Tippi Hedren, Star of Hitchcock's 'The Birds,' Visits Hi-Pointe

*Editor's note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the city in which the Hi-Pointe Theatre is located. It is located in St. Louis City. This article has been updated to reflect its correct address.

The in St. Louis City* filled to capacity Monday night for a screening of the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock classic The Birds and an appearance by the film's star, actress Tippi Hedren. The event is one of several stops that are part of the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) Road to Hollywood Tour.

The line to get into the film started at the entrance to the theatre and wrapped all the way down past and onto the sidewalk of Ethel Avenue. The theater is located near Richmond Heights.

Gary Krekow got in line first. He arrived at 3 p.m. for the screening, which started at 7:30 p.m.

"All you have to do is take a look at this line to know that St. Louis is a good stop" for the tour, Krekow said.

TCM is a TV channel whose programming includes a variety of movies from the 1960s, 1950s and earlier. The network gets a lot of viewers in St. Louis, and it was one of the first stops that tour organizers had on their list, said Ben Mankiewicz, a TCM host, in an interview with media.

Krekow said he had two reasons for attending.

"I've seen The Birds, but not on the big screen," he said. "I've never met Tippi Hedren, so this is a chance to do that."

The Birds is the tale of a small seaside town in California plagued by bird attacks just as Melanie Daniels (Hedren), an outsider from the big city, arrives to surprise her love interest (Rod Taylor).

Before the screening began, Hedren and Mankiewicz had a 30-minute discussion about the film, Hitchcock and her work in animal rights. When someone's cellphone interrupted the chat, Hedren remarked, "That's a pretty little sound—it sounds like a bunch of birds."

Hedren said that when she first met Hitchcock and did a screen test for him, she had no idea he was going to use her in one of his films. She had no real film experience. Hitchcock had spotted her in a commercial during an episode of the Today show.

"I thought I'd be doing the television shows," Hedren said, referring to the series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

One night, Hedren said, she was at dinner with Hitchcock, his wife and Hollywood agent Lew Wasserman when "Hitch" presented her with a small package from Gump's in San Francisco. Inside was a golden brooch that featured three birds.

"'We want you to play Melanie Daniels in The Birds,'" Hedren recalled Hitchcock saying. Hedren wore a replica of the brooch on Monday and said she keeps the real one in a safe.

While Hedren respected and admired Hitchcock, she said she also had her struggles with him, calling him "brilliant but cruel."

When it came time to shoot a climactic scene in which her character goes upstairs to investigate a strange noise, Hedren asked Hitchcock why someone would do that.

"Because I tell you to," Hitchcock replied.

On the morning of the first day of the weeklong shoot of that scene, assistant director Jim Brown came to talk to Hedren and could not look her in the eye.

"The mechanical birds don't work—we have to use real birds," Hedren recalled Brown saying.

When she got to the set, there were no mechanical birds in sight. That indicated to her that those in charge had intended to use real birds all along. The resulting week of filming led set visitor Cary Grant to call Hedren the "bravest lady" he had ever met and an exhausted Hedren to be ordered off the set by a doctor for a week.

After The Birds, Hedren starred in another Hitchcock film, Marnie. Toward the end of filming, Hedren said, she grew increasingly wary of Hitchcock's demands and obsession with her.

"I couldn't stand it anymore," she said.

Hedren tried to get out of her contract with Hitchcock, but he refused, saying he would ruin her career. She said he paid her $600 a week to essentially do nothing.

"When I got out of those two films, I was hot," Hedren said. "I found out later that François Truffaut wanted me for a film."

While Hedren might have had her issues with Hitchcock, she does not appear to hold a grudge.

"This is a woman without a degree of bitterness," Mankiewicz said.

She says she thinks that her career struggles were all part of a plan to get her involved in animal rights. Hedren started The Roar Foundation, which operates  Shambala Preserve in California, in 1983. The preserve is home to about 65 big cats whose previous owners—either private ones or zoos—have found them too difficult to keep, its website states.

Hedren tied her experiences with the preserve back to The Birds by discussing a particularly smart group of ravens that lives near the preserve and always manages to scavenge meat from the big cats.

"The birds will not leave Tippi Hedren alone," Mankiewicz said.