RIP Pat Hitchcock, only son of the famous director

Tap Hitchcock, actor and only son of the famous director Alfred hitchcock, died at the age of 93. Variety reports that Hitchcock’s daughter, Katie O’Connell-Fiala, confirmed her mother died Monday in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who grew up surrounded by the film industry, Hitchcock started acting at boarding school and starred as teenagers in two short-lived Broadway plays in the 1940s: Solitary and Purple. In one 1984 interview with The Washington Post, she remembered that her father had seen her in Purple, but didn’t say much: “He never commented, only if he didn’t like something.” Acting was a business, that’s how he saw it.

She also revealed in the same interview: “I wish he believed in nepotism. I would have worked a lot more. But he never had anyone in his photos unless he thought they were right for the role. He never adapted a story to a star or an actor. I often tried to allude to his assistant, but I never got very far. She would mention my name, he would say, “She’s not made for that”, and that would be the end of it all.

Nonetheless, Hitchcock played memorable character roles in two of his father’s greatest films. After making his film debut in his 1950 film Stage fright (in addition to playing the double of star Jane Wyman in a fast car stunt), she played the heroine’s curious sister in the 1951s Strangers in a train, who was almost strangled by Robert Walker’s murderer Bruno. In the 1960s psychopath, she appears as a colleague of Janet Leigh’s Marion Crane. Hitchcock said The Washington Post, “I barely remember any of this, and most people forget that I’m in psychopath. I said, “How can you remember after all that is happening?” “”

She also appeared in several episodes of the television series Alfred Hitchcock presents, as well as on top series like The suspense and My little Margie. Hitchcock took a hiatus after marrying businessman Joseph O’Connell in 1952 and raising a family, though she was always instrumental in Alfred Hitchcock’s mystery magazinee. The 2003 biography Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man gave young Hitchcock and co-author Laurent Bouzereau the opportunity to highlight the life of his mother efforts in his father’s films. “She was a lot brighter than people thought,” Hitchcock said. the To post. “She has never published in this country. She only did the first treatments… She didn’t write a script. But even after I stopped doing treatments, she was invaluable. She had a fantastic eye for everything on the screen. For example, Hitchcock says his mother pointed out a possibly devastating mistake during a final screening of the psychopath impression: Alma noticed that Janet Leigh was still breathing at the end of Marion’s fatal shower scene.

In his later years, Hitchcock would continue to attend fan events and other gatherings to honor his father, such as the 1999 unveiling of a bronze bust at Universal Studios to commemorate Alfred Hitchcock’s centenary.