Alfred Hitchcock (161 page)

Alec McCowen is quoted from “Shooting Stars: Alec McCowen Remembers …” from the
Sunday Times
(Dec. 5, 1985). I consulted several Jon Finch interviews, including the one that appeared in
Interview
(Apr. 31, 1973), “On Film Violence and Mrs. Mary Ding-a-Ling” in the
Morning Star
(June 1, 1973), and “Technical Hitch” in
Films Illustrated
1, no. 3 (1971).

Truffaut writes about the screening of
Frenzy
at Cannes in
American Film
(Nov. 1984). Herb Steinberg is quoted from his BBC transcript. The Buñuel anecdotes are from
My Last Sigh: The Autobiography of Luis Buñuel
(Knopf, 1983), and from Buñuel biographer John Baxter. Hitchcock’s February 20, 1975, letter to Michael Balcon is in the Balcon Papers.

The transcript of the
Family Plot
script sessions is among the Ernest Lehman Papers at the University of Texas. The “typical day” section about working on
Family Plot
is quoted with permission from the “Lehman at Large” column, “He Who Gets Hitched,” in
American Film
(May 1978).

Although I spent several days on the set of
Family Plot
in 1975, interviewing Hitchcock, Bruce Dern, Karen Black, William Devane, and others, I also consulted numerous articles on the production, including “The ‘Plot’ Thickens” by Andrew Meyer in
Film Comment
(Sept.-Oct. 1975), “Plots and Patterns” by Roger Greenspun in
Film Comment
(May-June 1976), and “Alfred Hitchcock on the set of ‘Family Plot’ ” by Larry Salvato in
Millimeter
(Jan. 1976).

“I think that comes under the heading …” is from “Alf Hitchcock Fields Critics’ Questions, Some Pretty Silly” by Joseph McBride in
Variety
(Mar. 31, 1976), John Russell Taylor wrote about Karen Black in “Hitchcock’s Fifty Years in Films” in the
London Times
(July 19, 1975). Bruce Dern is quoted from “Muuuurder by the Babbling Brook” by Chris Hodenfeld in
Rolling Stone
(July 29, 1976). “Barbara, I’m scared …” and the reference to
Nashville
are in “With
Family Plot
…” by Penelope Gilliatt in the
Observer
(Aug. 8, 1976). Gregg Kilday’s “Steel-Belted Playfulness at Work” was published in the
Los Angeles Times
(July 27, 1975).

David Freeman is quoted from his generous correspondence by E-mail and letter with me, and from his invaluable book
The Last Days of Alfred Hitchcock
(Overlook Press, 1984).

Charles Champlin reported “A Big Hollywood Turnout for Alfred Hitchcock” in the
Los Angeles Times
(Mar. 12, 1979). I reviewed numerous other accounts of the AFI event, including “An Homage to ‘King Alfred’ ” by Champlin in the
Los Angeles Times
(Mar. 7, 1979), “‘Half of Hollywood’ Salutes Filmmaker Hitchcock” by Glenn Lovell in the
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
(Mar. 12, 1979), and Joseph McBride’s contribution to “Buts and Rebuts—Hitchcock: A Defense and an Update” in
Film Comment
(May-June 1979).

I have at points quoted Karen Black, Dr. Walter Flieg, John Forsythe, Barry Foster, David Freeman, and Anna Massey from the
E! Hollywood True Story
documentary about Hitchcock. I have also quoted Foster from his BBC interview.

Hitchcock’s June 10, 1977, letter to Michael Balcon, at the BFI, describes Alma’s illness and relates his “difficulties” with writer James Costigan. Hitchcock’s June 15, 1978, letter to Mrs. Gladys Hitching; his November 29, 1978, letter to his sister, Mrs. Nellie Ingram; his December 6, 1978, letter to Elsie Randolph; and his December 20, 1978, letters to Irene Selznick and to Mr. and
Mrs. Hume Cronyn, describing his and his wife’s deteriorating health, are in the Hitchcock Collection.

Other books: Hal Kanter,
So Far, So Funny: My Life in Show Business
(McFarland, 1995); Kenneth Williams,
The Kenneth Williams Diaries
(HarperCollins, 1993).

Albert Margolies, Whitfield Cook, and Hume Cronyn are quoted from the Cronyn Papers at the Library of Congress. “Donald Spoto took things and twisted them …” is from “Dizzy Heights,” an interview with Pat Hitchcock O’Connell by Tom Charity in
Time Out
(Apr. 16-23, 1997). John Houseman’s reaction to the Spoto book is quoted from his collection
Entertainers and the Entertained
(Simon & Schuster, 1986).