Alfred Hitchcock Hitchcock had intended to film "Marnie" first, and in March 1962 it was announced that Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco since 1956, would come out of retirement to star in it. When Kelly asked Hitchcock to postpone "Marnie" until 1963 or 1964, he recruited Evan Hunter, author of "The Blackboard Jungle" (1954), to develop a screenplay based on a Daphne du Maurier short story, "The Birds" (1952), which Hitchcock had republished in his "My Favorites in Suspense" (1959). He hired Tippi Hedren to play the lead role. It was her first role; she had been a model in New
Alfred Hitchcock filmography first of which was the psychological thriller "Rebecca" starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. He received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director, and the film won Best Picture. Hitchcock worked with Fontaine again the following year on the film "Suspicion" which also starred Cary Grant. In 1943, Hitchcock directed another psychological thriller "Shadow of a Doubt" which starred Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten. Three years later he reunited with Grant on "Notorious" which also starred Ingrid Bergman. The film included a three-minute intermittent kissing scene between the leads shot specifically to skirt the Motion Picture Production