Being the object of Hitchcock's obsession was horrific, says Tippi Hedren

London, August 17 (ANI): Alfred Hitchcock's muse Tippi Hedren has revealed that it was a "horrific" experience for her, being the object of the fiercely jealous director's affections. "That is the word. I don't know if you have ever been the object of someone's obsession - but if it's not of your desire, it is horrible. It is really awful," the Daily Mail quoted her as saying on TV show 'This Morning sofa.' Hedren had been discovered by Hitchcock, when she was working as a model alongside Eileen Ford in New York. Hitchcock spotted the blonde in an advert, where Hedren said that she had been given a rare opportunity to portray a character and a storyline, instead of the usual ad style of the era where actresses would simply hold up a product. He tasked Universal with tracking her down to make her the star of 'The Birds' - he told them to "find the girl" - and Hedren was brought to meet him by the studio. Before she did though, Hedren was given a contract to sign. "I was under contract with Hitchcock before I even met him. They wouldn't tell me anything about the film, or who was working on it. They had all sorts of excuses as to why they couldn't tell me anything. "I went to the agency MCA, and they told me Alfred Hitchcock wanted me to sign a contract. They said, 'go over it, sign it if you approve and we will go over to meet him,'" she said. Towards the end of the filming of 'The Birds,' Hedren said that she realised that the director-muse relationship had taken a more sinister turn. "Before that we had wonderful working relationship. I was thrilled to be involved with this genius. It was my first real acting role - I had training so I could do the technical size of it, but how do you break down a character, become that character? "Hitchcock and his wife became my drama coaches - and they were unbelievably wonderful," she said. Ultimately though, the director went on to personify the casting couch. Furiously jealous, he tied Hedren to him with a multi-year contract that effectively prevented her from working with anybody else ever again. "He said he would ruin my career - and he did. But he couldn't ruin my life," she said. Hedren insisted that despite her experience with Hitchcock, her view of the industry was not poisoned forever - indeed, she wholeheartedly supported daughter Melanie Griffiths' decision to pursue an acting career. "I have to explain. When I was under contract to him, I was in the studio system. This sort of thing - real love, infatuation, obsession, was the norm in the motion picture business at the time. However, when it gets into obsession it's a horrible thing. "He would be always watching me. He'd be talking to a group of people but he'd be staring at me. It used to unnerve me. It manifested itself to its greatest extent during the filiming of Marnie (the second Hitchcock film that Hedren starred in, where she played the lead opposite Sean Connery)," she said. But despite the fact that he sabotaged her career, Hedren said that she can still admire the genius of the man who adored her so fiercely that he tried to ruin her. "There are two different people there. There's the genius of the motion picture industry. He was brilliant in the choice of films to do, his direction and his production values," she said. "I wouldn't even attempt to take that away from him. But as a man, I unfortunately witnessed a side of him that was very dark and one I did not want to be involved with," she added. (ANI)