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Master of imperfection
Hitchcock may have been a master of many things, but his goofy endings were like a dead cockroach found at the bottom of a near-perfect cinematic sundae.
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[08/13/99]

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Was she ever tempted to join the method acting schools that were taking root in New York? "I'm not an Actors Studio type of actor; I don't really think you have to feel anything to act it. As my father used to say, 'If it doesn't get on the screen, I don't care if you feel it or not.'" And did her enrollment in the Royal Academy give him the idea of setting part of "Stage Fright" there? "I don't know, but he wouldn't have done it if he didn't think it would be fun."

"Stage Fright" was the first feature Hitchcock made in Britain since he came to Hollywood to do "Rebecca." "We came over in '39 in March, and war was declared in September. My mother went back once to pick up her sister and her mother. My father went back once to do two short films supporting the Free French for Sidney Bernstein and the Ministry of Information in London: 'Bon Voyage' and 'Aventure Malgache.' After the war, his mother had died, his brother had died; I just had cousins there. But my mother and father had friends there; they got on. I went over in January of '48 to study at the Royal Academy, and things were very austere. It was hard to find meat, all sorts of things. I missed white bread the most, and when my parents asked what they should bring over, I told them to just bring me some white rolls off the ship."

She didn't know she was getting a walk-on in "Stage Fright" until her parents arrived. Because she bore a resemblance to the star, Jane Wyman (she played one of Wyman's acting-school chums), her father asked Pat if she'd mind doubling for her in the scenes that required "danger driving." She loved it. She also participated in the most complicated sequence in the film, a garden party for the Royal Academy. "My father hated location work, just hated it; he said it was a waste of time because you have to come back to the studio and re-dub, and it costs a fortune. But the garden party had to be outdoors, for at least part of it. He had everything so well planned. When he had a finished script he took a pad with three rectangles on it and drew every single scene in the picture and went over it again with the cinematographer. By the time he stepped on the set he knew what the movie was going to look like because he'd drawn it; it was not 'Let's try this, let's try that.'"

She stayed at the academy for the full two years, then appeared as a palace maid with Irene Dunne and Alec Guinness in "The Mudlark." Next came "Strangers on a Train." Spoto relates the story that Pat's agent called her to see if she'd formally audition for the part. She tells it differently. "My father was working on the script with Whitfield Cook, who had written the second play I did in New York. Casting me may have been Whit's idea. But my dad called because he knew I was going to go do rep in England. And he asked, would you rather come and do a part in the next picture? And I said sure." Just as she resembles Wyman in "Stage Fright," in "Strangers on a Train" she looks remarkably like Laura Elliott, who plays Farley Granger's wife -- the one Walker strangles. In one of the film's most startling scenes, that physical kinship nearly drives Walker to commit a second murder.

Psychobiographers to the contrary, Pat Hitchcock O'Connell finds the strangulation motif amusing, not unsettling. "Somebody said to me just a few months ago -- did you play both parts in 'Strangers on a Train'? I looked too young then -- even though I was 21, I've always looked so much younger -- but it would have been a great idea. Still, it comes across strongly anyway, it was part of the design of the whole thing." Was it freaky to be a surrogate strangulation victim? "Not at all. I enjoyed doing the part." But what about working with such an exacting father? "Before he shot he would go over a scene and explain what he wanted and then do it. Dad kept it very low-key. Working on his sets was so easy, because he knew what he wanted. He got it across to the actors; they either did it or they didn't do it. And if they didn't do it they knew he wasn't happy. He'd just go over and over and over until he got it. But we didn't have that problem."

That persisted even in the most complex scenes, like the tennis match that Granger races to complete in time to prevent Walker from framing him for his wife's murder. "We went out to some place out in L.A. where they had courts, and then did other parts down in studio with back projection." There were no surprises in the finished film: "If you read the script and knew what was going on, you knew what he was going to do, and you'd have to be pretty stupid to be surprised." On the other hand, Pat Hitchcock agrees that for all her father's wizardry, it was Walker's daring performance as a warped homosexual killer that "made the picture. I had known Walker since he first came out to Hollywood; so I was delighted to be working with him. He was such a sweet person, one of the nicest people I've ever known."

She continued to do theater and TV, and got married in New York about a year later to businessman Joseph E. O'Connell, the grandnephew of a renowned Boston cardinal. They lived in New York for a year, then moved to California, where Pat kept acting sporadically on TV. She worked on "Climax" and "Playhouse 90" -- live shows -- as well as "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." Her dad's shows "were easier" because "they were half-hours, and they were not live. He did get close to the TV crew, which is one of the reasons he used them for 'Psycho.' We had no clue that the movie was going to be the success it was. It didn't get good reviews, especially in New York, because the reviewers were used to seeing films in projection rooms, and he wouldn't let them see it that way. He made them go to the theater; and they had to be there on time or they wouldn't get in. Also, it was black and white, there was nothing glamorous about it, and he killed off the leading lady after the first couple of reels. But it wasn't seen as an experiment by any of us who worked on it. I was used to the TV show anyway."

Pat Hitchcock says she "would have played anything" for her dad after "Psycho," but "he would never cast anybody unless they were right for a part." Does this suggest that he practiced a shrewd variety of typecasting? "Sure." And does this fit in with his legendary remark that actors were cattle? "But he didn't say actors were cattle -- he said actors should be treated like cattle. That all started on a movie he made called 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith,' with Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery. He happened to say to Carole, who had a great sense of humor, 'Actors should be treated like cattle.' The next day she brought three calves on the set, one name Carole, one named Bob and one named Hitch. And that's how it started -- because he loved Carole Lombard's sense of humor."

In Pat's experience, her father "was patient with actors. His sets were very quiet; there was never any yelling. I did a bit in 'The Ten Commandments,' and there was quite a difference between his sets and Mr. DeMille's. My father believed that there should be no histrionics for the set, that it should all be saved for the screen. And most people loved working for him. You know, when it was first brought up that he introduce the TV shows, one of the producers, Norman Lloyd, said he'd never do it. But James Allardice brought the stuff he wrote to him, and he loved it. Oh, he had a great time with that stuff. It was so playful. When he was getting an honorary degree he said that the most important thing you can have in life is a sense of humor -- to be able to stand back during hard times and laugh."
salon.com | Aug. 13, 1999

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