Desmond Tester (17 February 1919 – 31 December 2002) was an English and Australian film actor and television actor, host and executive. He was born in London, England. Among his most notable roles was that of the ill-fated boy Stevie in the Alfred Hitchcock film Sabotage (1936).

Tester made his first stage appearance at the age of 12, receiving positive reviews from London critics. He was known more as a child actor in film in his native England. Tester's characters often met with doomed fates, in such early films as Carol Reed's Midshipman Easy (1935), Tudor Rose (1936), The Stars Look Down (1939), and Sabotage. He also appeared in The Drum (1938).

After World War II, he embarked in careers in radio, theatre and television. As television broadcasting began in Australia, Tester soon found work with Channel Nine's What's My Line and in a variety of children's programmes including Kaper Kops with Reg Gorman and Rod Hull. He spent fifteen years at Channel Nine, taking charge of children's programming, and became more involved behind the scenes in production and publicity. He later moved to Reg Grundy Productions, eventually leaving the industry entirely due to a dislike of the overall management culture.

In 1974 he revived his stage acting career. He also had occasional minor roles in various films, such as Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (1974) and The Wild Duck (1983).

Tester died in Sydney on 31 December 2002.

Personal life[link]

Tester was married to Evelyn Stuart and had five children – Jolyon (deceased), Dermot, Giles, Toby and Simon and five grandchildren – Sally, Daisy, Sam, Georgia and Max. The last 29 years of his life was spent in leafy Lindfield on Sydney's North Shore with his partner Valerie Jones.

Selected filmography[link]

• Midshipman Easy (1935)

External links[link]

• Desmond Tester at the Internet Movie Database
• Obituary

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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.

Cary Grant in North by Northwest (1959)

By this time, Hitchcock had filmed in many areas of the United States.^[82] He followed Vertigo with three more successful films. Two are also recognised as among his best movies: North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960). The third film was The Birds (1963).

In North by Northwest, Cary Grant portrays Roger Thornhill, a Madison Avenue advertising executive who is mistaken for a government secret agent.^[83] He is hotly pursued by enemy agents across America, apparently one of them being Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), in fact working undercover.

From 1960[link]

Psycho is almost certainly Hitchcock's best-known film.^[84] Produced on a highly constrained budget of $800,000, it was shot in black-and-white on a spare set.^[85] The unprecedented violence of the shower scene, the early demise of the heroine, the innocent lives extinguished by a disturbed murderer were all hallmarks of Hitchcock, copied in many subsequent horror films.^[86] After completing Psycho, Hitchcock moved to Universal, where he made the remainder of his films.

The Birds, inspired by a Daphne Du Maurier short story and by an actual news story about a mysterious infestation of birds in California, was Hitchcock's 49th film.^[87] He signed up Tippi Hedren as his latest blonde heroine opposite Rod Taylor. The scenes of the birds attacking included hundreds of shots mixing actual and animated sequences. The cause of the birds' attack is left unanswered, "perhaps highlighting the mystery of forces unknown".^[88]

The latter two films had unconventional soundtracks, both orchestrated by Bernard Herrmann: the screeching strings played in the murder scene in Psycho were unusually dissonant, and The Birds dispensed completely with conventional instruments, instead using an electronically produced soundtrack and an unaccompanied song by schoolchildren (just prior to the attack at the Bodega Bay School). These films are considered his last great films, after which critical opinion was usually against his new films, although some critics, such as Robin Wood and Donald Spoto, contend that Marnie (1964) is first-class Hitchcock, and some have argued that Frenzy is unfairly overlooked.

Failing health took its toll on Hitchcock, reducing his output during the last two decades of his career. He filmed two spy thrillers set with Cold War-related themes. The first, Torn Curtain (1966), with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, displays the bitter end of the twelve-year collaboration between Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann was fired when Hitchcock was unsatisfied with his score. Topaz (1969), (based on a Leon Uris novel), is partly set in Cuba. Both received mixed reviews from critics.

Hitchcock at work on location in San Francisco for Family Plot

In 1972, Hitchcock returned to London to film Frenzy. After two only moderately successful espionage films, the plot marks a return to the murder thriller genre of earlier in his career. The basic story recycles his early film The Lodger. Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a volatile barkeeper with a history of explosive anger, becomes the prime suspect for the "Necktie Murders," which are actually committed by his friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster).^[89] This time, Hitchcock makes the victim and villain twins, rather than opposites, as in Strangers on a Train. Only one of them, however, has crossed the line to murder.^[89] For the first time, Hitchcock allowed nudity and profane language, which had before been taboo, in one of his films. He also shows rare sympathy for the chief inspector and his comic domestic life.^[90] Biographers have noted that Hitchcock had always pushed the limits of film censorship, often managing to fool Joseph Breen, the longtime head of Hollywood's Production Code. Many times Hitchcock slipped in subtle hints of improprieties forbidden by censorship until the mid-1960s. Yet Patrick McGilligan wrote that Breen and others often realised that Hitchcock was inserting such things and were actually amused as well as alarmed by Hitchcock's "inescapable inferences".^[91] Beginning with Torn Curtain, Hitchcock was finally able to blatantly include plot elements previously forbidden in American films and this continued for the remainder of his film career.

Family Plot (1976) was Hitchcock's last film. It related the escapades of "Madam" Blanche Tyler played by Barbara Harris, a fraudulent spiritualist, and her taxi driver lover Bruce Dern making a living from her phoney powers. William Devane, Karen Black and Cathleen Nesbitt co-starred. It was the only Hitchcock film scored by John Williams.

Last project and death[link]

Near the end of his life, Hitchcock had worked on the script for a projected spy thriller, The Short Night, collaborating with screenwriters James Costigan and Ernest Lehman. Despite some preliminary work, the story was never filmed. This was due primarily to Hitchcock's own failing health and his concerns over the health of his wife, Alma, who had suffered a stroke. The script was eventually published posthumously, in a book on Hitchcock's last years.^[92][93]

Hitchcock died in his Bel Air home of renal failure at 9:17 am on 29 April 1980. He was survived by his wife and their daughter. Hitchcock's funeral service was held at Good Shepherd Catholic Church^[94] in Beverly Hills, after which his body was cremated and his remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.^[95]

Themes, plot devices and motifs[link]

Hitchcock returned several times to cinematic devices such as suspense, the audience as voyeur, and his well-known "MacGuffin," an apparently minor detail serving as a pivot upon which the narrative turns.

Signature appearances in his films[link]

Hitchcock appeared briefly in most of his own films. For example, he is seen struggling to get a double bass onto a train (Strangers on a Train), or walking dogs out of a pet shop (The Birds).

Psychology of characters[link]

Hitchcock's films sometimes feature characters struggling in their relationships with their mothers. In North by Northwest (1959), Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant's character) is an innocent man ridiculed by his mother for insisting that shadowy, murderous men are after him. In The Birds (1963), the Rod Taylor character, an innocent man, finds his world under attack by vicious birds, and struggles to free himself of a clinging mother (Jessica Tandy). The killer in Frenzy (1972) has a loathing of women but idolises his mother. The villain Bruno in Strangers on a Train hates his father, but has an incredibly close relationship with his mother (played by Marion Lorne). Sebastian (Claude Rains) in Notorious has a clearly conflictual relationship with his mother, who is (correctly) suspicious of his new bride Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman). Norman Bates has troubles with his mother in Psycho.

Hitchcock heroines tend to be lovely, cool blondes who seem proper at first but, when aroused by passion or danger, respond in a more sensual, animal, or even criminal way. The famous victims in The Lodger are all blondes. In The 39 Steps, Hitchcock's glamorous blonde star, Madeleine Carroll, is put in handcuffs. In Marnie (1964), the title character (played by Tippi Hedren) is a thief. In To Catch a Thief (1955), Francie (Grace Kelly) offers to help a man she believes is a burglar. In Rear Window, Lisa (Grace Kelly again) risks her life by breaking into Lars Thorwald's apartment. The best-known example is in Psycho where Janet Leigh's unfortunate character steals $40,000 and is murdered by a reclusive psychopath. Hitchcock's last blonde heroine was—years after Dany Robin and her "daughter" Claude Jade in Topaz—Barbara Harris as a phony psychic turned amateur sleuth in his final film, 1976's Family Plot. In the same film, the diamond smuggler played by Karen Black could also fit that role, as she wears a long blonde wig in various scenes and becomes increasingly uncomfortable about her line of work.

Some critics and Hitchcock scholars, including Donald Spoto and Roger Ebert, agree that Vertigo represents the director's most personal and revealing film, dealing with the obsessions of a man who crafts a woman into the woman he desires. Vertigo explores more frankly and at greater length his interest in the relation between sex and death than any other film in his filmography.^{[citation needed]}

Hitchcock often said that his favourite film (of his own work) was Shadow of a Doubt.^[96]

Style of working[link]

Writing[link]

Hitchcock once commented, "The writer and I plan out the entire script down to the smallest detail, and when we're finished all that's left to do is to shoot the film. Actually, it's only when one enters the studio that one enters the area of compromise. Really, the novelist has the best casting since he doesn't have to cope with the actors and all the rest." In an interview with Roger Ebert in 1969, Hitchcock elaborated further:

Once the screenplay is finished, I'd just as soon not make the film at all... I have a strongly visual mind. I visualize a picture right down to the final cuts. I write all this out in the greatest detail in the script, and then I don't look at the script while I'm shooting. I know it off by heart, just as an orchestra conductor needs not look at the score... When you finish the script, the film is perfect. But in shooting it you lose perhaps 40 percent of your original conception.^[97]

In Writing with Hitchcock, a book-length study of Hitchcock's working method with his writers, author Steven DeRosa noted that "Although he rarely did any actual 'writing', especially on his Hollywood productions, Hitchcock supervised and guided his writers through every draft, insisting on a strict attention to detail and a preference for telling the story through visual rather than verbal means. While this exasperated some writers, others admitted the director inspired them to do their very best work. Hitchcock often emphasised that he took no screen credit for the writing of his films. However, over time the work of many of his writers has been attributed solely to Hitchcock’s creative genius, a misconception he rarely went out of his way to correct. Notwithstanding his technical brilliance as a director, Hitchcock relied on his writers a great deal."^[98]

Storyboards and production[link]

Hitchcock's films were strongly believed to have been extensively storyboarded to the finest detail by the majority of commentators over the years. He was reported to have never even bothered looking through the viewfinder, since he did not need to do so, though in publicity photos he was shown doing so. He also used this as an excuse to never have to change his films from his initial vision. If a studio asked him to change a film, he would claim that it was already shot in a single way, and that there were no alternate takes to consider.

However, this view of Hitchcock as a director who relied more on pre-production than on the actual production itself has been challenged by the book Hitchcock At Work, written by Bill Krohn, the American correspondent of Cahiers du cinéma. Krohn, after investigating several script revisions, notes to other production personnel written by or to Hitchcock alongside inspection of storyboards, and other production material, has observed that Hitchcock's work often deviated from how the screenplay was written or how the film was originally envisioned. He noted that the myth of storyboards in relation to Hitchcock, often regurgitated by generations of commentators on his movies was to a great degree perpetuated by Hitchcock himself or the publicity arm of the studios. A great example would be the celebrated crop-spraying sequence of North by Northwest which was not storyboarded at all. After the scene was filmed, the publicity department asked Hitchcock to make storyboards to promote the film and Hitchcock in turn hired an artist to match the scenes in detail.

Even when storyboards were made, scenes that were shot differed from it significantly. Krohn's extensive analysis of the production of Hitchcock classics like Notorious reveals that Hitchcock was flexible enough to change a film's conception during its production. Another example Krohn notes is the American remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, whose shooting schedule commenced without a finished script and moreover went over schedule, something that, as Krohn notes, was not an uncommon occurrence on many of Hitchcock's films, including Strangers on a Train and Topaz. While Hitchcock did do a great deal of preparation for all his movies, he was fully cognizant that the actual film-making process often deviated from the best-laid plans and was flexible to adapt to the changes and needs of production as his films were not free from the normal hassles faced and common routines utilised during many other film productions.

Krohn's work also sheds light on Hitchcock's practice of generally shooting in chronological order, which he notes sent many films over budget and over schedule and, more importantly, differed from the standard operating procedure of Hollywood in the Studio System Era. Equally important is Hitchcock's tendency to shoot alternate takes of scenes. This differed from coverage in that the films were not necessarily shot from varying angles so as to give the editor options to shape the film how he/she chooses (often under the producer's aegis). Rather they represented Hitchcock's tendency of giving himself options in the editing room, where he would provide advice to his editors after viewing a rough cut of the work. According to Krohn, this and a great deal of other information revealed through his research of Hitchcock's personal papers, script revisions and the like refute the notion of Hitchcock as a director who was always in control of his films, whose vision of his films did not change during production, which Krohn notes has remained the central long-standing myth of Alfred Hitchcock.

His fastidiousness and attention to detail also found its way into each film poster for his films. Hitchcock preferred to work with the best talent of his day—film poster designers such as Bill Gold and Saul Bass—and kept them busy with countless rounds of revision until he felt that the single image of the poster accurately represented his entire film.

Approach to actors[link]

Similarly, much of Hitchcock's supposed dislike of actors has been exaggerated. Hitchcock simply did not tolerate the method approach, as he believed that actors should only concentrate on their performances and leave work on script and character to the directors and screenwriters. In a Sight and Sound interview, he stated that, 'the method actor is OK in the theatre because he has a free space to move about. But when it comes to cutting the face and what he sees and so forth, there must be some discipline'.^[99] During the making of Lifeboat, Walter Slezak, who played the German character, stated that Hitchcock knew the mechanics of acting better than anyone he knew. Several critics have observed that despite his reputation as a man who disliked actors, several actors who worked with him gave fine, often brilliant performances and these performances contribute to the film's success.

For Hitchcock, the actors, like the props, were part of the film's setting, as he said to Truffaut:

In my opinion, the chief requisite for an actor is the ability to do nothing well, which is by no means as easy as it sounds. He should be willing to be utilised and wholly integrated into the picture by the director and the camera. He must allow the camera to determine the proper emphasis and the most effective dramatic highlights.^[100]

Regarding Hitchcock's sometimes less than pleasant relationship with actors, there was a persistent rumour that he had said that actors were cattle. Hitchcock addressed this story in his interview with François Truffaut:

I'm not quite sure in what context I might have made such a statement. It may have been made...when we used actors who were simultaneously performing in stage plays. When they had a matinee, and I suspected they were allowing themselves plenty of time for a very leisurely lunch. And this meant that we had to shoot our scenes at breakneck speed so that the actors could get out on time. I couldn't help feeling that if they'd been really conscientious, they'd have swallowed their sandwich in the cab, on the way to the theatre, and get there in time to put on their make-up and go on stage. I had no use for that kind of actor.^[101]

Carole Lombard, tweaking Hitchcock and drumming up a little publicity, brought some cows along with her when she reported to the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith.^[101]

In the late 1950s, French New Wave critics, especially Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut, were among the first to see and promote Hitchcock's films as artistic works. Hitchcock was one of the first directors to whom they applied their auteur theory, which stresses the artistic authority of the director in the film-making process.

Hitchcock's innovations and vision have influenced a great number of filmmakers, producers, and actors. His influence helped start a trend for film directors to control artistic aspects of their movies without answering to the movie's producer.

The ugly side of Hitchcock - Sexual harrassment and abuse of leading ladies[link]

“The trouble today is that we don’t torture women enough.” —Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock engaged in obsessive sexually abusive behaviour towards many of his female leads. He used his position as director to seek to dominate and control his leading ladies. In the case of Tippi Hedren this extended to sexual harrassment. Hitchcock often used filming conditions to physically abuse actresses.

He insisted, for example, that Madeleine Carroll submit herself to painful physical demands during the making of The 39 Steps.

Awards and honours[link]

Hitchcock was a multiple nominee and winner of a number of prestigious awards, receiving two Golden Globes, eight Laurel Awards and five lifetime achievement awards, as well as being six times nominated for, albeit never winning, an Academy Award as Best Director. His film Rebecca (nominated for 11 Oscars) won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1940—particularly notable considering the fact that another Hitchcock film, Foreign Correspondent, was also nominated that same year.

Television, radio, and books[link]

Along with Walt Disney, Hitchcock was among the first prominent motion picture producers to fully envisage just how popular the medium of television would become. From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host and producer of a television series titled Alfred Hitchcock Presents.^[102] While his films had made Hitchcock's name strongly associated with suspense, the TV series made Hitchcock a celebrity himself. His irony-tinged voice and signature droll delivery, gallows humour, iconic image and mannerisms became instantly recognisable and were often the subject of parody.

The title-theme of the show pictured a minimalist caricature of Hitchcock's profile (he drew it himself; it is composed of only nine strokes), which his real silhouette then filled. His introductions before the stories in his program always included some sort of wry humour, such as the description of a recent multi-person execution hampered by having only one electric chair, while two are now shown with a sign "Two chairs—no waiting!" He directed a few episodes of the TV series himself, and he upset a number of movie production companies when he insisted on using his TV production crew to produce his motion picture Psycho. In the late 1980s, a new version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was produced for television, making use of Hitchcock's original introductions in a colourised form.

The series used a curious little tune^[103] by the French composer Charles Gounod (1818–1893),^[104] the composer of the 1859 opera Faust, as the theme for his television programs, after it was suggested to him by composer Bernard Herrmann. Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra included the piece, Funeral March of a Marionette, on one of their extended play 45-rpm discs for RCA Victor during the 1950s.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents was parodied by Friz Freleng's 1961 cartoon The Last Hungry Cat, which contains a plot similar to Blackmail.

Hitchcock appears as a character in the popular juvenile detective book series, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators. The long-running detective series was created by Robert Arthur, who wrote the first several books, although other authors took over after he left the series. The Three Investigators—Jupiter Jones, Bob Andrews and Peter Crenshaw—were amateur detectives, slightly younger than the Hardy Boys. In the introduction to each book, "Alfred Hitchcock" introduces the mystery, and he sometimes refers a case to the boys to solve. At the end of each book, the boys report to Hitchcock, and sometimes give him a memento of their case.

When the real Hitchcock died, the fictional Hitchcock in the Three Investigators books was replaced by a retired detective named Hector Sebastian. At this time, the series title was changed from Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators to The Three Investigators.

At the height of Hitchcock's success, he was also asked to introduce a set of books with his name attached. The series was a collection of short stories by popular short-story writers, primarily focused on suspense and thrillers. These titles included Alfred Hitchcock's Anthology, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Stories to be Read with the Door Locked, Alfred Hitchcock's Monster Museum, Alfred Hitchcock's Supernatural Tales of Terror and Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbinders in Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock's Witch's Brew, Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock's A Hangman's Dozen and Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful. Hitchcock himself was not actually involved in the reading, reviewing, editing or selection of the short stories; in fact, even his introductions were ghost-written. The entire extent of his involvement with the project was to lend his name and collect a check.

Some notable writers whose works were used in the collection include Shirley Jackson (Strangers in Town, The Lottery), T.H. White (The Once and Future King), Robert Bloch, H. G. Wells (The War of the Worlds), Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain and the creator of The Three Investigators, Robert Arthur.

Hitchcock also wrote a mystery story for Look magazine in 1943, "The Murder of Monty Woolley". This was a sequence of captioned photographs inviting the reader to inspect the pictures for clues to the murderer's identity; Hitchcock cast the performers as themselves, such as Woolley, Doris Merrick and make-up man Guy Pearce, whom Hitchcock identified, in the last photo, as the murderer. The article was reprinted in Games Magazine in November/December 1980.

In September 2010, BBC Radio 7 broadcast a series of five fifteen-minute programs entitled The Late Alfred Hitchcock Presents with Michael Roberts impersonating Alfred Hitchcock for introductory/concluding comments and reading the stories in his own voice. These five stories were originally intended for the television series, but were rejected because of their rather gruesome nature:

• "The Waxwork" by A. M. Burrage (broadcast 13 September 2010)
• "Sredni Vashtar" by Saki (broadcast 14 September 2010)
• "The Perfectionist" by Margaret St. Clair (broadcast 15 September 2010)
• "Being a Murderer Myself" by Arthur Williams (broadcast 16 September 2010)
• "The Dancing Partner" by Jerome K. Jerome (broadcast 17 September 2010)

Filmography[link]

Frequently cast actors and actresses[link]

• 7 films: Clare Greet: Number 13 (1922), The Ring (1927), The Manxman (1929), Murder! (1930), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), Sabotage (1936), Jamaica Inn (1939)
• 6 films: Leo G. Carroll: Rebecca (1940), Suspicion (1941), Spellbound (1945), The Paradine Case (1947), Strangers on a Train (1951), and North By Northwest (1959)
• 4 films: Cary Grant: Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), and North By Northwest (1959)
• 4 films: James Stewart: Rope (1948), Rear Window (1954), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), and Vertigo (1958)
• 4 films: Edmund Gwenn: The Skin Game (1931), Waltzes from Vienna (1934), Foreign Correspondent (1940), and The Trouble with Harry (1955)
• 4 films: Phyllis Konstam: Champagne (1928), Blackmail (1929), Murder! (1930), and The Skin Game (1931)
• 3 films: Ingrid Bergman: Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), and Under Capricorn (1949)
• 3 films: Grace Kelly: Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955)
• 3 films: Basil Radford: Young and Innocent (1937), The Lady Vanishes (1938), Jamaica Inn (1939)
• 3 films: John Williams: The Paradine Case (1947), Dial M for Murder, (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955)
• 3 films: Patricia Hitchcock: Stage Fright (1950), Strangers on a Train (1951), Psycho (1960)
• 3 films: Charles Halton: Foreign Correspondent (1940), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941), Saboteur (1942)
• 2 films: Gregory Peck: Spellbound (1945), The Paradine Case (1947)
• 2 films: Robert Cummings: Saboteur (1942), Dial M for Murder (1954)
• 2 films: Tippi Hedren: The Birds (1963), Marnie (1964)
• 2 films: Joan Fontaine: Rebecca (1940), Suspicion (1941)
• 2 films: Joseph Cotten: Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Under Capricorn (1949)

Frequent collaborators[link]

See also[link]

• Alfred Hitchcock Presents
• Alfred Hitchcock filmography
• List of unproduced Hitchcock projects
• List of film collaborations
• List of Alfred Hitchcock cameo appearances

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Leitch, Thomas: The Encyclopedia of Alfred Hitchcock (ISBN 978-0-8160-4387-3). Checkmark Books, 2002. A single-volume encyclopaedia of all things about Alfred Hitchcock.
• McGilligan, Patrick: Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. Regan Books, 2003. A comprehensive biography of the director.

Further reading[link]

• Auiler, Dan: Hitchcock's notebooks: an authorised and illustrated look inside the creative mind of Alfred Hitchcock. New York, Avon Books, 1999. Much useful background to the films.
• Barr, Charles: English Hitchcock. Cameron & Hollis, 1999. On the early films of the director.
• Conrad, Peter: The Hitchcock Murders. Faber and Faber, 2000. A highly personal and idiosyncratic discussion of Hitchcock's oeuvre.
• DeRosa, Steven: Writing with Hitchcock. Faber and Faber, 2001. An examination of the collaboration between Hitchcock and screenwriter John Michael Hayes, his most frequent writing collaborator in Hollywood. Their films include Rear Window and The Man Who Knew Too Much.
• Deutelbaum, Marshall; Poague, Leland (ed.): A Hitchcock Reader. Iowa State University Press, 1986. A wide-ranging collection of scholarly essays on Hitchcock.
• Durgnat, Raymond: The strange case of Alfred Hitchcock Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1974 OCLC 1233570
• Durgnat, Raymond; James, Nick; Gross, Larry: Hitchcock British Film Institute, 1999 OCLC 42209162
• Durgnat, Raymond: A long hard look at Psycho London: British Film Institute Pub., 2002 OCLC 48883020
• Giblin, Gary: Alfred Hitchcock's London. Midnight Marquee Press, 2006, (Paperback: ISBN 978-1-887664-67-7)
• Gottlieb, Sidney: Hitchcock on Hitchcock. Faber and Faber, 1995. Articles, lectures, etc. by Hitchcock himself. Basic reading on the director and his films.
• Gottlieb, Sidney: Alfred Hitchcock: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi, 2003. A collection of Hitchcock interviews.
• Grams, Martin, Jr. & Wikstrom, Patrik: The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub, 2001, (Paperback: ISBN 978-0-9703310-1-4)
• Haeffner, Nicholas: Alfred Hitchcock. Longman, 2005. An undergraduate-level text.
• Hitchcock, Patricia; Bouzereau, Laurent: Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man. Berkley, 2003.
• Krohn, Bill: Hitchcock at Work. Phaidon, 2000. Translated from the award-winning French edition. The nitty-gritty of Hitchcock's filmmaking from scripting to post-production.
• Leff, Leonard J.: Hitchcock and Selznick. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987. An in-depth examination of the rich collaboration between Hitchcock and David O Selznick.
• McDevitt, Jim; San Juan, Eric: A Year of Hitchcock: 52 Weeks with the Master of Suspense. Scarecrow Press, 2009, (ISBN 978-0-8108-6388-0). A comprehensive film-by-film examination of Hitchcock's artistic development from 1927 through 1976.
• Modleski, Tania: The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock And Feminist Theory. Routledge, 2005 (2nd edition). A collection of critical essays on Hitchcock and his films; argues that Hitchcock's portrayal of women was ambivalent, rather than simply misogynist or sympathetic (as widely thought).
• Mogg, Ken. The Alfred Hitchcock Story. Titan, 2008 (revised edition). Note: the original 1999 UK edition, from Titan, and the 2008 re-issue world-wide, also from Titan, have significantly more text than the 1999 abridged US edition from Taylor Publishing. New material on all the films.
• Moral, Tony Lee: Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie. Scarecrow Press, 2005 (2nd edition). Well researched making of Hitchcock's "Marnie".
• Paglia, Camille. The Birds. British Film Institute, January 2008 ISBN 978-0-85170-651-1
• Rebello, Stephen: Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. St. Martin's, 1990. Intimately researched and detailed history of the making of Psycho,.
• Rohmer, Eric; Chabrol, Claude. Hitchcock, the first forty-four films (ISBN 978-0-8044-2743-2). F. Ungar, 1979. First book-long study of Hitchock art and probably still the best one.
• Rothman, William. The Murderous Gaze. Harvard Press, 1980. Auteur study that looks at several Hitchcock films intimately.
• Spoto, Donald: The Art of Alfred Hitchcock. Anchor Books, 1992. The first detailed critical survey of Hitchcock's work by an American.
• Spoto, Donald: The Dark Side of Genius. Ballantine Books, 1983. A biography of Hitchcock, featuring a controversial exploration of Hitchcock's psychology.
• Taylor, Alan: Jacobean Visions: Webster, Hitchcock and the Google Culture, Peter Lang, 2007.
• Truffaut, François: Hitchcock. Simon and Schuster, 1985. A series of interviews of Hitchcock by the influential French director.
• Vest, James: Hitchcock and France: The Forging of an Auteur. Praeger Publishers, 2003. A study of Hitchcock's interest in French culture and the manner by which French critics, such as Truffaut, came to regard him in such high esteem.
• Weibel, Adrian: Spannung bei Hitchcock. Zur Funktionsweise der auktorialen Suspense. (ISBN 978-3-8260-3681-1) Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2008
• Wikstrom, Patrik & Grams, Martin, Jr.: The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub, 2001, (Paperback: ISBN 978-0-9703310-1-4)
• Wood, Robin: Hitchcock's Films Revisited. Columbia University Press, 2002 (2nd edition). A much-cited collection of critical essays, now supplemented and annotated in this second edition with additional insights and changes that time and personal experience have brought to the author (including his own coming-out as a gay man).
• Youngkin, Stephen D. (2005). The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-2360-8.  Contains interviews with Alfred Hitchcock and a discussion of the making of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and Secret Agent (1936), which co-starred classic film actor Peter Lorre.

External links[link]

Find more about Alfred Hitchcock on Wikipedia's sister projects:
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• Alfred Hitchcock at the BFI
• Alfred Hitchcock at the Internet Movie Database
• Alfred Hitchcock at AllRovi
• Alfred Hitchcock at the TCM Movie Database
• Alfred Hitchcock at the British Film Institute's Screenonline

v t e Alfred Hitchcock Filmography Unproduced projects Themes and plot devices Cameos Awards and honors Films directed 1920s Number 13 The Pleasure Garden The Blackguard The Mountain Eagle The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog The Ring Downhill The Farmer's Wife Easy Virtue Champagne The Manxman Blackmail 1930s Juno and the Paycock Murder! The Skin Game Mary Rich and Strange Number Seventeen Waltzes from Vienna The Man Who Knew Too Much The 39 Steps Secret Agent Sabotage Young and Innocent The Lady Vanishes Jamaica Inn 1940s Rebecca Foreign Correspondent Mr. & Mrs. Smith Suspicion Saboteur Shadow of a Doubt Lifeboat Spellbound Notorious The Paradine Case Rope Under Capricorn 1950s Stage Fright Strangers on a Train I Confess Dial M for Murder Rear Window To Catch a Thief The Trouble with Harry The Man Who Knew Too Much The Wrong Man Vertigo North by Northwest 1960s Psycho The Birds Marnie Torn Curtain Topaz 1970s Frenzy Family Plot Shorts Always Tell Your Wife Elstree Calling An Elastic Affair Aventure malgache Bon Voyage The Fighting Generation Watchtower Over Tomorrow Related topics Hitchcockian Alfred Hitchcock Presents Alfred Hitchcock Edition Clue Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine High Anxiety

The Most Reverend  Desmond Tutu
Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town
Tutu in December 2010
Province	Anglican Church of Southern Africa
See	Cape Town (retired)
Enthroned	7 September 1986
Reign ended	1996
Predecessor	P.W.R. Russell
Successor	Njongonkulu Ndungane
Other posts	Bishop of Lesotho Bishop of Johannesburg Archbishop of Cape Town
Orders
Ordination	Deacon Priest - 1960
Consecration	1976
Personal details
Born	(1931-10-07) 7 October 1931 (age 80) Klerksdorp, Western Transvaal, South Africa
Alma mater	King's College, London
Signature

Styles of Desmond Tutu
Reference style	Former Archbishop
Spoken style	Your Excellency
Religious style	Most Reverend
Posthumous style	Not Applicable

Desmond Mpilo Tutu (born 7 October 1931) is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. He was the first black South African Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa).

Tutu has been active in the defense of human rights and uses his high profile to campaign for the oppressed. He has campaigned to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984; the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism in 1986; the Pacem in Terris Award in 1987; the Sydney Peace Prize in 1999; the Gandhi Peace Prize in 2005;^[1] and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Tutu has also compiled several books of his speeches and sayings.

Early life[link]

Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, Transvaal, the second of the three children of Zacheriah Zililo Tutu and his wife, Aletta, and the only son.^[2] Tutu's family moved to Johannesburg when he was twelve. His father was a teacher and his mother was a cleaner and cook at a school for the blind.^[3] Here he met Trevor Huddleston who was a parish priest in the black slum of Sophiatown. "One day," said Tutu, "I was standing in the street with my mother when a white man in a priest's clothing walked past. As he passed us he took off his hat to my mother. I couldn't believe my eyes – a white man who greeted a black working class woman!"^[3]

Although Tutu wanted to become a physician, his family could not afford the training, and he followed his father's footsteps into teaching. Tutu studied at the Pretoria Bantu Normal College from 1951 to 1953, and went on to teach at Johannesburg Bantu High School and at Munsienville High School in Mogale City. However, he resigned following the passage of the Bantu Education Act, in protest of the poor educational prospects for black South Africans. He continued his studies, this time in theology, at St Peter's Theology College in Rosettenville, Johannesburg, and in 1960 was ordained as an Anglican priest following in the footsteps of his mentor and fellow activist, Trevor Huddleston.

Tutu then travelled to King's College London, (1962–1966), where he received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Theology. During this time he worked as a part-time curate, first at St. Alban's Church, Golders Green, and then at St. Mary's Church in Bletchingley, Surrey.^[4] He later returned to South Africa and from 1967 until 1972 used his lectures to highlight the circumstances of the African population. He wrote a letter to Prime Minister B. J. Vorster, in which he described the situation in South Africa as a "powder barrel that can explode at any time": the letter was never answered.^{[citation needed]} He became chaplain at the University of Fort Hare in 1967, a hotbed of dissent and one of the few quality universities for African students in the southern part of Africa.^{[citation needed]} From 1970 to 1972, Tutu lectured at the National University of Lesotho.

In 1972, Tutu returned to the UK, where he was appointed vice-director of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches, at Bromley in Kent. He returned to South Africa in 1975 and was appointed Anglican Dean of St. Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg -— the first black person to hold that position.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[link]

This article is outdated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Please see the talk page for more information. (May 2011)

On 2 July 1955, Tutu married Nomalizo Leah Shenxane, a teacher whom he had met while at college. They had four children: Trevor Thamsanqa Tutu, Theresa Thandeka Tutu, Naomi Nontombi Tutu and Mpho Andrea Tutu, all of whom attended the Waterford Kamhlaba School in Swaziland.^[5]

His son, Trevor Tutu, caused a bomb scare at East London Airport in 1989 and was arrested. In 1991, he was convicted of contravening the Civil Aviation Act by falsely claiming there had been a bomb on board a South African Airways' plane at East London Airport.^[6] The bomb threat delayed the Johannesburg-bound flight for more than three hours, costing South African Airways some R28000. At the time, Trevor Tutu announced his intention to appeal against his sentence, but failed to arrive for the appeal hearings. He forfeited his bail of R15000.^[6] He was due to begin serving his sentence in 1993, but failed to hand himself over to prison authorities. He was finally arrested in Johannesburg in August 1997. He applied for amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which was granted in 1997. He was then released from Goodwood Prison in Cape Town where he had begun serving his three-and-a-half year prison sentence after a court in East London refused to grant him bail.^[7]

Naomi Tutu founded the Tutu Foundation for Development and Relief in Southern Africa, based in Hartford, Connecticut. She attended the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky and has followed in her father's footsteps as a human rights activist. She is currently a program coordinator for the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee.^[8] Desmond Tutu's other daughter, Mpho Tutu, has also followed in her father's footsteps and in 2004 was ordained an Episcopal priest by her father.^[9] She is also the founder and executive director of the Tutu Institute for Prayer and Pilgrimage and the chairperson of the board of the Global AIDS Alliance.^[10]

In 1997, Tutu was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent successful treatment in the US. He subsequently became patron of the South African Prostate Cancer Foundation which was established in 2007.^[11]

Beginning on his 79th birthday, Tutu has entered a phased retirement from public life, starting with only one day per week in his office until the end of February 2011. On 23 May in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, Tutu gave what is said by to be his last major public event outside of South Africa. Tutu will honour his commitments through May 2011 and will add no more commitments.^[12]

Tutu has since come out of retirement to give a commencement speech at Gonzaga University in Spokane Washington on May 13, 2012.

Role during apartheid[link]

In 1976, the protests in Soweto, also known as the Soweto Riots, against the government's use of Afrikaans as a compulsory medium of instruction in black schools became a massive uprising against apartheid. From then on Tutu supported an economic boycott of his country. He vigorously opposed the "constructive engagement" policy of the Reagan administration in the United States, which advocated "friendly persuasion".^{[citation needed]} Tutu rather supported disinvestment, although it hit the poor hardest, for if disinvestment threw blacks out of work, Tutu argued, at least they would be suffering "with a purpose". In 1985, the US and the UK (two primary investors into South Africa) stopped any investments. As a result, disinvestment did succeed, causing the value of the Rand to plunge more than 35 percent, and pressuring the government toward reform.^{[citation needed]} Tutu pressed the advantage and organised peaceful marches which brought 30,000 people onto the streets of Cape Town.^[13]

Tutu was Bishop of Lesotho from 1976 until 1978, when he became Secretary-General of the South African Council of Churches. From this position, he was able to continue his work against apartheid with agreement from nearly all churches. Through his writings and lectures at home and abroad, Tutu consistently advocated reconciliation between all parties involved in apartheid. Tutu's opposition to apartheid was vigorous and unequivocal, and he was outspoken both in South Africa and abroad. He often compared apartheid to Nazism and Communism; as a result the government twice revoked his passport, and he was jailed briefly in 1980 after a protest march. It was thought by many that Tutu's increasing international reputation and his rigorous advocacy of non-violence protected him from harsher penalties. Tutu was also harsh in his criticism of the violent tactics of some anti-apartheid groups such as the African National Congress and denounced terrorism and Communism.

When a new constitution was proposed for South Africa in 1983 to defend against the anti-apartheid movement, Tutu helped form the National Forum Committee to fight the constitutional changes.^[14] Despite his opposition to apartheid, Tutu was criticised for "selective indignation" by his passive attitude towards the coup regime in Lesotho (1970–86), where he had taught from 1970–1972 and served as Bishop from 1976–1978, leaving just as civil war broke out. This contrasted poorly with the courageous stance of Lesotho Evangelical Church personnel who were murdered. In 1986 he receives the honourary citizenship of Reggio nell'Emilia (Italy), the first world's town that assigned this important award to Desmond Tutu.

In 1990, Tutu and the ex-Vice Chancellor of the University of the Western Cape Professor Jakes Gerwel founded the Desmond Tutu Educational Trust. The Trust – established to fund developmental programmes in tertiary education – provides capacity building at 17 historically disadvantaged institutions. Tutu's work as a mediator in order to prevent all-out racial war was evident at the funeral of South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani in 1993. Tutu spurred a crowd of 120,000 to repeat after him the chants, over and over: "We will be free!", "All of us!", "Black and white together!"^[15]

In 1993, Tutu was a patron of the Cape Town Olympic Bid Committee. In 1994, he was an appointed a patron of the World Campaign Against Military and Nuclear Collaboration with South Africa, Beacon Millennium and Action from Ireland. In 1995, he was appointed a Chaplain and Sub-Prelate of the Venerable Order of Saint John by Queen Elizabeth II,^[16] and he became a patron of the American Harmony Child Foundation and the Hospice Association of Southern Africa.

Role since apartheid[link]

The 14th Dalai Lama & Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureates. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 2004.

After the fall of apartheid, Tutu headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He retired as Archbishop of Cape Town in 1996 and was made emeritus Archbishop of Cape Town, an honorary title that is unusual in the Anglican church.^[17] He was succeeded by Njongonkulu Ndungane. At a thanksgiving for Tutu upon his retirement as Archbishop in 1996, Nelson Mandela said that Tutu made an "immeasurable contribution to our nation".^[18]

Tutu is generally credited with coining the term Rainbow Nation as a metaphor for post-apartheid South Africa after 1994 under African National Congress rule. The expression has since entered mainstream consciousness to describe South Africa's ethnic diversity.

Since his retirement, Tutu has worked as a global activist on issues pertaining to democracy, freedom and human rights. In 2006, Tutu launched a global campaign, organised by Plan, to ensure that all children are registered at birth, as an unregistered child did not officially exist and was vulnerable to traffickers and during disasters.^[19] Tutu is the Patron of the educational improvement charity Link Community Development.

Tutu had announced he would retire from public life when he turned 79 in October 2010, which he did.

"Instead of growing old gracefully, at home with my family – reading and writing and praying and thinking – too much of my time has been spent at airports and in hotels," the Nobel laureate said in a statement.^[20]

Role in South Africa[link]

Tutu is widely regarded as "South Africa's moral conscience"^[21] and has been described by former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela as "sometimes strident, often tender, never afraid and seldom without humour, Desmond Tutu's voice will always be the voice of the voiceless".^[18] Since his retirement, Tutu has worked to critique the new South African government. Tutu has been vocal in condemnation of corruption, the ineffectiveness of the ANC-led government to deal with poverty, and the recent outbreaks of xenophobic violence in some townships in South Africa.

After a decade of freedom for South Africa, Tutu was honoured with the invitation to deliver the annual Nelson Mandela Foundation Lecture. On 23 November 2004, Tutu gave an address entitled "Look to the Rock from Which You Were Hewn". This lecture, critical of the ANC-controlled government, stirred a pot of controversy between Tutu and Thabo Mbeki, calling into question "the right to criticise".^[22]

Continued economic stratification and political corruption[link]

Tutu made a stinging attack on South Africa's political élite, saying the country was "sitting on a powder keg"^[23] because of its failure to alleviate poverty a decade after apartheid's end. Tutu also said that attempts to boost black economic ownership were benefiting only an elite minority, while political "kowtowing" within the ruling ANC was hampering democracy. Tutu asked, "What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?"^[23]

Tutu criticised politicians for debating whether to give the poor an income grant of $16 (£12) a month and said the idea should be seriously considered. Tutu has often spoken in support of the Basic Income Grant (BIG) which has so far been defeated in parliament. After the first round of volleys were fired, South African Press Association journalist, Ben Maclennan reported Tutu's response as: "Thank you Mr President for telling me what you think of me, that I am—a liar with scant regard for the truth, and a charlatan posing with his concern for the poor, the hungry, the oppressed and the voiceless."^[24]

Tutu warned of corruption shortly after the re-election of the African National Congress government of South Africa, saying that they "stopped the gravy train just long enough to get on themselves."^[25] In August 2006 Tutu publicly urged Jacob Zuma, the South African politician (now President) who had been accused of sexual crimes and corruption, to drop out of the ANC's presidential succession race. He said in a public lecture that he would not be able to hold his "head high" if Zuma became leader after being accused both of rape and corruption. In September 2006, Tutu repeated his opposition to Zuma's candidacy as ANC leader due to Zuma's "moral failings."^[26]

Attacks on Tutu[link]

The head of the Congress of South African Students condemned Tutu as a "loose cannon" and a "scandalous man" – a reaction which prompted an angry Mbeki to side with Tutu. Zuma's personal advisor responded by accusing Tutu of having double standards and "selective amnesia" (as well as being old). Elias Khumalo claims Tutu "had found it so easy to accept the apology from the apartheid government that committed unspeakable atrocities against millions of South Africans", yet now "cannot find it in his heart to accept the apology from this humble man who has erred".^[27]

Xenophobic violence in 2008[link]

Tutu has condemned the xenophobic violence which occurred in some parts of South Africa in May 2008. Tutu, who once intervened in the apartheid years to prevent a mob "necklacing" a man,^[28][29] said that when South Africans were fighting against apartheid, they had been supported by people around the world and particularly in Africa. Although they were poor, other Africans welcomed South Africans as refugees, and allowed liberation movements to have bases in their territory even if it meant those countries were going to be attacked by the South African Defence force. Tutu called on South Africans to end the violence as thousands of refugees have sought refuge in shelters.^[30]

Chairman of The Elders[link]

On 18 July 2007, in Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel, and Tutu convened The Elders, a group of world leaders to contribute their wisdom, kindness, leadership and integrity to tackle some of the world's toughest problems. Mandela announced its formation in a speech on his 89th birthday. Tutu is serving as its Chair. Other founding members include Kofi Annan, Ela Bhatt, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Jimmy Carter, Li Zhaoxing, Mary Robinson, Jonathan Park, Muhammad Yunus and Aung San Suu Kyi, whose chair was left symbolically empty due to her confinement at that time as a political prisoner in Burma.

"This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken,” Mandela commented. “Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair."^[31] The Elders will be independently funded by a group of Founders, including Sir Richard Branson, Peter Gabriel, Ray Chambers, Michael Chambers, Bridgeway Foundation, Pam Omidyar, Humanity United, Amy Robbins, Shashi Ruia, Dick Tarlow and the United Nations Foundation.

Role in the developing world[link]

Archbishop Desmond Tutu gets an HIV test on The Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation's Tutu Tester, a mobile test unit.

Tutu has focused on drawing awareness to issues such as poverty, AIDS and non-democratic governments in the Third World. In particular he has focused on issues in Zimbabwe and Palestine. Tutu also led The Elders' first mission to travel to Sudan in September–October 2007 to foster peace in the Darfur crisis. "Our hope is that we can keep Darfur in the spotlight and spur on governments to help keep peace in the region," said Tutu.^[32]

Zimbabwe[link]

Tutu has been vocal in his criticism of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe as well as the South African government's policy of quiet diplomacy towards Zimbabwe. In 2007 he said the "quiet diplomacy" pursued by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) had "not worked at all" and he called on Britain and the West to pressure SADC, including South Africa, which was chairing talks between President Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, to set firm deadlines for action, with consequences if they were not met.^[33] Tutu has often criticised Robert Mugabe in the past and he once described the autocratic leader as "a cartoon figure of an archetypical African dictator".^[21] In 2008, he called for the international community to intervene in Zimbabwe – by force if necessary.^[34] Mugabe, on the other hand, has called Tutu an "angry, evil and embittered little bishop".^[35]

Tutu has often stated that all leaders in Africa should condemn Zimbabwe: "What an awful blot on our copy book. Do we really care about human rights, do we care that people of flesh and blood, fellow Africans, are being treated like rubbish, almost worse than they were ever treated by rabid racists?"^[21] After the Zimbabwean presidential elections in April 2008, Tutu expressed his hope that Mugabe would step down after it was initially reported that Mugabe had lost the elections. Tutu reiterated his support of the democratic process and hoped that Mugabe would adhere to the voice of the people.^[36]

Tutu called Mugabe "someone we were very proud of", as he "did a fantastic job, and it’s such a great shame, because he had a wonderful legacy. If he had stepped down ten or so years ago he would be held in very, very high regard. And I still want to say we must honour him for the things that he did do, and just say what a shame."^[36]

Tutu stated that he feared that riots would break out in Zimbabwe if the election results were ignored. He proposed that a peace-keeping force should be sent to the region to ensure stability.^[36]

Solomon Islands[link]

In 2009, Tutu assisted in the establishing of the Solomon Islands' Truth and Reconciliation Commission, modelled after the South African body of the same name.^[37][38] He spoke at its official launch in Honiara on 29 April 2009, emphasising the need for forgiveness in order to build lasting peace.^[39]

Israel and Palestine[link]

Tutu has acknowledged the significant role Jews played in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and has voiced support for Israel's security concerns, speaking against suicide bombing.^[40] He is also an active and prominent proponent of the campaign for divestment from Israel,^[41] likening Israel's treatment of Palestinians to the treatment of Black South Africans under apartheid.^[40] Tutu drew this comparison on a Christmas visit to Jerusalem in 1989, when he said that he is a "black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa."^[42] He made similar comments in 2002, speaking of "the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about".^[43]

In 1988, the American Jewish Committee noted that Tutu was strongly critical of Israel's military and other connections with apartheid-era South Africa, and quoted him as saying that Zionism has "very many parallels with racism", on the grounds that it "excludes people on ethnic or other grounds over which they have no control". While the AJC was critical of some of Tutu's views, it dismissed "insidious rumours" that he had made anti-Semitic statements.^[44] (The exact wording of Tutu's statement was reported differently in different sources. A Toronto Star article from the period indicates that he described Zionism "as a policy that looks like it has many parallels with racism, the effect is the same.")^[45]

Tutu preached a message of forgiveness during a 1989 trip to Israel's Yad Vashem museum, saying "Our Lord would say that in the end the positive thing that can come is the spirit of forgiving, not forgetting, but the spirit of saying: God, this happened to us. We pray for those who made it happen, help us to forgive them and help us so that we in our turn will not make others suffer."^[46] Some found this statement offensive, with Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center calling it "a gratuitous insult to Jews and victims of Nazism everywhere."^[47] Tutu was subjected to racial slurs during this visit to Israel, with vandals writing "Black Nazi pig" on the walls of the St. George's Cathedral in East Jerusalem, where he was staying.^[46]

In 2002, when delivering a public lecture in support of divestment, Tutu said "My heart aches. I say why are our memories so short. Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon? Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about the downtrodden?"^[40] He argued that Israel could never live in security by oppressing another people, and stated, "People are scared in this country [the US], to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful – very powerful. Well, so what? For goodness sake, this is God's world! We live in a moral universe. The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists."^[40] The latter statement was criticised by some Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League.^[48][49] When he edited and reprinted parts of his speech in 2005, Tutu replaced the words "Jewish lobby" with "pro-Israel lobby".^[50]

In August 2011, Archbishop Tutu met with Israeli students and stated that "boycotts are not the way". He also acknowledged Israel's right to exist. ^[51]

US attorney Alan Dershowitz referred to Tutu as a "racist and a bigot" during the controversial Durban II conference in April 2009.^[52]

Shared Platform with Hamas[link]

As of March 2012, Tutu was a member of the Advisory Board for Global March to Jerusalem (GM2J).^[53] The GM2J's aim had been to organise mass violations of Israeli land borders from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Palestinian-administered territories on 30 March 2012. ^[54]

Tutu's involvement with GM2J is controversial because it involves sharing a platform with fellow Advisory Board members Ahmad Abo Halabiya and Zaher Birawi^[55] who are also members of Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group in the US and the UK but not in Australia, Russia or India. ^[56]

Palestinian Christians[link]

In 2003, Tutu accepted the role as patron of Sabeel International,^[57] a Christian liberation theology organisation which supports the concerns of the Palestinian Christian community and has actively lobbied the international Christian community for divestment from Israel.^[58] In the same year, Archbishop Tutu received an International Advocate for Peace Award from the Cardozo School of Law, an affiliate of Yeshiva University, sparking scattered student protests and condemnations from representatives of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Anti-Defamation League.^[59] A 2006 opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post newspaper described him as "a friend, albeit a misguided one, of Israel and the Jewish people".^[60] The Zionist Organization of America has led a campaign to protest Tutu's appearances at North American campuses.

Gaza[link]

Tutu was appointed as the UN Lead for an investigation into the Israeli bombings in the Beit Hanoun November 2006 incident. Israel refused Tutu's delegation access, so the investigation didn't occur until 2008.

During that fact-finding mission, Tutu called the Gaza blockade an abomination^[61] and compared Israel's behaviour to the military junta in Burma.

During the 2008–2009 Gaza War, Tutu called the Israeli offensive "war crimes".

Protests against Tutu in the USA[link]

In 2011 some members of the American Psychiatric Association refused to attend the group's annual meeting in Honolulu to protest on the selection of Tutu as speaker because of the bishop alleged "anti-Semitic" statements. Dr. Thomas G. Gutheil went as far as to resign from the organisation.^[62][63][64]

In 2007, the president of the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota cancelled a planned speech by Tutu, on the grounds that his presence might offend some members of the local Jewish community.^[65] Many faculty members opposed this decision, and with some describing Tutu as the victim of a smear campaign. The group Jewish Voice for Peace led an email campaign calling on St. Thomas to reconsider its decision,^[66] which the president did and invited Tutu to campus.^[67] Tutu declined the re-invitation, speaking instead at the Minneapolis Convention Center at an event hosted by Metro State University.^[68] However, Tutu later addressed the issue two days later while making his final appearance at Metro State.

"There were those who tried to say ‘Tutu shouldn’t come to [St.Thomas] to speak.’ I was 10,000 miles away and I thought to myself, ‘Ah, no,’ because there were many here who said ‘No, come and speak,’" Tutu said. "People came and stood and had demonstrations to say ‘Let Tutu speak.’ [Metropolitan State] said ‘Whatever, he can come and speak here.’ Professor Toffolo and others said ‘We stand for him.’ So let us stand for them."^[69]

China[link]

Tutu wrote to the Chinese government demanding the release of dissident Yang Jianli in 2007.^[70] He criticised China for not doing more against the Darfur genocide.^[71] During the 2008 Tibetan unrest, Tutu praised the 14th Dalai Lama and said that the government of China should "listen to [his] pleas for... no further violence".^[72] He later spoke to a rally calling on heads of states worldwide to not attend the 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony "for the sake of the beautiful people of Tibet".^[73]

Tibet[link]

The Dalai Lama was not granted a visa to South Africa to participate in the 80th birthday party of fellow Nobel peace prize winner Tutu on 7 October 2011. He said his application for a visa had not come through on time despite having been made to Pretoria several weeks earlier.^[74][75] In 2009 Beijing had warned against allowing the Dalai Lama into the country.

United Nations role[link]

In 2003, Tutu was elected to the Board of Directors of the International Criminal Court's Trust Fund for Victims.^[76] He was named a member of the UN advisory panel on genocide prevention in 2006.^[77]

However, Tutu has also criticised the UN, particularly on the issue of West Papua. Tutu expressed support for the West Papuan independence movement, criticising the UN' role in the takeover of West Papua by Indonesia. Tutu said: "For many years the people of South Africa suffered under the yoke of oppression and apartheid. Many people continue to suffer brutal oppression, where their fundamental dignity as human beings is denied. One such people is the people of West Papua."^[78]

Tutu was named to head a United Nations fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun, where, in a November 2006 incident the Israel Defense Forces killed 19 civilians after troops wound up a week-long incursion aimed at curbing Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel from the town.^[79] Tutu planned to travel to the Palestinian territory to "assess the situation of victims, address the needs of survivors and make recommendations on ways and means to protect Palestinian civilians against further Israeli assaults," according to the president of the UN Human Rights Council, Luis Alfonso De Alba.^[80] Israeli officials expressed concern that the report would be biased against Israel. Tutu cancelled the trip in mid-December, saying that Israel had refused to grant him the necessary travel clearance after more than a week of discussions.^[81] However, Tutu and British academic Christine Chinkin are now due to visit the Gaza Strip via Egypt and will file a report at the September 2008 session of the Human Rights Council.^[82]

Political views[link]

Tutu is a supporter of the magazine New Internationalist, which campaigns for social and environmental justice worldwide.

Against poverty[link]

Before the 31st G8 summit at Gleneagles, Scotland, in 2005, Tutu called on world leaders to promote free trade with poorer countries. Tutu also called on an end to expensive taxes on anti-AIDS drugs.^[83]

Following this summit, the G8 leaders promised to increase aid to developing countries by $48bn a year by 2010. Further, they gave their word of honour that they would do the best they could to achieve universal access to prevention and treatment for the millions and millions of people globally threatened by HIV/AIDS.

Before the 32nd G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, in 2007, Tutu called on the G8 to focus on poverty in the Third World. Following the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, it appeared that world leaders were determined as never before to set and meet specific goals regarding extreme poverty.^[84]

Against unilateralism[link]

In January 2003, Tutu attacked British Prime Minister Tony Blair's stance in supporting American President George W. Bush over Iraq. The alliance of Britain and the United States of America led to the outbreak of the Iraq War later that year. Tutu asked why Iraq was being singled out when Europe, India and Pakistan also had many weapons of mass destruction.^[85]

In October 2004, Tutu appeared in a play at Off Broadway, New York, called Guantanamo – Honor-bound to Defend Freedom. This play was highly critical of the US handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Tutu played Lord Justice Steyn, a judge who questions the legal justification of the detention regime.^[86]

In January 2005, Tutu added his voice to the growing dissent over terrorist suspects held at Camp X-Ray in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, referring to detentions without trial as "utterly unacceptable." Tutu compared these detentions to those under Apartheid. Tutu also emphasised that when South Africa had used those methods the country had been condemned, however when powerful countries such as Britain and the United States of America had invoked such power, the world was silent and in that silence accepted their methods even though they violated essential human rights.^[87]

In February 2006, Tutu repeated these statements after a UN report was published which called for the closure of the camp. Tutu stated that the Guantanamo camp was a stain on the character of the United States, while the legislation in Britain which gave a 28-day detention period for terror suspects was "excessive" and "untenable". Tutu pointed out that arguments being made in Britain and the United States were similar to those the South African apartheid regime had used. "It is disgraceful and one cannot find strong enough words to condemn what Britain and the United States and some of their allies have accepted," said Tutu. Tutu also attacked Tony Blair's failed attempt to hold terrorist suspects in Britain for up to 90 days without charge. "Ninety days for a South African is an awful déjà-vu because we had in South Africa in the bad old days a 90-day detention law," he said. Under apartheid, as at Guantanamo, people were held for "unconscionably long periods" and then released, he said.^[88]

In 2007, Tutu stated that the global "war on terror" could not be won if people were living in desperate conditions. Tutu said that the global disparity between rich and poor people creates instability.^[89]

HIV, AIDS and TB[link]

Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation

Tutu has been a tireless campaigner for health and human rights, and has been particularly vocal in support of controlling TB and HIV.^[90] He is Patron of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, a registered Section 21 non-profit organisation^{[clarification needed]}, has served as the honorary chairman for the Global AIDS Alliance and is patron of TB Alert, a UK charity working internationally.^[91] In 2003 the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre was founded in Cape Town, while the Desmond Tutu TB Centre was founded in 2003 at Stellenbosch University. Tutu suffered from TB in his youth and has been active in assisting those afflicted, especially as TB and HIV/AIDS deaths have become intrinsically linked in South Africa. "Those of you who work to care for people suffering from AIDS and TB are wiping a tear from God’s eye," Tutu said.^[90]

On 20 April 2005, after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected as Pope Benedict XVI, Tutu said he was sad that the Roman Catholic Church was unlikely to change its opposition to condoms amidst the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa: "We would have hoped for someone more open to the more recent developments in the world, the whole question of the ministry of women and a more reasonable position with regards to condoms and HIV/AIDS."^[92]

In 2007, statistics were released that indicated HIV and AIDS numbers were lower than previously thought in South Africa. However, Tutu named these statistics "cold comfort" as it was unacceptable that 600 people died of AIDS in South Africa every day. Tutu also rebuked the government for wasting time by discussing what caused HIV/AIDS, which particularly attacks Mbeki and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang for their denialist stance.^[93]

Church reform[link]

In 2002, Tutu called for a reform of the Anglican Communion in regard to how its leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is chosen. The ultimate appointment is made by the British Prime Minister and thus Tutu said that the selection process will be properly democratic and representative only when the link between church and state is broken. In February 2006 Tutu took part in the 9th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil. There he manifested his commitment to ecumenism and praised the efforts of Christian churches to promote dialogue to diminish their differences. For Tutu, "a united church is no optional extra."

Bible[link]

Tutu says he still reads the Bible every day and recommends that people read it as a collection of books, not a single constitutional document: "You have to understand is that the Bible is really a library of books and it has different categories of material," he said. "There are certain parts which you have to say no to. The Bible accepted slavery. St Paul said women should not speak in church at all and there are people who have used that to say women should not be ordained. There are many things that you shouldn't accept."^[94]

Gay rights[link]

In the debate about Anglican views of homosexuality, he has opposed Christian discrimination against homosexuals while suggesting homosexual church leaders should currently remain celibate. Commenting days after 5 August 2003 election of Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, to be a bishop in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, Tutu said, "In our Church here in South Africa, that doesn't make a difference. We just say that at the moment, we believe that they should remain celibate and we don't see what the fuss is about."^[95] Tutu has remarked that it is sad the Church is spending time disagreeing on sexual orientation "when we face so many devastating problems – poverty, HIV/AIDS, war and conflict".^[96]

Tutu has increased his criticism of conservative attitudes to homosexuality within his own church, equating homophobia with racism. Stating at a conference in Nairobi that he is "deeply disturbed that in the face of some of the most horrendous problems facing Africa, we concentrate on 'what do I do in bed with whom'".^[97] In an interview with BBC Radio 4 on 18 November 2007, Tutu accused the church of being obsessed with homosexuality and declared: "If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God."^[98]

Tutu has lent his name to the fight against homophobia in Africa and around the world. He stated at the launching of the book 'Sex, Love and Homophobia' that homophobia is a 'crime against humanity' and 'every bit as unjust' as apartheid. He added that "we struggled against apartheid in South Africa, supported by people the world over, because black people were being blamed and made to suffer for something we could do nothing about; our very skins...It is the same with sexual orientation. It is a given."^[99]

He supported the creation of the Harvey Milk Foundation after being a co-recipient of 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom with Harvey Milk and meeting Milk's nephew, Stuart, who accepted the Medal on behalf of his uncle. Tutu remains involved as a founding member of the Foundation's Advisory Board.^[100]

Women's rights[link]

On 8 March 2009, Desmond Tutu joined the campaign "Africa for women's rights" launched by The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), The African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS), Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS), Women's Aid Collective (WACOL), Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF), Women and Law in South Africa (WLSA) and a hundred other African human rights and women's rights organisations. This campaign for the fulfilment of women's human rights, and the end of violence and discrimination against women, aims to generate mass mobilisation and draw maximum attention, in order to increase pressure on African States to ratify the international and regional women's human rights protection instruments, without reservation, and to respect them, in domestic laws and in practice.

Family planning[link]

In 1994, Tutu said that he approved of artificial contraception and that abortion was acceptable in a number of situations, such as incest and rape. He specifically welcomed the aims of the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo.^[101] He accepted the full legalization of abortion in South Africa, in 1996, despite some personal reservations^[102]

Climate change[link]

Tutu was at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. He made a speech in front of many at the event. Tutu is also a "Climate Ally" in the "tck tck tck Time for Climate Justice" campaign of the Global Humanitarian Forum and a 350.org messenger.^[103]

US immigration laws[link]

On 28 April 2011, Tutu published a strongly worded article about Arizona Senate Bill 1070, which criminalises undocumented immigration in the US State of Arizona, and requires Arizona police to request immigration documentation of any person suspected of committing a crime, a clause which would require immigrants to carry documentation on their person at all times. He stated that he was "saddened today at the prospect of a young Hispanic immigrant in Arizona going to the grocery store and forgetting to bring her passport and immigration documents with her. I cannot be dispassionate about the fact that the very act of her being in the grocery store will soon be a crime in the state she lives in. Or that should a policeman hear her accent and form a “reasonable suspicion” that she is an illegal immigrant, she can – and will – be taken into custody until someone sorts it out, while her children are at home waiting for their dinner." He urged the State of Arizona to create a new model to deal with the pitfalls of illegal immigration, one that "is based on a deep respect for the essential human rights Americans themselves have grown up enjoying."^[104]

Other humanitarian initiatives[link]

In 2009 Tutu joined the project "Soldiers of Peace", a movie against all wars and for a global peace.^[105][106]

Also in 2009, along with prominent chefs and celebrities like Daniel Boulud and Jean Rochefort, Desmond Tutu endorsed Action Against Hunger's No Hunger Campaign calling on the former Vice-President Al Gore to make a documentary film about world hunger.^[107]

Academic role[link]

Tutu delivering the keynote address at the University of the Western Cape's New Member Recognition Event, 2009

In 1998, he was appointed as the Robert R Woodruff Visiting Professor at Emory University, Atlanta. He returned to Emory University the following year as the William R Cannon Visiting Distinguished Professor. In 2000, he founded the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation to raise funds for the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre in Cape Town. The following year he launched the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation USA, which is designed to work with universities nationwide to create leadership academies emphasising peace, social justice and reconciliation.

In 2001, the Desmond Tutu Educational Trust, with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, launched the Desmond Tutu Footprints of the Legends Awards to recognise leadership in combating prejudice, human rights, research and poverty eradication. Since 2004, he has been a Visiting Professor at King's College London. In 2007 and in 2010, he joined 600 college students and sailed around the world with the Semester at Sea programme.^[108]