Tippi Hedren biography

Synopsis

Tippi Hedren was born on January 19, 1930, in New Ulm, Michigan. In the 1960s, Alfred Hitchcock cast her in The Birds and Marnie. Her later films include Roar (1981), Deadly Spygames (1989) and Citizen Ruth (1996). Additionally, she has appeared in several television movies. More recently, she was cast in the film I Heart Huckabees (2004) and starred in the TV movie Tribute (2009) on Lifetime.

Acting Career

Actress Tippi Hedren was born Nathalie Kay Hedren on January 19, 1930, in New Ulm, Michigan, to Bernard Carl Hedren and Dorothea Henrietta (Eckhardt) Hedren. Hedren was discovered by Alfred Hitchcock, who cast her in her two most notable films, The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964).

Hedren's later films include Roar (1981), which she also produced; Deadly Spygames (1989); and Citizen Ruth (1996). Additionally, she has appeared in several television movies, including Birds 2: The Land's End (1994).

More recently, Hedren was cast in the film I Heart Huckabees (2004) and starred in the TV movie Tribute (2009), which aired on the Lifetime network and also starred Brittany Murphy.

October 2012 marked the debut of HBO's The Girl, a film based on the Donald Spoto novel Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies, which details the famous director's relationships with several film actresses, including Hedren. In recent years, Hedren has publicly discussed her working relationship with Hitchcock; according to Hedren, Hitchcock made several aggressive sexual advances toward her while they were working on The Birds and Marnie, and when she rejected him, he treated her coldly. The Girl stars Toby Jones (Alfred Hitchcock) and actress Sienna Miller (Hedren).

Life Off-Screen

Outside of acting, Hedren has been involved in various projects. Among them, she has dedicated her life to animal rescue efforts. In 1972, she founded the Roar Foundation and Shambala Preserve, an animal preserve outside Los Angeles. It houses over 65 animals. Shambala also became the home for Michael Jackson's two Bengal tigers after he closed his Neverland zoo.

Hedren is the mother of actress Melanie Griffith. She was married to Peter Griffith, Griffith's father, for nearly a decade, from 1952 to 1961. She has since been married twice, to Noel Marshall (1964-1982) and Luis Barrenechea (1985-1995), and in recent years, has been romantically linked to Martin Dinnes.