Alfred Hitchcock one of them (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Stewart eventually manages to convince his policeman buddy (Wendell Corey) and his girlfriend (Kelly). As with "Lifeboat" and "Rope", the principal characters are depicted in confined or cramped quarters, in this case Stewart's studio apartment. Hitchcock uses close-ups of Stewart's face to show his character's reactions, "from the comic voyeurism directed at his neighbours to his helpless terror watching Kelly and Burr in the villain's apartment". From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". With his droll delivery, gallows humour and iconic image, the
Alfred Hitchcock AFI Life Achievement Award in 1979 and was knighted in December that year, four months before he died. Hitchcock was born in the flat above his parents' leased grocer's shop at 517 High Road, Leytonstone, on the outskirts of east London (then part of Essex), the youngest of three children: William (born 1890), Ellen Kathleen ("Nellie") (1892), and Alfred Joseph (1899). His parents, Emma Jane Hitchcock, née Whelan (1863–1942), and William Hitchcock (1862–1914), were both Roman Catholics, with partial roots in Ireland; William was a greengrocer as his father had been. There was a large extended family, including Uncle John