My first thanks must go to Alfred and Alma Hitchcock, their daughter Pat (O’Connell) and his sister Mrs. Nellie Ingram, who have been kind and helpful to me in every possible respect, allowed me to trespass far too much on their time and attention and answered my questions, pertinent and impertinent, with amazing grace and precision. Without their unfailing help this book could never have been written, and I am deeply grateful. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to Peggy Robertson, Hitch’s personal assistant, and to all his staff at Universal; and to the casts and crews of Frenzy and Family Plot.
Everyone with a Hitchcock story seems delighted to talk about him, but I would particularly like to thank the many who have taken time out of busy lives to help me in any way they could. Among them: Rodney Ackland, Michael Balcon, Eric Barton, Charles Bennett, Ingrid Bergman, Robert Boyle, Carlos Clarens, Juliet Benita Colman, Marlene Dietrich, Henry Fonda, Joan Fontaine, John Gielgud, Ted Gilling, Cary Grant, Joan Harrison, Edith Head, Tippi Hedren, Bernard Herrmann, Patricia Highsmith, John Housemann, Bernard Kantor, Arthur Knight, John Kobal, Ernest Lehman, Norman Lloyd, Margaret Lockwood, Sarah Marshall, Jessie Matthews, Ivor Montagu, Michael Redgrave, Victor Saville, Daniel Selznick, Fred Sill, Donald Spoto, Joseph Stefano, James Stewart, Francois Truffant, Peter Viertel, Lew Wasserman.
There are many others who have eased my way far above and beyond the call of duty. I must have mention Penelope Houston and the staff of Sight and Sound, in the pages of which parts of Chapter Fifteen first appeared, in a different form; Brenda Davies, Gillian Hartnoll and everyone in the British Film Institute’s library and information section; Jeremy Boulton and his staff at the National Film Archive; the staff of the library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; John Hall and his staff at RKO Radio in Los Angeles; my assistant, Bill Lewis, and all my colleagues in the Cinema Division of the University of Southern California; Bill Golder for hospitality and moral support, and Deri Brewster for bravely typing the various drafts.
October 1977
J.R.T.