Rod Taylor The program faced stiff competition on Wednesday evenings from NBC's "Wagon Train", hence lasted for only one season. He voiced Pongo (a Dalmatian dog) in Disney's animated feature "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" (1961) and also guest-starred on Marilyn Maxwell's short-lived ABC series "Bus Stop" around the same time. In 1962, he starred in an episode of NBC's "The DuPont Show of the Week" ("The Ordeal of Dr. Shannon"), an adaptation of A. J. Cronin's novel "Shannon's Way". Taylor starred in Alfred Hitchcock's horror/thriller "The Birds" (1963), along with Tippi Hedren, Suzanne Pleshette, Veronica Cartwright, and Jessica Tandy, playing a
The Birds (film) he hired Evan Hunter to adapt Daphne du Maurier's novella, "The Birds", first published in her 1952 collection "The Apple Tree". Hunter had previously written "Vicious Circle" for "Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine", which he adapted for the television anthology series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". He also adapted Robert Turner's story "Appointment at Eleven" for the same television series. Hunter later suspected that he was hired because he had demonstrated he could write suspense (with the 87th Precinct novels, as Ed McBain) and because his novel "The Blackboard Jungle" had received critical acclaim. The relationship between Hunter and Hitchcock during the creation