Quirks and phobias of the king of thrillers. Photo

Hitchcock was a very extraordinary personality.

13 August marks 117 years since the birth of the king of horror and “father of the Thriller,” the famous Director Alfred Hitchcock. The master of suspense kept the audience in suspense and fear, which knew not by hearsay: he himself was suffering from such an unusual phobias and showed such strange behavior that it becomes clear how soon the subjects of his films.

His parents, Alfred Hitchcock brought him wide berth and demanded unquestioning obedience. One day, when he did something wrong, his father sent him to the police station with a sealed letter and asked him to scare his son to leave him in the cell for a while as punishment for a misdemeanor. Police took the boy into solitary confinement and locked it with the words: “that’s what we do with naughty children!”. Alfred was locked in only 10 minutes, but it was enough to get the police to fear the end of days. “I’m not against the police, I’m just really afraid of it,” – said the Director.

In childhood, he was reclusive and reluctant to communicate with other children. The situation was aggravated by the fact that he was educated at the Jesuit College of St. Ignatius, where the children were often locked up for the slightest offense, and practiced corporal punishment. In this case the guilty student had to choose a time that is flogging – but no later than a week. Of course, all delayed the moment to the last, and the whole week we lived in fear of the inevitable punishment. Then Hitchcock realized that the expectation of something terrible, worse than the horrific event itself. This effect he later used in his films-suspense, holding the audience in suspense until the last minute.

He was a difficult character, which often suffered and actors, and friends, and even family members of the Director. He gave to acquaintances, people which lived in small apartments, cabinets and beds are of enormous size, not placed there for size. Actress living in a house with Central heating, he once gave two tons of coal, another actress was invited to a lunch where all the dishes were painted blue, the third sent a gift of 400 smoked herrings, knowing that she can’t bear the smell of fish. Famous actor Hitchcock was invited to a masquerade ball, he came in the costume of the Turkish Sultan, and found that all the other guests were in tuxedos.

The Director liked extravagant jokes and pranks that caused his guests to embarrassment or rage. “Do you agree that a told Hitchcock, – when you come to visit an arrogant aristocrats who boast of their origin, and you rassharkivany in every way, lead them to the couch, seated and at this point cushions emits a loud rude sound, I think it’s funny! Such a joke, I must admit, I practiced quite often – fun to see the expression on their faces.”.

Actors from Hitchcock, too often battered. According to the scenario, in one of the films main characters spend long time together, shackled with handcuffs. The Director decided to extend their fun and pretended to have lost the key. They had to spend the whole day. After a quarrel on the set with actress Tippi Hedren, he gave her 5-year-old daughter’s doll-double Hedren… lying in a coffin. And when the child actors refused to appear at the top of the Ferris wheel, drove to Hitchcock’s own daughter, suffering from a fear of heights.

While the Director was a lot of my own phobias rather strange. For example, he suffered from omofobia – fear of objects oval. The focus was primarily on chicken eggs. He said: “I’m afraid of eggs. Even worse – they disgust me. This white round thing without any holes. Have you ever seen anything more disgusting than pierced the egg yolk and it pours yellow liquid? Blood is Jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting. I’ve never tried it.”

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