Hitchcock, Alfred

Born Aug. 13, 1899, in London; died Apr. 29, 1980, in Los Angeles, Calif. British-American film director.

Hitchcock began working in films in 1920, first as a screenwriter and later as a director. He achieved fame for a series of detective films in which he strove to introduce psychological depth and a tense, sinister atmosphere. His best films made in England were Blackmail (1929), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The 39 Steps (1935), and The Lady Vanishes (1938).

Hitchcock worked in Hollywood from 1939, where he made a number of films in the same genre, exploring Freudian themes and emphasizing the pathological behavior of psychologically defective characters. His most famous films are Rebecca (1940), Suspicion (1942), Rope (1948), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (I960), The Birds (1963), Mamie (1964), and Frenzy (1972).