Tippi Hedren - Biography

Last Editor: taylorross8				Tippi Hedren Biography -   Name : Tippi Hedren Profession : Actress Birth Details : born January 19, 1930 in New Ulm, Minnesota

Tippi Hedren Trivia -

N/A

Tippi Hedren Detailed Biography -

Nathalie "Tippi" Hedren (born January 19, 1930 in New Ulm, Minnesota) is an American actress. She was discovered by Alfred Hitchcock who saw her while she was doing a diet drink commercial. He was looking for an actress who looked like Grace Kelly. Hedren appeared in The Birds and Marnie for Hitchcock. Tippi Hedren is the mother of actress Melanie Griffith. Active in animal causes, she was sometimes billed as 'Tippi' Hedren in her early acting career. Hedren was born of a Swedish father and a German-Norwegian mother. Her father gave her the moniker "Tippi" even though her birth name is Nathalie Hedren. "My father thought Nathalie was a little bit much for a brand new baby," Hedren remembered at a 2004 screening of The Birds. Tippi comes from the Swedish nickname "Tupsa," or "sweetheart." As a teenager, Hedren took part in department store fashion shows. Her parents relocated to California while she was still a student in high school. As soon as she had her 18th birthday, she bought a ticket to New York and started her professional modeling career. Within a year she made her movie debut as one of the Petty Girls in the musical comedy The Petty Girl (1950), although in interviews she refers to The Birds as her first film. While in New York, she met and married her first husband, Peter Griffith, in 1952. 1 At a packed house in Lancaster, California's Antelope Valley Independent Film Festival Cinema Series screening of The Birds on September 28, 2004, Hedren recounted her film career and her big acting break to a spellbound audience for almost an hour. "I said, 'Well, who is this person? Who is interested?'... Nobody would tell me who it was." Of course, it was Alfred Hitchcock, who soon announced that Hedren was his new lead actress. She remembered the work (on location at Bodega Bay) as being dangerous and taxing. During the filming of the last attack scene, Hedren became exhausted to the point of sitting down on the middle of the set and crying. A week's rest was ordered by a doctor at that time of completing the film. "For a first film, it was a lot of work," Hedren mused. Her performance brought her a Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer. 2