Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock (13.8.1899 - 29.04.1980) was a British film director and producer.
Born in Leytonstone, London, England on August 13, 1899 to William, a fruit and vegetables retail trader, and Emma Jane, Alfred Hitchcock was the youngest of three children. He was raised catholic and attended catholic schools. His parents punished him for misbehaviour in rather unusual ways which later became a source of inspiration for movies like Psycho.
When he was 14 he started to attend a school for engineering in London and after graduating he became a draftsman and advertising designer. At this job he started to do creative work. Some of his short stories were published in the in-house newspaper of the company he worked for between 1919 and 1921. During this time he also became interested in film and photography. In 1920 he got a job as a title card designer for silent movies.
From then on he also started to make his own movies but most of his early projects flopped or were cancelled. Hitchcock also worked in Germany for a while filming with Graham Cutts The Blackguard. While in Germany he drew inspiration from F. W. Murnau and Fritz Lang. During his time there he also came in contact with Expressionism which became a big influence in his work.
His first hit was The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog which was released in January 1927. At the end of 1926 Hitchcock had married his assistant director Alma Reville and in 1928 he became the father of Patricia. In 1929 his film Blackmail became his first film with sound. It was one of the first British sound feature films. His next successful movies were The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935)and The Lady Vanishes (1938). In late 1939 Hitchcock was signed by David O. Selznick to a multi-year contract at Selznick International Pictures and moved to the United States with his family to produce and direct movies over there. His American career started in 1940 with Rebecca, which won a Best Picture Academy Award.
From then he directed several movies which are considered classics today like Rope, Strangers On a Train, Rear Window, Psycho, Vertigo, North By Northwest and many others. Hitchcock died in Beverly Hills in 1980 and his ashes were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.
Sources Chandler, Charlotte. It's only a movie: Alfred Hitchcock : a personal biography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock_filmography
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032976/trivia
http://www.filmreference.com/Directors-Ha-Ji/Hitchcock-Alfred.html
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/classic/features/death-and-the-master-199904
McGilligan, Patrick: Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. New York: Harper Perennial, 2003.
Spoto, Donald. The Art of Alfred Hitchcock. New York: Anchor Books, 1976–1992. p. 3
White, Rob and Buscombe, Edward: British Film Institute film classics, Volume 1 p. 94. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers UK. 2003.