Alfred Hitchcock : a brief life / Peter Ackroyd.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ackroyd, Peter, 1949- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hitchcock, Alfred, 1899-1980.

Hitchcock, Alfred.

Motion picture producers and directors--Great Britain--Biography.

Motion picture producers and directors.

Motion pictures--Production and direction.

Great Britain.

Motion pictures--Production and direction--Anecdotes.

Motion pictures.

Genre:

Biographies.

Anecdotes.

Physical Description:

276 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First United States edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2015.

Summary:

"Alfred Hitchcock was a strange child. Fat, lonely, burning with fear and ambition, his childhood was an isolated one, scented with fish from his father's shop. Afraid to leave his bedroom, he would plan great voyages, using railway timetables to plot an exact imaginary route across Europe. So how did this fearful figure become the one of the most respected film directors of the twentieth century? As an adult, Hitch rigorously controlled the press's portrait of him, drawing certain carefully selected childhood anecdotes into full focus and blurring all others out. In this quick-witted portrait, Ackroyd reveals something more: a lugubriously jolly man fond of practical jokes, who smashes a once-used tea cup every morning to remind himself of the frailty of life. Iconic film stars make cameo appearances, just as Hitch did in his own films: Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, and James Stewart despair of his detached directing style and, perhaps most famously of all, Tippi Hedren endures cuts and bruises from a real-life fearsome flock of birds. In [this book], Peter Ackroyd wrests the director's chair back from the master of control and discovers what lurks just out of sight, in the corner of the shot,"--Amazon.com.

Fat, lonely, burning with fear and ambition-- Hitchcock's childhood was an isolated one. As an adult, Hitch rigorously controlled the press's portrait of him, drawing certain carefully selected childhood anecdotes into full focus and blurring all others out. Ackroyd reveals a jolly man fond of practical jokes, who smashes a once-used tea cup every morning to remind himself of the frailty of life. The result is a gripping biography of one of the most respected directors of the twentieth century.

Contents:

The child who never cried

I'll do it

Sound, please

I was grey

At home

Fake it

Oh dear

I am typed

Good evening

Birds and beasts

Back to basics.

Notes:

Originally publilshed in hardcover in Great Britain by Chatto & Windus, an imprint of Vintage Publishing, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd., London, in 2015.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [261]-264) and index.

Other Edition:

Reproduction of: 9780701169930 Ackroyd, Peter, 1949- London : Chatto & Windus, 2015

Other Format:

Online version: Ackroyd, Peter, 1949- Alfred Hitchcock

ISBN:

9780385537414

0385537417

OCLC:

962126141

Publisher Number:

40026532323