S * T * A * R * R * I * N * G

Rod Taylor
Tippi Hedren
Jessica Tandy
Suzanne Pleshette

Veronica Cartwright
Ethel Griffies, Charles McGraw, Ruth McDevitt,
Joe Mantell, Doreen Lang, Malcolm Atterbury,
Karl Swenson, Elizabeth Wilson, Lonny Chapman,
Doodles Weaver, John McGovern,
Richard Deacon, William Quinn
Year: 1963 (3/28/63 - New York opening)
Name: Annie Hayworth, schoolteacher
Screenwriter: Evan Hunter
Source: "The Birds" in THE APPLE TREE (London, 1952) by Daphne du Maurier
Producer/Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Studio: Universal


Pleshette fights off those pesky birds in this rehearsal scene.

Hitchcock said
that Pleshette was "extremely competent."

Pleshette said,
"I'd have played one of the birds,
just to be in a Hitchcock picture."

"Friends of mine asked me why I did it, but I enjoyed it, and I loved working with Hitch. He would explain, 'I'm using such and such kind of lens which will give me a certain effect.' Then within the limitation of the scene, you can do whatever you want to. He works with you in terms of your needs—in terms of the kind of actor you are. He signed me to a contract for other pictures although I don't know what he'll do with me. I'm not his type. Grace Kelly, Eva Marie Saint, Tippi Hedren, Kim Novak—they're all slim blondes. Hitch says I could play a lady, but I think I'd trip over my train."

From THE DARK SIDE OF GENIUS, THE LIFE OF ALFRED HITCHCOCK — "Apart from inviting, for the role of the mother, the great stage actress Jessica Tandy, Hitchcock rejected suggestions to put established actors in key roles: that would have increased his budget, already greatly inflated for special effects. Instead of Anne Bancroft as the schoolteacher (screenwriter Evan Hunter's idea), he cast newcomer Suzanne Pleshette—whom he had seen first on television." [In the late '50s, Pleshette replaced Anne Bancroft on Broadway in TWO FOR THE SEESAW and again in The Miracle Worker in 1961.]

"Miss Pleshette is STUCK with a character that is poorly defined." —Tube, VARIETY (3/27/63)

"Jessica Tandy, the mother, has one good moment--when she discovers a body and runs voicelessly out of the house and across the yard. Suzanne Pleshette as a local schoolteacher is UNOBJECTIONABLE. The rest of the cast are offensively bad." —Stanley Kauffmann, THE NEW REPUBLIC (4/13/63)

"Her performance . . . as the lovelorn schoolteacher in Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS was steeped in a heavy-lidded irony reminiscent of the YOUNG MARLENE DIETRICH."
—Michael McWilliams, TV SIRENS (1986)
 

Suzanne Pleshette's Feature Films

Suzanne Pleshette on the Web

The Secret Career of Suzanne Pleshette

TV Movies • TV Series • TV Guest Star

Theatre • Video • Miscellaneous • The Visual

Blase's Faces