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Look up presenter or host in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A presenter, or host (sometimes hostess, in feminine form), is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies (also MC, emcee, or host) is a person that hosts or presents a show.^[1] In films, a presenter (but not a host) is a usually well-known executive producer credited with introducing a film or filmmaker to a larger audience. In broadcast media, especially British, a presenter is the person who hosts, narrates, presents, or takes the main role in the program.

[edit] Television presenter

A television presenter is a person who introduces or hosts television programmes. Nowadays it is common for minor celebrities in other fields to take on this role, but there are also a number of people who have made their name solely within the field of presenting, particularly within children's television series to become a television personality.

Some presenters may double as an actor, model, singer, comedian etc. Others may be subject matter experts, such as scientists or politicians, serving as presenters for a programme about their field of expertise (for instance, David Attenborough). Some are celebrities who have made their name in one area, then leverage their fame to get involved in other areas. Examples of this latter group include British comedian Michael Palin who now presents programmes about travel (such as Around the World in 80 Days), and Alan Alda, who has presented Scientific American Frontiers for over a decade.

The term is also used in other countries, such as Ireland. In the USA, such a person is typically called a host or an MC (Master of Ceremonies). There are many most popular television personalities in Nepal. For example: Bikash Thapa Chhetri, Bijay Kumar Pandey and Bhusan Dahal are the most popular.

Radio presenter[link]

Broadly speaking, a radio presenter (often radio personality) is the same as a television presenter, except that they present radio programs instead of television programs. Big name presenters include Scott Mills, Tony Blackburn, Dale Winton, Steve Wright, Chris Moyles, Howard Stern, and Hamish and Andy.

News presenter[link]

Sports presenter[link]

A sports commentator (also sports announcer, sports broadcaster, sportscaster, or sports presenter) is a type of journalist on radio and/or television who specializes in reporting or commentating on sporting events. Sportscasting is often done live.

Weather presenter[link]

A weather presenter is a type of journalist on television who specializes in presenting weather forecasts.

References[link]

Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett (6 January 1946 – 7 July 2006), was an English singer-songwriter, guitarist and painter, best remembered as a founder member of the band Pink Floyd. He was the lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter during the band's psychedelic years, providing major musical and stylistic direction in their early work, including their name. He left the group in 1968 amid speculations of mental illness exacerbated by drug use, and was briefly hospitalised.^[2]

Besides being a pioneer in psychedelic rock with his expressive guitar playing and imaginative compositions, Barrett was also a pioneer in the space rock and psychedelic folk genres. He was active in music for only about seven years, recording four singles, the debut album (and contributed to the second one), plus several unreleased songs with Pink Floyd; and a single and two albums (plus a third one of unreleased tracks/alternate takes), as a solo musician, before going into self-imposed seclusion lasting more than thirty years.

In his post-musician life, he continued with his painting and dedicated himself to gardening, never to return to the public eye. He died in 2006. A number of biographies have been written about him since the 1980s, and Pink Floyd wrote and recorded several tributes to him after he left, most notably the 1975 album Wish You Were Here.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Barrett was born as Roger Keith Barrett in the English city of Cambridge to a middle-class family. His father, Arthur Max Barrett, was a prominent pathologist and it was known he was related to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, although research on Syd Barrett genealogy has not found any relation yet.^[3] Max Barrett was member of the Cambridge Philharmonic Society and both he and his wife, Winifred, encouraged the young Roger (as he was known then) in his music. After playing piano occasionally, preferring writing and drawing (he liked Edward Lear), Roger got a ukulele at 10 or less, then a banjo at 11, then an Hofner acoustic guitar six months after.^[4] When Barrett was three years old, his family moved to 183 Hills Road. After his brothers and sisters left home, his mother rented out rooms to lodgers, including a future Prime Minister of Japan.^[5] One common tale of how Barrett acquired the nickname "Syd" at the age of 14, is of a reference to an old local Cambridge jazz double bassist, Sid 'the beat' Barrett, which claims Syd Barrett changed the spelling in order to differentiate himself from his namesake.^[6] However, when he was 13, his schoolmates nicknamed him "Syd" after he showed up to a field day at Abington Scout site wearing a flat cap instead of his Scout beret; making reference to "Syd" being a "working-class" name.^[7] He used both names interchangeably for several years and his sister Rosemary stated, "He was never Syd at home. He would never have allowed it".^[7] He attended Cambridgeshire High School for Boys and Cambridge College of Arts and Technology.

His father died of cancer on 11 December 1961, less than a month before Barrett's 16th birthday. Eager to help her son recover from his grief, Barrett's mother encouraged the band he played in, Geoff Mott and the Mottoes, to perform in their front room. Roger Waters and Barrett were childhood friends, and Waters often visited such gigs.^[8] Barrett enrolled in Camberwell Art School in South London in 1964 to study painting.^[9]

Pink Floyd years (1965–68)[link]

Starting in 1964, the band that would become Pink Floyd underwent various line-up and name changes such as "The Abdabs", "The Screaming Abdabs", "Sigma 6", and "The Meggadeaths". In 1965, Barrett joined them as The Tea Set, and when they found themselves playing a concert with a band of the same name, Barrett came up with the name "The Pink Floyd Sound" (later "The Pink Floyd"). He devised the name "Pink Floyd" by juxtaposing the first names of Pink Anderson and Floyd Council whom he had read about in a sleeve note by Paul Oliver for a 1962 Blind Boy Fuller LP (Philips BBL-7512): "Curley Weaver and Fred McMullen, (...) Pink Anderson or Floyd Council—these were a few amongst the many blues singers that were to be heard in the rolling hills of the Piedmont, or meandering with the streams through the wooded valleys".^[10] Barrett also told the story that the name was transmitted to him by a flying saucer while he was sitting on Glastonbury Tor.^[9]

London Underground[link]

While Pink Floyd began by playing cover versions of American R&B songs (in much the same vein as contemporaries The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, and The Kinks), by 1966 they had carved out their own style of improvised rock and roll, which drew as much from improvised jazz as it did from British pop-rock, such as that championed by The Beatles. In that year, a new rock concert venue, the UFO, opened in London and quickly became a haven for British psychedelic music. Pink Floyd, the house band,^[11] was its most popular attraction and after making appearances at the rival Roundhouse, became the most popular musical group of the so-called "London Underground" psychedelic music scene.^[4]

By the end of 1966, Pink Floyd had gained a reliable management team in Andrew King and Peter Jenner (who went on to manage new wave band Ian Dury & The Blockheads). The duo befriended American expatriate Joe Boyd, the promoter of the UFO Club, who was making a name for himself as one of the more important entrepreneurs on the British music scene.

Releases[link]

Joe Boyd produced a recording session for the group in January 1967 at Sound Techniques in Chelsea, which resulted in a demo of the single "Arnold Layne". King and Jenner took the song to the recording behemoth EMI, who were impressed enough to offer the band a contract, under which they would be allowed to record an album; the band accepted. By the time the album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, was released, "Arnold Layne" had reached number 20 on the British singles charts (despite a ban by Radio London) and the follow-up single, "See Emily Play", had done even better, peaking at number 6.^[12]

Their first three singles, including their third ("Apples and Oranges"), were written by Barrett, who also was the principal visionary/author of their critically acclaimed 1967 debut album. Of the eleven songs on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Barrett wrote eight and co-wrote another two.^[13]

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was recorded intermittently between January and July 1967 in Studio 3 at Abbey Road Studios, and produced by former Beatles engineer Norman Smith. At the same time, The Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in Studio 2 and the Pretty Things were recording S.F. Sorrow in Studio 1. When The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was released in August of that year it became a smash hit in the UK, hitting #6 on the British album charts (although it was not nearly so successful in the US). However, as the band began to attract a large fan base, the mounting pressures^{[clarification needed]} on Barrett are thought^{[by whom?]} to have contributed to his escalating psychological problems^{[citation needed]}.

Barrett's departure from Pink Floyd[link]

Through late 1967 and early 1968, Barrett's behaviour became increasingly erratic and unpredictable, partly as a consequence of his reported heavy use of psychedelic drugs, most prominently LSD.^[4] Many report having seen him on stage with the group, strumming on one chord through the entire concert, or not playing at all.^[14] At a show at The Fillmore in San Francisco, during a performance of "Interstellar Overdrive", Barrett slowly detuned his guitar. The audience seemed to enjoy such antics, unaware of the rest of the band's consternation. Interviewed on Pat Boone's show during this tour, Syd's reply to Boone's questions was a "blank and totally mute stare"; according to Nick Mason, "Syd wasn't into moving his lips that day". Barrett exhibited similar behaviour during the band's first appearance on Dick Clark's popular TV show American Bandstand. When asked two questions by Clark, Barrett's answers were terse, almost to the point of rudeness (though, as Clark admitted, they had been flying non-stop from London to Los Angeles). Before a performance in late 1967, Barrett reportedly crushed Mandrax tranquilliser tablets and an entire tube of Brylcreem into his hair, which subsequently melted down his face under the heat of the stage lighting, making him look like "a guttered candle".^[15] Nick Mason later disputed the Mandrax portion of this story, stating that "Syd would never waste good mandies".^[16]

During their UK tour with Jimi Hendrix in November 1967, guitarist David O'List from The Nice was called in to substitute for Barrett on several occasions when he was unable to perform or failed to appear. And sometime around Christmas, David Gilmour (a school friend of Barrett's) was asked to join the band as a second guitarist to cover for Barrett, whose erratic behaviour prevented him from performing. For a handful of shows Gilmour played and sang while Barrett wandered around on stage, occasionally deciding to join in playing. The other band members soon grew tired of Barrett's antics and, on 26 January 1968, on the way to a show at Southampton University, the band elected not to pick Barrett up: one person in the car said, "Shall we pick Syd up?" and another said, "Let's not bother."^[17]As Barrett had, up until then, written the overwhelming bulk of the band's material the initial plan was to keep him in the group as a non-touring member — as The Beach Boys had done with Brian Wilson — but this soon proved to be impractical.^[18]

According to Roger Waters, Barrett came into what was to be their last practice session with a new song he had dubbed "Have You Got It, Yet?". The song seemed simple enough when he first presented it to his bandmates, but it soon became impossibly difficult to learn and they eventually realised that while they were practising it, Barrett kept changing the arrangement. He would then play it again, with the arbitrary changes, and sing "Have you got it yet?". Eventually they realised they never would and that they were simply bearing the brunt of Barrett's idiosyncratic sense of humour.^[19]

Barrett did not contribute material to the band after A Saucerful of Secrets was released in 1968. Of the songs he wrote for Pink Floyd after The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, only one ("Jugband Blues") made it to the band's second album; one ("Apples and Oranges") became a less-than-successful single, and two others ("Scream Thy Last Scream" and "Vegetable Man") were never officially released. Barrett supposedly spent time outside the recording studio, waiting to be invited in. He also showed up to a few gigs and glared at Gilmour. Barrett played slide guitar on "Remember a Day" (which had been first attempted during The Piper at the Gates of Dawn sessions), and also played on "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun".^[20] On 6 April 1968, the group officially announced Barrett was no longer a member of Pink Floyd.

Solo years (1968–72)[link]

After leaving Pink Floyd, Barrett distanced himself from the public eye. At the behest of EMI and Harvest Records, he embarked on a brief solo career, releasing two solo albums, The Madcap Laughs and Barrett. Most of the compositions on both albums date from Barrett's most productive period of songwriting, late 1966 to mid-1967, and it is believed that he wrote few new songs after he left Pink Floyd.

The first album, The Madcap Laughs, was recorded in two sessions, both at Abbey Road Studios: a few tentative sessions took place between May and June 1968 (produced by Peter Jenner), while the bulk of the album was recorded between April and July 1969. The record was produced first by Malcolm Jones, a young EMI executive, and then by David Gilmour and Roger Waters. In his book The Making of the Madcap Laughs, Jones states that "when Dave came to me and said that Syd wanted him and Roger to do the remaining parts of the album, I acquiesced." A few tracks on the album feature overdubs by members of the band Soft Machine. Barrett also played guitar on the sessions for Soft Machine founder Kevin Ayers' debut LP Joy of a Toy, although his performance on "Religious Experience" was not released until the album was reissued in 2003.

The second album, Barrett, was recorded more sporadically than the first, with sessions taking place between February and July 1970. The album was produced by David Gilmour and Richard Wright, featured Gilmour on bass guitar, Wright on keyboard and Humble Pie drummer Jerry Shirley.

Despite the numerous recording dates for his two solo albums, Barrett undertook very little musical activity between 1968 and 1972 outside the studio. On 24 February 1970, he appeared on John Peel's BBC radio programme Top Gear playing five songs—only one of which had been previously released. Three would be re-recorded for the Barrett album, while the song "Two of a Kind" was a one-off performance (the song appears on the 2001 compilation The Best of Syd Barrett: Wouldn't You Miss Me?) with the lyrics and composition having since been credited to Richard Wright. Barrett was accompanied on this session by David Gilmour and Jerry Shirley who played bass and percussion, respectively.

Gilmour and Shirley also backed Barrett for his one and only live concert during this period. The gig took place on 6 June 1970 at the Olympia Exhibition Hall, London, and was part of a Music and Fashion Festival. The trio performed four songs, playing for less than half an hour, and because of poor mixing, the vocals were inaudible until part-way through the last number. At the end of the fourth song, Barrett unexpectedly but politely put down his guitar and walked off the stage.

Barrett made one last appearance on BBC Radio, recording three songs at their studios on 16 February 1971. All three came from the Barrett album, and were presumably aired to encourage people to buy the record. After this session, he took a hiatus from his music career that lasted more than a year, although in an extensive interview with Mick Rock and Rolling Stone in December, he discussed himself at length, showed off his new 12-string guitar, talked about touring with Jimi Hendrix, and stated that he was frustrated in terms of his musical work because of his inability to find anyone good to play with.^[21]

Later years (1972–2006)[link]

Final recordings[link]

In February 1972, after a few guest spots in Cambridge with ex–Pink Fairies member Twink on drums and Jack Monck on bass using the name The Last Minute Put Together Boogie Band (backing visiting blues musician Eddie "Guitar" Burns and also featuring Henry Cow guitarist Fred Frith), the trio formed a short-lived band called Stars. Though the band was initially well received at gigs in the Dandelion coffee bar and the town's Market Square, one of their gigs at the Corn Exchange in Cambridge with the MC5 proved to be disastrous. Monck described how disastrous it was in a 2001 TV interview for the BBC Omnibus series documentary 'Crazy Diamond'. A few days after this final show, Twink recalled that Barrett stopped him on the street, showed him a scathing review of the gig they had played, and quit on the spot despite having played at least one subsequent gig at the same venue supporting Nektar.^[16] A tape of the Eddie "Guitar" Burns gig surfaced recently but has yet to see a commercial release though brief snippets have appeared on the internet. Similarly, all the Stars shows were recorded but the tapes are considered lost. The tenuous Pink Fairies connection is continued with the appearance of Barrett on at least one track, possibly more, on a posthumous release by founder Fairy and ex Tyrannosaurus Rex percussionist Steve Peregrine Took alongside assorted members of the Pink Fairies and Took's own band Shagrat.

Syd attended an informal jazz and poetry performance by Pete Brown and former Cream bassist Jack Bruce in October 1973. Brown arrived at the show late, and saw that Bruce was already onstage, along with "a guitarist I vaguely recognised", playing the Horace Silver tune "Doodlin'". Later in the show, Brown read out a poem, which he dedicated to Syd, because, "he's here in Cambridge, and he's one of the best songwriters in the country" when, to his surprise, the guitar player from earlier in the show stood up and said, "No I'm not."^[22]

By the end of 1973, Syd had returned to live in London, staying at various hotels and, in December of that year, getting accommodation at Chelsea Cloisters. He had little contact with others, apart from his regular visits to his management's offices to collect his royalties, and the occasional visit from sister Rosemary. He was often seen out wandering London streets by former friends, including on one notable occasion when Syd was approached by someone who knew him (usually reported as either Bernard White or Roy Harper), and he was asked "Where are you going?". Syd fixed the person with an icy stare and said "Far further than you could possibly imagine", before walking off.^{[citation needed]}

In August 1974, Peter Jenner persuaded Barrett to return to Abbey Road Studios in hope of recording another album. According to John Leckie, who engineered these sessions, even at this point Syd still "looked like he did when he was younger..long haired".^[23] Little became of the sessions, which lasted three days and consisted of blues rhythm tracks with tentative and disjointed guitar overdubs (the only titled track is "If You Go, Don't Be Slow"). Once again, Barrett withdrew from the music industry. He sold the rights to his solo albums back to the record label and moved into a London hotel. During this period, several attempts to employ him as a record producer (including one by Jamie Reid on behalf of the Sex Pistols, and another by The Damned, who wanted him to produce their second album), were all fruitless.^[24]

Withdrawal to Cambridge[link]

In 1978, when Barrett's money ran out, he moved back to Cambridge to live with his mother. He returned to live in London again in 1982, but this only lasted a few weeks, and he soon returned to Cambridge for good. Legend has it, and his sister confirms, that Barrett walked the 50 miles from London to Cambridge^{[citation needed]}. Until his death, Barrett still received royalties from his work with Pink Floyd from each compilation and some of the live albums and singles that featured his songs. Gilmour commented that he (Gilmour) "[made] sure the money [got] to him all right"^{[citation needed]}.

According to a 2005 profile by biographer Tim Willis, Barrett, who had reverted to using his original name of Roger, continued to live in his late mother's semi-detached home in Cambridge, and had returned to his original art-form of painting, creating large abstract canvases. He was also said to have been an avid gardener. His main point of contact with the outside world was his sister, Rosemary, who lived nearby. He was reclusive, and his physical health declined, as he suffered from stomach ulcers and type 2 diabetes.^[25]

In 1996, Barrett was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Pink Floyd. Barrett did not attend the ceremony.

Although Barrett had not appeared or spoken in public since the mid-1970s, time did little to diminish interest in his life and work. Reporters and fans still travelled to Cambridge to seek him out, despite his attempts to live a quiet life and public appeals from his family for people to leave him alone.^[26] Many photos of Barrett being annoyed by paparazzi when walking or biking, from the 1980s until his death in 2006, have been published in various media.

Apparently, Barrett did not like being reminded about his past as a musician and the other members of Pink Floyd had no direct contact with him. He did go to his sister's house in November 2001 to watch the BBC Omnibus documentary made about him – reportedly he found some of it "a bit noisy", enjoyed seeing Mike Leonard of Leonard's Lodgers again, calling him his 'teacher', and enjoyed hearing "See Emily Play" again.^[27]

Death and aftermath[link]

After suffering from diabetes for several years, Barrett died at his home in Cambridge on 7 July 2006.^[5] He was 60 years old. The cause of death was pancreatic cancer.^[28][29] The occupation on his death certificate was given as "retired musician."^[30] He was cremated, with his ashes given to a family member or friend.^[31]

In 2006, his home in St. Margaret's Square was put on the market and reportedly attracted considerable interest.^[32] After over 100 showings, many by fans, it was sold to a French couple who bought it simply because they liked it; reportedly they knew nothing about Barrett.^[33] His other possessions were sold at an auction at Cheffins, with £120,000 being raised for charity.^[34] NME produced a tribute issue to Barrett the week after with a photo of him on the cover. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Barrett's sister revealed that he had written a book: "He read very deeply about the history of art and actually wrote an unpublished book about it, which I’m too sad to read at the moment. But he found his own mind so absorbing that he didn’t want to be distracted."^[35]

According to local newspapers, Barrett left approximately £1.7 million to his two brothers and two sisters.^[36] This sum was apparently largely acquired from royalties from Pink Floyd compilations and live recordings featuring songs he had written while with the band.^[37]

A tribute concert was held at the Barbican Centre, London on 10 May 2007 with Robyn Hitchcock, Captain Sensible, Damon Albarn, Chrissie Hynde, Kevin Ayers and his Pink Floyd bandmates performing (albeit not on stage at the same time).^[38]

Legacy[link]

[edit] Wish You Were Here sessions

Barrett had one noted reunion with the members of Pink Floyd, which occurred in 1975 during the recording sessions for Wish You Were Here. He attended the Abbey Road session unannounced, and watched the band record "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" — a song that happened to be about Barrett. By that time, the 29-year-old Barrett had become quite overweight, had shaved off all of his hair (including his eyebrows), and his ex-bandmates did not at first recognise him. Eventually, they realised who he was. Barrett's behaviour at the session was erratic; he spent part of the session brushing his teeth while standing.^[39] Roger finally managed to ask him what he thought of the song and he simply said "sounds a bit old". He briefly attended the reception for Gilmour's wedding immediately following; however, he left early without saying goodbye. Apart from a brief encounter between Roger Waters and Syd in Harrods a couple of years later, this was the last time any member of Pink Floyd saw him. Waters is unsure of whether Syd recognised him during this encounter. There is a reflection on the day in Nick Mason's book Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd. A reference to this reunion also appears in the film The Wall, where the character Pink, played by Bob Geldof, shaves his body hair after having a mental breakdown, just as Barrett had.

Compilations[link]

In 1988, EMI Records released an album of Barrett's studio out-takes and previously unreleased material recorded from 1968 to 1970 under the title Opel. The disc was originally set to include the unreleased Barrett Pink Floyd songs "Scream Thy Last Scream" and "Vegetable Man", which had been remixed for the album by Malcolm Jones. However, the two songs were pulled (reportedly by the remaining members of Pink Floyd)^{[citation needed]} before Opel was finalised.

In 1993 EMI issued another release, Crazy Diamond, a box set of all three albums, each with further out-takes from his solo sessions that illustrated Barrett's inability or refusal to play a song the same way twice.

EMI also released The Best of Syd Barrett: Wouldn't You Miss Me? in the UK on 16 April 2001, and in the US on 11 September 2001. This was the first time his song "Bob Dylan Blues" was ever officially released, taken from a demo tape that David Gilmour had kept after an early 1970s recording session. Gilmour still has the tape, which also contains the unreleased "Living Alone" from the Barrett sessions.^[40] The 2010 compilation An Introduction to Syd Barrett includes the downloadable bonus track "Rhamadan", a 20 minute track recorded at one of Syd's earliest solo sessions, in May 1968.

A number of bootleg LPs, CDs and other recordings of Barrett's live and solo material exist.

For years the "off air" recordings of the BBC sessions with Barrett's Pink Floyd circulated, until an engineer who had taken a tape of the early Pink Floyd gave it back to the BBC—which played it during a tribute to John Peel on their website. During this tribute, the first Peel programme (Top Gear) was aired in its entirety. This show featured 1967 live versions of "Flaming", "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun", and a brief 90-second snippet of the instrumental "Reaction in G".

In October 2010 Harvest/EMI and Capitol Records released An Introduction to Syd Barrett—a collection of both his Pink Floyd and remastered solo work. In 2011, it was announced that a vinyl double album version would be issued for Record Store Day.^[41]

Creative impact and technical innovation[link]

Barrett's first acoustic guitar

Mirrored Fender Esquire

Barrett wrote most of Pink Floyd's early material. He was also an innovative guitarist, using extended techniques and exploring the musical and sonic possibilities of dissonance, distortion, feedback, the echo machine, tapes and other effects; his experimentation was partly inspired by free improvisation guitarist with the group AMM, active at the time in London, Keith Rowe^[42] One of Barrett's trademarks was playing his guitar through an old echo box while sliding a Zippo lighter up and down the fret-board to create the mysterious, otherworldly sounds that became associated with the group. Barrett was known to have used Binson delay units to achieve his trademark echo sounds. Daevid Allen, founder member of Soft Machine and Gong has cited Barrett's use of slide guitar with echo as a key inspiration for his own "glissando guitar" style.^[43]

Barrett's free-form sequences of sonic carpets pioneered a new way to play the rock guitar.^[44] He played several different guitars during his tenure with Pink Floyd, including an old Harmony hollowbody electric, a Harmony acoustic, a Fender acoustic, a single-coil Danelectro 59 DC,^[45] several different Fender Telecasters, and a white Fender Stratocaster used in late 1967. A silver Fender Esquire with mirrored discs glued to the body was the guitar he was most often associated with and the guitar he "felt most close to."^[21]

Musical and pop culture influence[link]

Many artists have acknowledged Barrett's influence on their work. Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, Jon Fishman, Marc Bolan, and David Bowie were early fans; Jimmy Page, Brian Eno, and The Damned all expressed interest in working with him at some point during the 1970s. Bowie recorded a cover of "See Emily Play" on his 1973 album Pin Ups. Townshend called Barrett "legendary".

Barrett's decline had a profound effect on Roger Waters' songwriting, and the theme of mental illness would permeate Pink Floyd's later albums, particularly 1973's The Dark Side of the Moon and 1975's Wish You Were Here which was a deliberate and affectionate tribute to Barrett, the songs "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and the title track being specifically about him. The title track borrows imagery of a "steel rail" from Barrett's solo song, "If It's In You," from The Madcap Laughs album.

In 1987, an album of Barrett cover songs called Beyond the Wildwood was released. The album collected songs from Barrett's Pink Floyd albums and his solo albums. Artists appearing were UK and US indie bands including The Shamen, Opal, The Soup Dragons, and Plasticland.

Other artists who have written tributes to Barrett include his contemporary Kevin Ayers, who wrote "Oh Wot a Dream" in his honour (Barrett provided guitar to an early version of Ayers' song "Religious Experience: Singing a Song in the Morning"). Robyn Hitchcock has covered many of his songs live and on record, and has paid homage to his forebear with the songs "The Man Who Invented Himself" and "(Feels Like) 1974". Phish has covered "Bike", "No Good Trying", "Love You", "Baby Lemonade", and "Terrapin." The Television Personalities' track "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives" from their 1981 album And Don't the Kids Love It is another tribute. (The Television Personalities became the subject of controversy and derision when, as they had been selected as the opening act on David Gilmour's About Face tour in the early 1980s, lead singer Dan Treacy decided to read aloud Barrett's real home address to the audience of thousands. Gilmour removed them from the tour immediately afterwards.)^[46] In 2008, The Trash Can Sinatras released a single in tribute to the life and work of Syd Barrett called "Oranges and Apples", from their 2009 album In The Music. Proceeds from the single go to the Syd Barrett Trust in support of arts in mental health.^[47]

Johnny Depp has shown interest in a biographical film based on Barrett's life.^[48]

Barrett is also portrayed briefly in the opening scene of Tom Stoppard's play Rock 'n' Roll (2006), performing "Golden Hair". His life and music, including the disastrous Cambridge Corn Exchange concert and his later reclusive lifestyle, are a recurring motif in the work. Barrett died during the play's run in London.

Mental state[link]

There has been much speculation concerning Barrett's psychological well-being. Many believe he suffered from schizophrenia.^[19][49][50] A diagnosis of bipolar disorder has also been considered.^[51] Some have also suggested that Barrett might have had Asperger's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder.^[52]

Barrett's use of psychedelic drugs, especially LSD, during the 1960s is well documented. In an article published in 2006, in response to notions that Barrett's problems were the result of such, Gilmour was quoted as saying: "In my opinion, his nervous breakdown would have happened anyway. It was a deep-rooted thing. But I'll say the psychedelic experience might well have acted as a catalyst. Still, I just don't think he could deal with the vision of success and all the things that went with it."^[53]

Many stories of Barrett's erratic behaviour off stage as well as on are also well-documented. In Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey, author Nicholas Schaffner interviewed a number of people who knew Barrett before and during his Pink Floyd days. These included friends Peter and Susan Wynne-Wilson, artist Duggie Fields (with whom Barrett shared a flat during the late 1960s), June Bolan and Storm Thorgerson, among others.

"For June Bolan, the alarm bells began to sound only when Syd kept his girlfriend under lock and key for three days, occasionally shoving a ration of biscuits under the door."^[54] A claim of cruelty against Barrett committed by the groupies and hangers-on who frequented his apartment during this period was described by writer and critic Jonathan Meades. "I went [to Barrett's flat] to see Harry and there was this terrible noise. It sounded like heating pipes shaking. I said, 'What's up?' and he sort of giggled and said, 'That's Syd having a bad trip. We put him in the linen cupboard.'"^[55] Storm Thorgerson responded to this claim by stating "I do not remember locking Syd up in a cupboard. It sounds to me like pure fantasy, like Jonathan Meades was on dope himself."^[55]

In the book Crazy Diamond: Syd Barrett and the Dawn of Pink Floyd, authors Mike Watkinson and Pete Anderson included quotes from a story told to them by Thorgerson that underscored how volatile Barrett could be. "On one occasion, I had to pull him off Lindsay (Barrett's girlfriend at the time) because he was beating her over the head with a mandolin."^[56]

According to Gilmour in an interview with Nick Kent, the other members of Pink Floyd approached psychiatrist R. D. Laing with the 'Barrett problem'. After hearing a tape of a Barrett conversation, Laing declared him "incurable".^[57][58]

After Barrett died, his sister, Rosemary Breen, spoke to biographer Tim Willis for The Sunday Times. She insisted that Barrett neither suffered from mental illness nor received treatment for it at any time since they resumed regular contact in the 1980s.^[59] She allowed that he did spend some time in a private "home for lost souls" — Greenwoods in Essex—but claimed there was no formal therapy programme there. Some years later, Barrett apparently agreed to sessions with a psychiatrist at Fulbourn psychiatric hospital in Cambridge, but Breen claimed that neither medication nor therapy was considered appropriate in her brother's case.^[59]

His sister denied he was a recluse or that he was vague about his past: "Roger may have been a bit selfish — or rather self-absorbed — but when people called him a recluse they were really only projecting their own disappointment. He knew what they wanted, but he wasn't willing to give it to them." Barrett, she said, took up photography and sometimes they went to the seaside together. "Quite often he took the train on his own to London to look at the major art collections — and he loved flowers. He made regular trips to the Botanic Gardens and to the dahlias at Anglesey Abbey, near Lode. But of course, his passion was his painting", she said.^[59][60]

Commemoration and recent events[link]

An auction of Barrett's house contents at Cheffins auction house in Cambridge on 28 November 2006 raised £119,000 for charity. Items sold included paintings, scrapbooks and everyday items that Barrett had decorated.^[61]

A series of events called The City Wakes^[62] was held in Cambridge in October 2008 to celebrate Barrett's life, art and music. Barrett's sister, Rosemary Breen, supported this, the first-ever series of official events in memory of her brother.^[63]

After the success of The City Wakes festival in 2008, arts charity Escape Artists announced plans to create a centre in Cambridge, using art to help people suffering from mental health problems. The charity has set up a trust to raise money for the centre and has started fundraising by auctioning a mosaic designed by Syd while he was a teenager growing up in Cambridge. The glass mosaic of two warriors was donated by Rosemary Breen, who was keen to help others affected by the problems that plagued her brother until his death in 2006.^[64]

Barrett also is featured as a character in Tom Stoppard's 2006 play "Rock 'N' Roll." He is referred to as "The Piper." Barrett died during the initial run of the play in London.

In March 2011 the book Barrett: The Definitive Visual Companion to the Life of Syd Barrett was published by Essential Works, as authorised by the Barrett family. This large format illustrated book collected and catalogued for the first time all of Barrett's existing paintings and artworks along with photographs by Barrett himself, many of his letters and many unseen and rare photographs of Barrett and Pink Floyd. The book was said to show that 'Barrett’s work evinces the true emotive quality of a real artist, a passion that’s evident even in a simple illustration of a turtle'^[65] Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung suggested “this book is a sensation […] The most amazing coffee table book in years.”^[66] An exhibition accompanying the publication was held at The Idea Generation Gallery in London from 18 March to 10 April 2011 showing a large selection of Barrett's original artworks and letters.^[67]

In May 2012, British Songwriter and Musician Paul Weller released a single titled "When Your Garden's Overgrown" with lyrics inspired by the life of Syd Barrett.

Discography[link]

Singles with Pink Floyd[link]

• "Arnold Layne" (Barrett) / "Candy and a Currant Bun" (Barrett) (1967) (#20 UK)
• "See Emily Play" (Barrett) / "The Scarecrow" (Barrett) (1967) (#6 UK, #134 US)
• "Apples and Oranges" (Barrett) / "Paint Box" (Wright) (1967)
• "Flaming" (Barrett) / "The Gnome" (Barrett) (1967)[US Only]

Albums with Pink Floyd[link]

• The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (5 August 1967) #6 UK, #131 US
• A Saucerful of Secrets (29 June 1968) #9 UK
• London '66–'67 2005

Compilations with Pink Floyd (featuring his work)[link]

• The Best of the Pink Floyd (1970)
• Relics (14 May 1971) #34 UK, #152 US
• A Nice Pair (1974)
• Masters of Rock (1974, Europe)
• Works (1983)
• Shine On (1992)
• Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd (5 November 2001) #2 UK, #2 US
• Oh, by the Way (2007)
• Discovery (2011)

Solo single[link]

• "Octopus" (Barrett) /"Golden Hair" (Barrett/Joyce) (15 November 1969)

Solo albums[link]

• The Madcap Laughs - (3 January 1970) #40 UK^[68]
• Barrett – (14 November 1970)

Solo compilations[link]

• Syd Barrett (November 1974) #162 US: The Madcap Laughs and Barrett packaged together
• Opel – (17 October 1988)
• Octopus: The Best of Syd Barrett (29 May 1992): Greatest hits album issued on the Cleopatra label.
• Crazy Diamond (April 1993): Boxed set with all three studio albums with bonus tracks
• The Best of Syd Barrett: Wouldn't You Miss Me? (16 April 2001): Contains one previously unreleased track ("Bob Dylan Blues")
• An Introduction to Syd Barrett (October 2010): A collection of Barrett tracks including Pink Floyd and his solo work (2010 remixes) - #104 UK

Solo radio session recordings[link]

• The Peel Session (25 January 1987): Recorded for John Peel's BBC radio show "Top Gear" with David Gilmour and Jerry Shirley backing. Contains the otherwise unrecorded "Two of a Kind".
• The Radio One Sessions (March 2004): The album contains the five songs of from The Peel Session and bootleg-quality recordings of three songs broadcast on the Bob Harris radio show in 1971.^[69]

Appearance[link]

• Joy of a Toy by Kevin Ayers (November 1969) Plays guitar on "Religious Experience: Singing a Song in the Morning" – bonus track on remastered 2003 CD.

Filmography[link]

Pink Floyd portal

• Syd's First Trip (1966)
• London '66–'67 (1967)
• Tonite Lets All Make Love in London (1967)
• The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story (2003)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Syd Barrett

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Syd Barrett

Wikinews has related news: Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett dies at age 60

• The Syd Barrett Archives
• Official Syd Barrett Fund Website
• Official website
• Syd Barrett Lyrics at pink-floyd.org
• Syd Barrett at MTV

Sir Alfred Hitchcock
Studio publicity photo
Born	Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (1899-08-13)13 August 1899 Leytonstone, London, England, UK
Died	29 April 1980(1980-04-29) (aged 80) Bel Air, California, US
Other names	Hitch The Master of Suspense
Occupation	Film director, film producer
Years active	1921–76
Influenced by	D. W. Griffith, Fritz Lang, Sergei Eisenstein,[1] F.W. Murnau[2]
Influenced	Brian De Palma, François Truffaut, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Claude Chabrol, Robert Zemeckis, M. Night Shyamalan, David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, Dario Argento, John Carpenter, Jonathan Demme, Tim Burton, Mel Brooks, David Fincher
Religion	Roman Catholic[3]
Spouse	Alma Reville (m.1926-80; his death)
Children	Patricia Hitchcock
Parents	William Hitchcock (father) Emma Jane Whelan (mother)

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980)^[4] was an English film director and producer.^[5] He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood. On 19 April 1955, he became an American citizen while remaining a British subject.

Over a career spanning more than half a century, Hitchcock fashioned for himself a distinctive and recognisable directorial style.^[6] He pioneered the use of a camera made to move in a way that mimics a person's gaze, forcing viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism.^[7] He framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative film editing.^[7] His stories frequently feature fugitives on the run from the law alongside "icy blonde" female characters.^[8] Many of Hitchcock's films have twist endings and thrilling plots featuring depictions of violence, murder, and crime, although many of the mysteries function as decoys or "MacGuffins" meant only to serve thematic elements in the film and the extremely complex psychological examinations of the characters. Hitchcock's films also borrow many themes from psychoanalysis and feature strong sexual undertones. Through his cameo appearances in his own films, interviews, film trailers, and the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents, he became a cultural icon. Hitchocks reputation as a filmmaker is offset by claims that he engaged in obsessive and controlling behaviour towards many of his leading ladies, and that in some cases this extended to physical abuse and sexual harrassment.^[9]

Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades. Often regarded as the greatest British filmmaker, he came first in a 2007 poll of film critics in Britain's Daily Telegraph, which said: "Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else."^[10][11] The magazine MovieMaker has described him as the most influential filmmaker of all time,^[12] and he is widely regarded as one of cinema's most significant artists.^[13]

Early life[link]

Hitchcock mosaic at Leytonstone Station

Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899 in Leytonstone, London, England, the second son and youngest of three children of William Hitchcock (1862–1914), a greengrocer and poulterer, and Emma Jane Hitchcock (née Whelan; 1863–1942). Named Alfred after his father's brother, Hitchcock was raised Catholic and was sent to Salesian College (London)^[14] and the Jesuit Classic school St Ignatius' College in Stamford Hill, London.^[15][16] His mother and paternal grandmother were of Irish extraction.^[17][18] He often described his childhood as being very lonely and sheltered, a situation compounded by his obesity.^[19]

Around the age of 5, according to Hitchcock, he was sent by his father to the local police station with a note asking the officer to lock him away for ten minutes as punishment for behaving badly.^[20] This idea of being harshly treated or wrongfully accused is frequently reflected in Hitchcock's films.^[21]

Hitchcock's father died when he was 14. In the same year, Hitchcock left St. Ignatius to study at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation in Poplar, London.^[22] After leaving, he became a draftsman and advertising designer with a cable company called Henley's.^[23]

It was while working at Henley's that he first started to dabble creatively. Upon the formation of the company's in-house publication The Henley Telegraph in 1919, Hitchcock started to submit short articles, eventually becoming one of its most prolific contributors. His first piece was Gas (1919), published in the very first issue, in which a young woman imagines that she is being assaulted one night in Paris – only for the twist to reveal that it was all just a hallucination in the dentist's chair, induced by the anaesthetic. His second piece was The Woman's Part (1919), which involves the conflicted emotions a husband feels as he watches his wife, an actress, perform onstage.^[24] Sordid (1920) surrounds an attempt to buy a sword from an antiques dealer, with another twist ending. The short story And There Was No Rainbow (1920) was Hitchcock's first brush with possibly censurable material. A young man goes out looking for a brothel, only to stumble into the house of his best friend's girl. What's Who? (1920), while being very funny, was also a precursor to the famous Abbott and Costello "Who's on First?" routine. The History of Pea Eating (1920) was a satirical disquisition on the various attempts mankind has made over the centuries to eat peas successfully. His final piece, Fedora (1921), was his shortest and most enigmatic contribution. It also gave a strikingly accurate description of his future wife, Alma (whom he had not yet met).^[25]

During this period, Hitchcock became intrigued by photography and started working in film production in London, working as a title-card designer for the London branch of what would become Paramount Pictures.^[26] In 1920, he received a full-time position at Islington Studios with its American owner, Famous Players-Lasky, and their British successor, Gainsborough Pictures,^[27] designing the titles for silent movies.^[28] His rise from title designer to film director took five years.

Inter-war British career[link]

Hitchcock's last collaboration with Graham Cutts led him to Germany in 1924. The film Die Prinzessin und der Geiger (UK title The Blackguard, 1925), directed by Cutts and co-written by Hitchcock, was produced in the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam near Berlin. Hitchcock also observed part of the making of F. W. Murnau's film Der letzte Mann (1924).^[29] He was very impressed with Murnau's work and later used many techniques for the set design in his own productions. In his book-length interview with François Truffaut, Hitchcock/Truffaut (Simon and Schuster, 1967), Hitchcock also said he was influenced by Fritz Lang's film Destiny (1921).

Hitchcock's first few films faced a string of bad luck. His first directing project came in 1922 with the aptly titled Number 13.^[30] The production was cancelled due to financial problems^[30] and the few scenes that were finished at that point were apparently lost. In 1925, Michael Balcon^[31] of Gainsborough Pictures gave Hitchcock another opportunity for a directing credit with The Pleasure Garden made at UFA Studios^[32] in Germany; the film was a commercial flop.^[33] Next, Hitchcock directed a drama called The Mountain Eagle (possibly released under the title Fear o' God in the United States). This film was also eventually lost.^[34] In 1926, Hitchcock's luck changed with his first thriller, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog. The film, released in January 1927, was a major commercial and critical success in the United Kingdom.^[35] As with many of his earlier works, this film was influenced by Expressionist techniques Hitchcock had witnessed first-hand in Germany.^[36] Some commentators regard this piece as the first truly "Hitchcockian"^[37][38] film, incorporating such themes as the "wrong man".^[39]

Following the success of The Lodger, Hitchcock hired a publicist to help enhance his growing reputation. On 2 December 1926, Hitchcock married his assistant director, Alma Reville, at the Brompton Oratory in South Kensington. Their only child, daughter Patricia, was born on 7 July 1928. Alma was to become Hitchcock's closest collaborator, but her contributions to his films (some of which were credited on screen) Hitchcock would discuss only in private, as she was keen to avoid public attention.^[40]

In 1929, Hitchcock began work on his tenth film Blackmail. While the film was still in production, the studio, British International Pictures (BIP), decided to convert it to sound. As an early 'talkie', the film is frequently cited by film historians as a landmark film,^[41] and is often considered to be the first British sound feature film.^[42][43] With the climax of the film taking place on the dome of the British Museum, Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences. It also features one of his longest cameo appearances, which shows him being bothered by a small boy as he reads a book on the London Underground.^[44] In the PBS series The Men Who Made The Movies,^[45] Hitchcock explained how he used early sound recording as a special element of the film, emphasising the word "knife" in a conversation with the woman suspected of murder.^[46] During this period, Hitchcock directed segments for a BIP musical film revue Elstree Calling (1930) and directed a short film featuring two Film Weekly scholarship winners, An Elastic Affair (1930). Another BIP musical revue, Harmony Heaven (1929), reportedly had minor input from Hitchcock, but his name does not appear in the credits.

In 1933, Hitchcock was once again working for Michael Balcon^[31] at Gaumont-British Picture Corporation.^[47] His first film for the company, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), was a success and his second, The 39 Steps (1935), is often considered one of the best films from his early period.^[48] This film was also one of the first to introduce the concept of the "MacGuffin", a plot device around which a whole story seems to revolve, but ultimately has nothing to do with the true meaning or ending of the story. In The 39 Steps, the MacGuffin is a stolen set of design plans. Hitchcock told French director François Truffaut:

There are two men sitting in a train going to Scotland and one man says to the other, "Excuse me, sir, but what is that strange parcel you have on the luggage rack above you?", "Oh", says the other, "that's a Macguffin.", "Well", says the first man, "what's a Macguffin?", The other answers, "It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.", "But", says the first man, "there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands.", "Well", says the other, "then that's no Macguffin."^[49]

Hitchcock's next major success was his 1938 film The Lady Vanishes, a fast-paced film about the search for a kindly old Englishwoman Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), who disappears while on board a train in the fictional country of Bandrika.^[50]

By 1938, Hitchcock had become known for his alleged observation, "Actors are cattle". He once said that he first made this remark as early as the late 1920s, in connection to stage actors who were snobbish about motion pictures. However, Michael Redgrave said that Hitchcock had made the statement during the filming of The Lady Vanishes. The phrase would haunt Hitchcock for years to come and would result in an incident during the filming of his 1941 production of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, where Carole Lombard brought some heifers onto the set with name tags of Lombard, Robert Montgomery, and Gene Raymond, the stars of the film, to surprise the director. Hitchcock said he was misquoted: "I said 'Actors should be treated like cattle'."^[51]

At the end of the 1930s, David O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in March 1939, when the Hitchcocks moved to the United States.

Hollywood[link]

In Hollywood, the suspense and the gallows humour that had become Hitchcock's trademark in film continued to appear in his productions. The working arrangements with Selznick were less than optimal. Selznick suffered from perennial money problems, and Hitchcock was often displeased with Selznick's creative control over his films. In a later interview, Hitchcock summarised the working relationship thus:

[Selznick] was the Big Producer. [...] Producer was king, The most flattering thing Mr. Selznick ever said about me—and it shows you the amount of control—he said I was the "only director" he'd "trust with a film".^[52]

Selznick loaned Hitchcock to the larger studios more often than producing Hitchcock's films himself. In addition, Selznick, as well as fellow independent producer Samuel Goldwyn, made only a few films each year, so he did not always have projects for Hitchcock to direct. Goldwyn had also negotiated with Hitchcock on a possible contract, only to be outbid by Selznick. Hitchcock was quickly impressed with the superior resources of the American studios compared to the financial restrictions he had frequently encountered in England.^{[citation needed]}

Hitchcock's fondness for his homeland resulted in numerous American films set in, or filmed in, the United Kingdom,^[53] including his penultimate film, Frenzy.

With the prestigious Selznick picture Rebecca in 1940, Hitchcock made his first American movie, set in England and based on a novel by English author Daphne du Maurier. The film starred Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. This Gothic melodrama explores the fears of a naïve young bride who enters a great English country home and must adapt to the extreme formality and coldness she finds there. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1940.^[54] The statuette was given to Selznick, as the film's producer.^[54] The film did not win the Best Director award for Hitchcock.

There were additional problems between Selznick and Hitchcock. Selznick was known to impose very restrictive rules upon Hitchcock, forcing him to shoot the film as Selznick wanted.^{[citation needed]} At the same time, Selznick complained about Hitchcock's "goddamn jigsaw cutting", which meant that the producer did not have nearly the leeway to create his own film as he liked, but had to follow Hitchcock's vision of the finished product.^[55] Rebecca was the fourth longest of Hitchcock's films, at 130 minutes, exceeded only by The Paradine Case (132 minutes), North by Northwest (136 minutes), and Topaz (142 minutes).^[56]

Hitchcock's second American film, the European-set thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), based on Vincent Sheean's Personal History and produced by Walter Wanger, was nominated for Best Picture that year. Hitchcock and many other English nationals felt uneasy living and working in Hollywood while their home country was at war, so his concern resulted in the making of the film that supported the British war effort.^[57] The movie was filmed in the first year of World War II and was inspired by the rapidly changing events in Europe, as fictionally covered by an American newspaper reporter portrayed by Joel McCrea. The film mixed actual footage of European scenes and scenes filmed on a Hollywood back lot. In compliance with Hollywood's Production Code censorship, the film avoided direct references to Germany and Germans.^[58]

1940s films[link]

Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious (1946)

Hitchcock's films during the 1940s were diverse, ranging from the romantic comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) to the courtroom drama The Paradine Case (1947) to the dark and disturbing film noir Shadow of a Doubt (1943).

In September 1940, the Hitchcocks purchased the 200-acre (0.81 km²) Cornwall Ranch, located near Scotts Valley in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The ranch became the primary residence of the Hitchcocks for the rest of their lives, although they kept their Bel Air home. Suspicion (1941) marked Hitchcock's first film as a producer as well as director. Hitchcock used the north coast of Santa Cruz, California, for the English coastline sequence.^[26] This film was to be actor Cary Grant's first time working with Hitchcock, and it was one of the few times that Grant would be cast in a sinister role.^[26] Joan Fontaine^[59] won Best Actress Oscar^[26] and the New York Film Critics Circle Award^[60] for her "outstanding performance in Suspicion". "Grant plays an irresponsible husband whose actions raise suspicion and anxiety in his wife (Fontaine)".^{[citation needed]} In what critics regard as a classic scene^{[citation needed]}, Hitchcock uses a light bulb to illuminate what might be a fatal glass of milk that Grant is bringing to his wife. In the book the movie is based on (Before the Fact by Francis Iles), the Grant character is a killer, but Hitchcock and the studio felt Grant's image would be tarnished by that ending. Though a homicide would have suited him better, as he stated to François Truffaut, Hitchcock settled for an ambiguous finale.^[61]

Saboteur (1942) was the first of two films that Hitchcock made for Universal, a studio where he would continue his career during his later years. Hitchcock was forced^{[citation needed]} to use Universal contract players Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane, both known for their work in comedies and light dramas. Breaking with Hollywood conventions of the time, Hitchcock did extensive location filming, especially in New York City, and depicted a confrontation between a suspected saboteur (Cummings) and a real saboteur (Norman Lloyd) atop the Statue of Liberty. That year he also directed Have You Heard?, a photographic dramatisation of the dangers of rumours during wartime, for Life magazine.^[62]

Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Hitchcock's personal favourite of all his films and the second of the early Universal films,^[63] was about young Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright), who suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial murderer. Critics have said that in its use of overlapping characters, dialogue, and closeups it has provided a generation of film theorists with psychoanalytic potential^{[citation needed]}, including Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek. Hitchcock again filmed extensively on location, this time in the Northern California city of Santa Rosa, California, during the summer of 1942. The director showcased his own personal fascination with crime and criminals when he had two of his characters discuss various ways of killing people, to the obvious annoyance of Charlotte.

Working at 20th Century Fox, Hitchcock adapted a script of John Steinbeck's that chronicled the experiences of the survivors of a German U-boat attack in the film Lifeboat (1944). The action sequences were shot in a small boat in the studio water tank. The locale also posed problems for Hitchcock's traditional cameo appearance. That was solved by having Hitchcock's image appear in a newspaper that William Bendix is reading in the boat, showing the director in a before-and-after advertisement for "Reduco-Obesity Slayer".^[64]

While at Fox, Hitchcock seriously considered directing the film version of A.J. Cronin's novel about a Catholic priest in China^{[citation needed]}, The Keys of the Kingdom, but the plans for this fell through. John M. Stahl ended up directing the 1944 film, which was produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starred Gregory Peck, among other luminaries.^[65]

Returning to England for an extended visit in late 1943 and early 1944, Hitchcock made two short films for the Ministry of Information, Bon Voyage and Aventure Malgache. Made for the Free French, these were the only films Hitchcock made in the French language, and "feature typical Hitchcockian touches".^[66] In the 1990s, the two films were shown by Turner Classic Movies and released on home video.

In 1945, Hitchcock served as "treatment advisor" (in effect, a film editor) for a Holocaust documentary produced by the British Army. The film, which recorded the liberation of Nazi concentration camps, remained unreleased until 1985, when it was completed by PBS Frontline and distributed under the title Memory of the Camps.^[67][68]

Hitchcock worked for Selznick again when he directed Spellbound (1945), which explored psychoanalysis^[69] and featured a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí. Gregory Peck plays amnesiac Dr. Anthony Edwardes under the treatment of analyst Dr. Peterson (Ingrid Bergman), who falls in love with him while trying to unlock his repressed past.^[70] The dream sequence as it actually appears in the film is considerably shorter than was originally envisioned, which was to be several minutes long,^{[citation needed]} because it proved to be too disturbing for the audience. Two point-of-view shots were achieved by constructing a large wooden hand (which would appear to belong to the character whose point of view the camera took) and out-sized props for it to hold: a bucket-sized glass of milk and a large wooden gun. For added novelty and impact, the climactic gunshot was hand-coloured red on (some copies of) the black-and-white film. Some of the original musical score by Miklós Rózsa (which makes use of the theremin) was later adapted by the composer into a concert piano concerto.

Grant and Bergman in Notorious (1946)

Notorious (1946) followed Spellbound. According to Hitchcock, in his book-length interview with François Truffaut, Selznick sold the director, the two stars (Grant and Bergman) and the screenplay (by Ben Hecht) to RKO Radio Pictures as a "package" for $500,000 due to cost overruns on Selznick's Duel in the Sun (1946). Notorious starred Hitchcock regulars Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, and features a plot about Nazis, uranium, and South America. It was a huge box office success and has remained one of Hitchcock's most acclaimed films^{[citation needed]}. His use of uranium as a plot device led to Hitchcock's being briefly under FBI surveillance. McGilligan writes that Hitchcock consulted Dr. Robert Millikan of Caltech about the development of an atomic bomb. Selznick complained that the notion was "science fiction", only to be confronted by the news stories of the detonation of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in August 1945.^[71]

After completing his final film for Selznick, The Paradine Case (a courtroom drama that critics found lost momentum because it apparently ran too long and exhausted its resource of ideas), Hitchcock filmed his first colour film, Rope (1948). Here Hitchcock experimented with marshaling suspense in a confined environment, as he had done earlier with Lifeboat (1943). Appeaering to have been shot entirely in a single take, Rope (1948) was actually shot in 10 takes ranging from four and a half to 10 minutes each; a 10-minute length of film being the maximum a camera's film magazine could hold. Some transitions between reels were hidden by having a dark object fill the entire screen for a moment. Hitchcock used those points to hide the cut, and began the next take with the camera in the same place. Featuring James Stewart in the leading role, Rope was the first of four films Stewart would make with Hitchcock. It was based on the Leopold and Loeb case of the 1920s. Somehow Hitchcock's cameraman managed to move the bulky, heavy Technicolor camera quickly around the set as it followed the continuous action of the long takes.

Under Capricorn (1949), set in nineteenth-century Australia, also used the short-lived technique of long takes, but to a more limited extent. He again used Technicolor in this production, then returned to black-and-white films for several years. For Rope and Under Capricorn, Hitchcock formed a production company with Sidney Bernstein called Transatlantic Pictures, which became inactive after these two unsuccessful pictures. Hitchcock continued to produce his own films for the rest of his life.

1950s: Peak years[link]

James Stewart and Grace Kelly in Rear Window (1954)

Hitchcock filmed Stage Fright (1950) in the UK. For the first time, he matched one of Warner Bros.'^[72] biggest stars, Jane Wyman, with the sultry German actress Marlene Dietrich. Hitchcock used a number of prominent British actors, including Michael Wilding, Richard Todd, and Alastair Sim. This was Hitchcock's first production for Warner Bros., which had distributed Rope and Under Capricorn, because Transatlantic Pictures was experiencing financial difficulties.^[73]

With the film Strangers on a Train (1951), based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith, Hitchcock combined many elements from his preceding films. He approached Dashiell Hammett to write the dialogue but Raymond Chandler took over, then left over disagreements with the director.^[74] Two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof murder technique. He suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger's role was as the innocent victim of the scheme, while Robert Walker, previously known for "boy-next-door" roles, played the villain.^[75]

MCA head Lew Wasserman, whose client list included James Stewart, Janet Leigh and other actors who would appear in Hitchcock's films, had a significant impact in packaging and marketing Hitchcock's films beginning in the 1950s.

After I Confess (1953) with Montgomery Clift, three popular films starring Grace Kelly followed. Dial M for Murder (1954) was adapted from the stage play by Frederick Knott. Ray Milland plays the scheming villain, an ex-tennis pro who tries to murder his unfaithful wife Grace Kelly for her money. When she kills the hired assassin in self-defense, Milland manipulates the evidence to pin the death on his wife. Her lover, Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings), and Police Inspector Hubbard (John Williams), work urgently to save her from execution.^[76] Hitchcock experimented with 3D cinematography. The depth effect was utilised in a major way only in one key scene. The public was growing weary of 3D by the time of the film's release, however, and it was shown in 3D only in a few first-run engagements. The 3D version has been revived from time to time, including a brief reissue in some major US cities in the 1980s. The film marked a return to color productions for Hitchcock.

Hitchcock then moved to Paramount Pictures and filmed Rear Window (1954), starring James Stewart and Kelly again, as well as Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr. Stewart's character, a photographer based on Robert Capa, must temporarily use a wheelchair; out of boredom he begins observing his neighbours across the courtyard, and becomes convinced one of them (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Stewart tries to sway both his glamorous model-girlfriend (Kelly), which screenwriter John Michael Hayes based on his own wife, and his policeman buddy (Wendell Corey) to his theory, and eventually succeeds.^[77] As with Lifeboat and Rope, the principal characters were almost entirely confined to a small space, in this case Stewart's tiny studio apartment overlooking a massive courtyard. Hitchcock used closeups of Stewart's face to show his character's reactions to all he sees, "from the comic voyeurism directed at his neighbours to his helpless terror watching Kelly and Burr in the villain's apartment".^[77]

The third Kelly film, To Catch a Thief (1955), set in the French Riviera, paired her with Cary Grant. He plays retired thief John Robie, who becomes the prime suspect for a spate of robberies in the Riviera. An American heiress played by Kelly surmises his true identity, attempts to seduce him. "Despite the obvious age disparity between Grant and Kelly and a lightweight plot, the witty script (loaded with double-entendres) and the good-natured acting proved a commercial success."^[78] It was Hitchcock's last film with Kelly. She married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, and the residents of her new land were against her making any more films.

Hitchcock successfully remade his own 1934 film The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956, this time starring Stewart and Doris Day, who sang the theme song, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)", which won the Oscar for Best Original Song and became a big hit for her. They play a couple whose son is kidnapped to prevent them from interfering with an assassination.

James Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo (1958)

The Wrong Man (1957), Hitchcock's final film for Warner Brothers, was a low-key black-and-white production based on a real-life case of mistaken identity reported in Life Magazine in 1953. This was the only film of Hitchcock's to star Henry Fonda. Fonda plays a Stork Club musician mistaken for a liquor store thief who is arrested and tried for robbery while his wife (newcomer Vera Miles) emotionally collapses under the strain. Hitchcock told Truffaut that his lifelong fear of the police attracted him to the subject and was embedded in many scenes.^[79]

Vertigo (1958) again starred Stewart, this time with Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes. Stewart plays "Scottie", a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia, who develops an obsession with a woman he is shadowing (Novak). Scottie's obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock does not opt for a happy ending. The film contains a camera technique developed by Irmin Roberts that has been copied many times by filmmakers, wherein the image appears to "stretch". This is achieved by moving the camera in the opposite direction of the camera's zoom. It has become known by many nicknames, including Dolly zoom, "Zolly," "Hitchcock Zoom," and "Vertigo Effect."

Although the film is widely considered a classic today, Vertigo met with negative reviews and poor box office receipts upon its release, and was the last collaboration between Stewart and Hitchcock.^[80] The film is ranked second (behind Citizen Kane) in the 2002 Sight & Sound decade poll. It was premiered in the San Sebastián International Film Festival,^[81] where Hitchcock won a Silver Seashell.