A review by judyward
Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies by Donald Spoto

3.0

This is the final book in the author's trilogy about Alfred Hitchcock and documents fifty years of the director's attitudes about and behavior toward the female leads in his films. Calling himself "Svengali Hitch", he attempted to control every aspect of the lives of many of his starring actresses culminating in his physical and emotional abuse of Tippi Hedren (for example, he kept her chained to live birds for five days before she collapsed in hysteria). The author documents Hitchcock's negative attitude toward actors, calling them "cattle" and "stupid children" and his propensity toward telling his lead actresses vulger jokes before taping a scene and telling them how unpopular they were viewed both by the other actors on the set and by the critics. The author relied on hundreds of hours of interviews with both Hitchcock and people who worked on his films. The portrait painted of [b:Alfred Hitchcock|2014794|The Thirty-nine Steps.|John Buchan|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JYVWNH8DL._SL75_.jpg|2422487] reveals a talented, but ultimately pathetic human being.