sexual intellectually?
Oh yes. He was especially interested in the 'biways' [of sexuality]. The writers were all privy to this. I spoke to so many of them, from Charles Bennett until the end. They all knew from having spent so much time with him that Hitchcock was fascinated by everything that wasn't run-of-the-mill, vanilla sex.
He was much more interested in homosexual sex, lesbian sex, in all the alternatives. He was fascinated by it and tried to get people to tell him more—beyond just a director having to understand some of his characters.
Arthur Laurents [playwright, Hitch writer] understood all of this—Arthur was brilliant at understanding Hitchcock.
When Arthur and Farley [Granger, actor, notably 'Rope' and 'Strangers on a Train'] were lovers, Hitch all but said, 'What do you do and how often?' Not that either would have answered him. Arthur was frank and open but he wasn't ill-mannered.
I read some where that Hitch would invite the writers over and get the writer drunk and then flirt with the writer's wife.
I don't think it was writers so much as a certain number of actors. He treated some of them very badly. He knew Montgomery Cliff had a drinking problem. So he got Montgomery Cliff drunk which wasn't nice. He did this to a number of people.
What does it show? It's a way of exerting control over others. You are superior to them and 'You play them like an organ'—to use Hitch's own phrase.
Why didn't he ever try to work with Marilyn?
Oh, she was totally and completely not his type of blonde, not at all. He was never interested in the dumb blonde. He wanted one who was either profoundly elegant or could be made to appear so. She would have come to the movie with so much public baggage. She had an image that even she couldn't change. She wasn't dumb at all but she could never project otherwise.
I feel her greatest film was 'The Misfits' [1961] in which she deeply embodied the injured female.
Oh she was wonderful, she was wonderful.
That is one of the greatest films of all time.
Absolutely—underrated. She was a deeply gifted woman and I knew people who knew her very, very well. They wept at the public image that was so false, so false—they adored her. People who knew her simply adored her. She was the most thoughtful and caring, generous, loving person.
The studio just had to encourage this false image of the stupid, addicted—you know. She never took drugs for recreation. She was a good person.
She spoke out on political issues to her political 'contacts.'
Exactly and in so doing she disobeyed the studio, which didn't want her to appear bright and thoughtful. Hurray for Hollywood! [laughs]
Another one of our pet theories we call 'AphrodisiaCriminality'.
I know what Aphrodisia means but what does that mean?
In 'Marnie', 'To Catch a Thief', 'Rear Window' there's a deep imbedding of criminality and sex. In 'Marnie' it's over-the-top and of course Diane [Baker] is fabulous in that—
Oh my gosh!
She embodies that vibe [in 'Marnie'] even though she is not a criminal. She wants to get in on the passion.
That's right.
That seems to me to be one of his explorations.
The alternative is to tell a nice, comfortable story about normal people having a life—the end! There's no story there. He's a story teller and stories have to do something different, otherwise where are you? Blondie and Dagwood. [laughs]
Are there any underrated gems of the Hitchcock oeuvre you can point to?
Oh yes. Oh yes! I think one his master works is 'The Paradine Case' [1947]. It's dismissed by even his admirers: 'talky nonsense'. I think it's so brilliant, it takes my breath away. I watch it once a month and each time, 'Oh my god, I missed that last time. This is brilliant.'
Straight line, of course, from 'The Paradine Case' to 'Vertigo'. Gregory Peck, Anne Todd, Alisa Valli, Ethyl Barrymore, Charles Laughton, Charles Coburn—it's simply brilliant.
A man invents an image of a woman: she is so wonderful and mystical and so beautiful and great [but] she is nothing of the sort—I mean it's 'Vertigo'. It's a marvelous, marvelous picture.
Now there's a few almost metaphysical things that Hitchcock does, like in 'To Catch a Thief' the camera veers off and has life of its in own. It seems that he anthropomorphizes the camera.
Yes always. He's entirely in control of every single camera movement. What he was the master of, since day one, was subjective-objective cross-tracking. The power of his camera derives from subjective-objective cross-tracking.
A great example of that, of course, is Vera Miles as Lila Crane climbing up the hill toward the house in 'Psycho'. So you have her point of view moving towards the door then you have the house's point of view.
You pull back as she comes closer and she is looking straight out and you are forced to feel, 'I have got to get in that house to find out the secret.'
But, at the same time you feel, 'I don't want to go near, this place is a house of horrors.' And he does that in every film, there is a moment of cross-tracking, a subjective-objective [feeling] and that imbues his films. It's the camera that enables you to have these contradictory feelings.
A lot of people feel he did it all visually and then he pieced in the dialogue.
That's why he often let clever actors either make up dialogue or misread it and he didn't care.
Important moments—bloop!—had to be on target but generally he was quite content [with improv]. There are moments in 'To Catch a Thief' when you have Cary Grant and Brigitte Auber and Grace Kelly in the water—which of course is an indoor tank at Paramount—that scene in Cannes most of that is made up on the spot.
The three were having so much fun and getting into this jesting mood and the assistant director turned to Hitch and he said, 'Keep rolling.' And its delightful.
He didn't really admit to a lot of improv.
No, no. In fact he constantly said, 'Oh no, we have no improv.' Everything is on the page. [But] he can be caught out in some of these delightful misrepresentations.
For example, he said, 'In 'Rear Window' when Grace makes her entrance and she goes towards Jimmy Stewart to kiss him and he says, 'I shook the camera to give that effect.' Well, this is nonsense. You can't shake the camera. What happens is he double printed every frame to get this wonderful sort of mystical look.
When she breaks frame, I can still see it from my viewing as a 15 year-old, it's the greatest entrance of a first lady in cinema history.
There you go. And Grace had such fun. I talked to her about that shot—'Oh yes, Hitch always used to tell people he shook the camera. The camera would fallen on the floor, we would've been killed, it was a [large] Vistavision camera.'
She of all the leading ladies seemed to know how to play Hitch like his own violin?
Ingrid, too. Oh yes but [Kelly] was such a sweetheart.
But, as you said, she just wanted to be a mother, she didn't want to be a star.
That's exactly right, she hated Hollywood.
So in a sense these women were already feminists in the '50s, fully living their own lives?
Absolutely. Well I really have to run otherwise I will be late for this event...
Doniphan Blair is a writer, filmmaker, musician and graphic designer, not to mention scoff-law and editor/publisher of this rag, currently residing in Oakland and who can be reached .
Posted on Dec 04, 2013 - 11:39 AM
