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Tippi Hedren

Nathalie Kay "Tippi" Hedren (born January 19, 1930) is an American retired actress. Initially a fashion model, appearing on the front covers of Life and Glamour magazines (among others), she became an actress after being discovered by director Alfred Hitchcock while appearing on a television commercial in 1961. Hedren achieved great praise for her work in two of his films, including the suspense-thriller The Birds (1963), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year, and the psychological drama Marnie (1964). She performed in over 80 films and television shows, including Charlie Chaplin's final film A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), the political satire Citizen Ruth (1996), and the existential comedy I Heart Huckabees (2004). Among other honors, her contributions to world cinema have been recognized with the Jules Verne Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Hedren's strong commitment to animal rescue began in 1969 while she was shooting two films in Africa and was introduced to the plight of African lions. In an attempt to raise awareness for wildlife, she spent over a decade bringing Roar (1981) to the screen. She started her own nonprofit organization, the Roar Foundation, in 1983; it supports the Shambala Preserve, an 80 acre wildlife habitat that enables her to continue her work in the care and preservation of lions and tigers. Hedren has also set up relief programs worldwide following earthquakes, hurricanes, famine and war. She was also instrumental in the development of Vietnamese-American nail salons.

Early life
Nathalie Kay Hedren was born in New Ulm, Minnesota, on January 19, 1930, to Bernard Carl and Dorothea Henrietta (née Eckhardt) Hedren. Her family moved to Morningside, Minnesota, when Hedren was 4, where she lived until she was 17 and modeled for Dayton's. For much of her career, her year of birth was misreported as 1935. In a 2004 A&E Biography, however, she acknowledged that she was actually born in 1930 (which is consistent with the birth registration index at the Minnesota Historical Society). Her paternal grandparents were Swedish immigrants, while her mother was of German and Norwegian descent.

1950–1960: Modeling
On reaching her 20th birthday, Hedren bought a ticket to New York City, where she joined the Eileen Ford Agency. Within a year, she made her unofficial film debut as "Miss Ice Box" in the musical comedy The Petty Girl. In interviews, she referred to The Birds, her first credited role, as her first film. Although she received several film offers during that time, Hedren had no interest in acting, as she knew it was very difficult to succeed.

She had a highly successful modeling career during the 1950s and early 1960s, appearing on the covers of Life, The Saturday Evening Post, McCall's, and Glamour, among others. In 1961, after seven years of marriage to the actor Peter Griffith, Hedren divorced and returned to California with her daughter, Melanie, and rented an expensive home in Sherman Oaks. She later said, "I thought I could continue my career as it had been in New York. I thought everything would be just fine, and it wasn't. So I thought, 'well, I don't type, what shall I do?

Discovery (1961)
On October 13, 1961, she received a call from an agent who told her a producer was interested in working with her. When she was told it was Alfred Hitchcock, who while watching The Today Show, saw her in a commercial for a diet drink called Sego, she agreed to sign a seven-year contract. During their first meeting, the two talked about everything except the role for which he was considering her. Hedren was convinced for several weeks it was for his television series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Being an unknown actress with little training, Hitchcock put Hedren through an extensive color screen test that lasted two days and cost $25,000, doing scenes from his previous films, such as Rebecca, Notorious, and To Catch a Thief with actor Martin Balsam. According to Balsam, Hedren was very nervous, but studied every line, did every move she was asked to, and tried to do everything right. Hitchcock asked costume designer Edith Head to design clothes for Hedren's private life and he personally advised her about wine and food. He also insisted for publicity purposes that her name should be printed only in single quotes, 'Tippi'. The press mostly ignored this directive from the director, who felt that the single quotes added distinction and mystery to her name. Hitchcock was impressed with Hedren. As production designer Robert F. Boyle explained, "Hitch always liked women who behaved like well-bred ladies. Tippi generated that quality."

Afterward, Hedren was invited to lunch with Hitchcock, his wife, Alma, and Lew Wasserman, head of Universal, at one of Hitchcock's favorite restaurants, Chasen's. There, she was presented with a golden pin of three birds in flight, adorned by three tiny seed pearls, and was asked by Hitchcock to play the leading role in his upcoming film The Birds. "I was so stunned. It never occurred to me that I would be given a leading role in a major motion picture. I had great big tears in my eyes," Hedren later recalled.

The Birds (1963)
The Birds (1963) was Hedren's screen debut. Hitchcock became her drama coach, and gave her an education in film-making, as she attended many of the production meetings such as script, music, or photography conferences. Hedren said, "I probably learned in three years what it would have taken me 15 years to learn otherwise." She learned how to break down a script, to become another character, and to study the relationship of different characters. Hedren portrayed her role of Melanie Daniels as Hitchcock requested. She said, "He gives his actors very little leeway. He'll listen, but he has a very definite plan in mind as to how he wants his characters to act. With me, it was understandable, because I was not an actress of stature. I welcomed his guidance."

During the six months of principal photography, Hedren's schedule was tight, as she was only given one afternoon off a week. At first, she found the shooting "wonderful". Hitchcock told a reporter, after a few weeks of filming, that she was remarkable, and said, "She's already reaching the lows and highs of terror." Nonetheless, Hedren recalled the week she did the final bird attack scene in a second-floor bedroom as the worst of her life. Before filming it, she asked Hitchcock about her character's motivations to go upstairs, and his response was, "Because I tell you to." She was then assured that the crew would use mechanical birds. Instead, Hedren endured five solid days of prop men, protected by thick leather gloves, flinging dozens of live gulls, ravens, and crows at her (their beaks clamped shut with elastic bands). In a state of exhaustion, when one of the birds gouged her cheek and narrowly missed her eye, Hedren sat down on the set and began crying. A physician ordered a week's rest. Hitchcock protested, according to Hedren, saying she was the only one left to film. The doctor's reply was, "Are you trying to kill her?" She said the week also appeared to be an ordeal for the director.

Universal's executives, who did not back Hitchcock's decision to hire Hedren in the first place, were impressed with her performance and Wasserman described it as "remarkable". While promoting The Birds, Hitchcock was full of praise for his new protégée, and compared her to Grace Kelly. "Tippi has a faster tempo, city glibness, more humor [than Grace Kelly]. She displayed jaunty assuredness, pertness, an attractive throw of the head, and she memorized and read lines extraordinarily well and is sharper in expression." The film was screened out of competition in May at a prestigious invitational showing at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival. Hedren's performance was praised in Variety's review: "Aside from the birds, the film belongs to Hedren, who makes an auspicious screen bow. She virtually has to carry the picture alone for the first 45-minute stretch, prior to the advent of the first wave of organized attackers from the sky. Miss Hedren has a star quality and Hitchcock has provided her with a potent vehicle to launch her career." Hedren received the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year, tied with Elke Sommer and Ursula Andress. Her role as Melanie Daniels was named by Premiere as one of the greatest movie characters of all time.

Marnie (1964)
Hitchcock was so impressed with Hedren's acting abilities, he decided to offer her the leading role of his next film, Marnie (1964), a romantic drama and psychological thriller from the novel by Winston Graham, during the filming of The Birds. Hedren was stunned and felt extremely fortunate to be offered to play "such a complicated, sad, tragic woman", and later said, "I consider my acting, while not necessarily being method acting, but one that draws upon my own feelings. I thought Marnie was an extremely interesting role to play and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." She voiced doubts about her ability to play the demanding role, but Hitchcock assured her she could do it. As opposed to The Birds, where she had received little acting guidance, for this film Hedren studied every scene with Hitchcock.

Hedren recalled Marnie as her favorite of the two films she did with Hitchcock for the challenge of playing an emotionally battered young woman who travels from city to city assuming various guises to rob her employers. During the filming, Hitchcock was quoted as saying about Hedren, "an Academy Award performance is in the making." On release, the film was greeted by mixed reviews and indifferent box-office returns, and received no Oscar nominations. Variety wrote, "Hedren returns in a particularly demanding role. Miss Hedren, undertaking a role originally offered Grace Kelly for a resumption of her screen career, lends credence to a part never sympathetic. It's a difficult assignment which she fulfills satisfactorily." Hedren later said that Marnie was "ahead of its time" because "people didn't talk about childhood and its effects on adult life. It was taboo to discuss sexuality and psychology and to put all that into a film was shocking." Despite its original lukewarm reception, the film was later acclaimed and described as a "masterpiece" and Hedren's performance is now regarded as one of the finest in any Hitchcock film. Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote in his 2016 review of the film "Hedren's performance is one of the greatest in the history of cinema."

Allegations of sexual harassment
Marnie was the second and last collaboration between Hedren and Hitchcock. In 1973, she admitted that a major lifestyle difference caused a split in their relationship. "He was too possessive and too demanding. I cannot be possessed by anyone. But, then, that's my own hangup." In 1983, author Donald Spoto published his second book about Hitchcock, The Dark Side of Genius, for which Hedren agreed to talk for the first time in detail about her relationship with the director. The book was controversial, as several of Hitchcock's friends claimed the Hitchcock portrayed in the book was not the man they knew. For years after its release, Hedren was not keen to talk about it in interviews, but thought the chapter devoted to her story was "accurate as to just what he was". Hedren later explained her long silence before telling her story, "It was embarrassing and insulting—there were a lot of reasons why I didn't want to tell the story. I didn't want it to be taken advantage of, twisted, turned, and made into an even uglier situation than it was."

According to Spoto's book, Hitchcock brought in two members of his crew during the filming of The Birds and asked them to keep careful watch on the activities of Hedren, "when she left the set—where she went, who she visited, how she spent her free time". He then advised her on what she should eat, whom she should see, and how she should live. He told the cast and crew they were not allowed to talk to her. Hedren's co-star in The Birds, Rod Taylor, later remembered, "Hitch was becoming very domineering and covetous of 'Tippi', and it was very difficult for her. No one was permitted to come physically close to her during the production. 'Don't touch the girl after I call "Cut! he said to me repeatedly." Hitchcock also attempted, on one occasion, to grab and violently kiss Hedren in the back of a car as they drove onto the set. Hedren told his assistant, Peggy Robertson, and the studio chief, Lew Wasserman, that she was becoming very unhappy about the whole situation. "But he was Alfred Hitchcock, the great and famous director, and I was Tippi Hedren, an inexperienced actress who had no clout." She decided she could not quit her contract because she was afraid to be blacklisted and unable to find work. Hedren's own daughter, Melanie Griffith, remembered that while Hedren was doing The Birds, she thought Hitchcock was taking her mother away from her. "Suddenly, I wasn't allowed even to visit my mom at the studio."

During the filming of Marnie, Hedren found Hitchcock's behavior toward her increasingly difficult to bear as filming progressed. "Everyone – I mean everyone – knew he was obsessed with me. He always wanted a glass of wine or champagne, with me alone, at the end of the day. He was really isolating me from everyone." Hedren's co-star in Marnie, Diane Baker, later recalled, "She was never allowed to gather around with the rest of us, and he demanded that every conversation between her and Hitch be held in private... Nothing could have been more horrible for me than to arrive on that movie set and to see her being treated the way she was."

Hitchcock revealed to Hedren one day he had a recurring dream where she came up to him and said, "Hitch, I love you – I'll always love you." When she heard this, Hedren replied "But it was a dream. Just a dream," and excused herself from his presence. She believed Hitchcock had no consideration for her feelings and remembered she was humiliated after he asked her to touch him, just before shooting a scene. "He made sure no one else could hear, and his tone and glance made it clear exactly what he meant." Hedren asked Hitchcock's permission one day to travel to New York to appear on The Tonight Show, where she was supposed to be presented an award as the "Most Promising New Star". Hitchcock refused, according to his biographer, because he claimed the break would affect her performance. During that meeting, he apparently "made an overt sexual proposition" that Hedren "could neither ignore nor answer casually, as she could his previous gestures". In Spoto's third book about Hitchcock, Spellbound by Beauty (2008), Hedren revealed that Hitchcock actually made offensive demands on her. "He stared at me and simply said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, that from this time on, he expected me to make myself sexually available and accessible to him – however and whenever and wherever he wanted." Hitchcock's demands led to a "horrible, horrible fight", according to Hedren. "He made these demands on me, and no way could I acquiesce to them."

Hedren then told him Marnie would be their last film together and later recalled how Hitchcock told her he would destroy her career. "I said I wanted to get out of my contract. He said: 'You can't. You have your daughter to support, and your parents are getting older.' I said: 'Nobody would want me to be in this situation, I want to get out.' And he said: 'I'll ruin your career.' I said: 'Do what you have to do.' And he did ruin my career. He kept me under contract, paid me to do nothing for close on two years." Hedren felt so humiliated, she called the director a "fat pig" in front of people on the set. Hitchcock made only a comment about it to his biographer, John Russell Taylor: "She did what no one is permitted to do. She referred to my weight." The two communicated only through a third party for the rest of the film. According to Marnie's screenwriter, Jay Presson Allen, Hitchcock was "mad" for Hedren. She felt unhappy for both and described the situation as "an old man's cri de coeur", adding that Hitchcock had a "Pygmalion complex about Tippi". She advised Hedren to finish the film and then get on with her life and be happy. Hedren's hairdresser, Virginia Darcy, even told Hitchcock he should not be possessive with Hedren. "Tippi felt rightly that she was not his property, but he'd say, 'You are, I have a contract. Although Hitchcock thought he might mend fences with Hedren and make another film with her, she refused to reconsider her decision. Hedren's contract terms gave Hitchcock the final say as to any work she could take on and he used that power to turn down several film roles on her behalf. She was particularly disappointed when French director François Truffaut told her he had wanted her for one of them. In 1966, Hitchcock finally sold her contract to Universal Studios after Hedren appeared in two of their TV shows, Kraft Suspense Theatre (1965) and Run for Your Life (id.). The studio ultimately released her from her contract after she refused to appear on a television Western for them.

In 2012, The Girl, an HBO/BBC film about Hedren and Hitchcock's relationship, based on Donald Spoto's 2008 book Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies, was released. When she was first told about the project, Hedren said she had mixed feelings about it, "To be still alive and have a film made about you is an awesome and incredibly frightening experience." Hedren and Hitchcock were respectively portrayed by Sienna Miller and Toby Jones. Although she was thrilled with the choice of Miller, Hedren was worried she would not be portrayed "as strong a character as I was – and still am. I had to be extremely strong to fight off Mr. Hitchcock." She described the moment she saw the film as "probably one of the most involved, emotionally tense 90 minutes that I have ever lived". Upon the film's release, Hedren said although she believed the film accurately portrays Hitchcock's behavior towards her, the time constraints of a 90-minute film prevented telling the entire story of her career with him. "It wasn't a constant barrage of harassment. If it had been constantly the way we have had to do it in this film, I would have been long gone." She recalled there were times she described as "absolutely delightful and wonderful", and insisted that "Hitchcock had a charm about him. He was very funny at times. He was incredibly brilliant in his field." The film was controversial, as others who knew and worked with Hitchcock responded to it negatively. Kim Novak, who worked on Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), disputed Hitchcock's portrayal as a sexual predator in The Girl: "I never saw him make a pass at anybody or act strange to anybody. And wouldn't you think if he was that way, I would've seen it or at least seen him with somebody? I think it's unfortunate when someone's no longer around and can't defend themselves." Novak previously described Hitchcock as a gentleman, and when asked about reports of his behavior, she said, "Maybe I just wasn't his type." Novak also stated, "I won't dispute Tippi if that's what she saw."

Hedren herself was asked why her account of sexual harassment contrasted with the many interviews she gave about her time with Hitchcock, her presence at the AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony honoring him in 1979, and her presence at his funeral. She explained that, "He ruined my career, but he didn't ruin my life. That time of my life was over. I still admire the man for who he was." She also said, "I've been able to separate the two. The man who was the artist. I mean, what he gave to the motion picture industry can never be taken away from him and I certainly wouldn't want to try. But on the other side, there is that dark side that was really awful."

Career setbacks (1967–1973)
Hedren's first feature film appearance after Marnie was in the 1967 film A Countess from Hong Kong, starring Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren. She was told by writer-director Charlie Chaplin that he was offering her a major supporting role as Brando's estranged wife but had to accept the role without reading the script. However, when she arrived in England, where the filming took place, she finally received the script and realized that her part was little more than a cameo. She asked Chaplin why he had lied to her. "Every actor in the world was asking if they could do this film, to just do a walk-on, without even being paid for it. When I said, 'Why didn't you just tell me that it was a cameo? I would have done this film anyway?' He said, 'I didn't think you would come,' which was very sweet. He was a very clever man."

Hedren asked Chaplin to expand the role, and although he tried to accommodate her, he could not, as the story mostly takes place on a ship, which Hedren's character boards near the end of the film. In the end, she remained in the film and later said that it was both amusing and strange to work with Chaplin. She found him to be a very serious man and loved his approach to directing. She later said, "I wish someone would have been allowed to do a documentary. The way he directed was unlike anyone I ever saw. He acted out all the parts himself. He did Sophia's part, then Marlon's part, then mine, and then he'd say, 'Okay, now you can do it.' Which would be impossible, to mimic the master. It was incredible. None of us believed it. Marlon hated it."

After the release of A Countess from Hong Kong, Hedren's career was described as "spectacular" by the press. She told a reporter at the time, "I don't want to wait myself out of this business, but working for Hitch and Charlie has been very special to me, and now I'm going to wait for something special to come along." In 1968, she signed on to do the American Civil War drama Five Against Kansas with Farley Granger and Jeffrey Hunter, but the project was never realized. In 1968, Hedren returned to film as a socialite who helps her boyfriend (played by George Armstrong) catch a killer, in Tiger by the Tail. From 1970 to 1971, she guest-starred twice on The Courtship of Eddie's Father. She agreed to take part in Satan's Harvest (1970) and Mister Kingstreet's War (1973)—which were shot back-to-back despite the discrepancy in their release dates—for the sole reason that they were being filmed in Africa.

In 1973, Hedren played a teacher at an experimental sex school in The Harrad Experiment, which starred James Whitmore and Don Johnson—the latter who would later marry her daughter, Melanie Griffith. Hedren felt that the film "deals with vital themes—themes like the decline in importance of ideas like possession and jealousy and, by inference, marriage. I have four teenaged children and I think this picture says some valuable things to them." She confessed at the time that she was occasionally depressed because she was not doing any major films, and told a magazine, "My husband just cancelled all the trade magazines because he felt I should cut off the source of my discontent. He's the type who won't stand for sustained down feelings."

Roar (1974–1981)
Hedren and husband Noel Marshall watched a pride of lions move into a house after a game warden moved out in 1969, during the filming of Satan's Harvest in Africa. She said, "We were delighted with the way they adapted themselves to living there. And they were so funny we knew we had an idea for a picture." Marshall wrote a script titled Lions, Lions and More Lions based on their experience; it was retitled Roar and centered on a family's misadventures in a research park filled with lions, tigers, and other wild cats.

Hedren played the lead role and co-starred with her daughter Melanie, husband Marshall, and his own sons Jerry and John. They attempted to rent Hollywood animals for a nine-month shoot, but upon approaching animal trainers for support, they were discouraged and nobody would rent them 30 or 40 lions, as the script required, because of their natural tendency to fight. They were encouraged to start collecting and training their own exotic beasts. Animal trainer Ron Oxley told them, "to get to know about lions, you've got to live with them for a while". They started to raise a lion cub named Neil in their Sherman Oaks house and made sure that the animal slept in their bed. Life photographer Michael Rougier documented their life in 1971 and photographed the lion with the whole family inside and outside the house, from Hedren's daughter's bed to the living room to the swimming pool. After complaints from their neighbors, Hedren and Marshall bought a ranch outside of Los Angeles in Acton that would serve as the set for Roar. They got permission there to rescue and raise several lions, tigers, African elephants, and other exotic felines.

Filming started in 1974 and took five years just to complete the photography. Every scene involving lions was improvised and shot with four or sometimes eight cameras. More than 100 people worked on the film, as well as more than 150 untrained lions, tigers, leopards, and cheetahs. During production, no animals were hurt, but more than 70 members of the cast and crew were mauled. Hedren fractured a leg and also had scalp wounds when an elephant bucked her off its back while she was riding it. She was also bitten in the neck by a lion and required 38 stitches; this incident can be seen in the film. Melanie Griffith was also attacked, receiving 50 stitches to her face; it was feared that she would lose an eye, but she recovered and was not disfigured. Marshall was attacked so many times that he eventually was diagnosed with gangrene. In one of those incidents, he was clawed by a cheetah when protecting the animals during a bushfire that occurred in 1979. All animals were evacuated, and several years were needed for him to recover from his injuries. In 1978, a flood destroyed the movie sets and killed three of the lions. The project was set back several years. Hedren said that they were all determined to finish the film: "We were so sure the film was going to be a success that we thought everything (financing the ranch and the lions, etc.) would take care of itself."

Roar was released worldwide in 1981 with the exception of the United States, because according to Hedren, "The United States distributors wanted the lion's share of the profits, and we thought it ought to go to the beautiful animals that made the movie." The film cost $17 million and grossed only $2 million, but it was a turning point in Hedren's life. In 1983, she established the nonprofit The Roar Foundation to take care of the big cats. "After our movie was over," she explained, "it was unconscionable to see the animals go any place else." Roar was re-released in 2015, but Hedren declined to discuss it, as she felt that promotion for the film was filled with "inaccuracies".

Later career (1982–present)
After Roar, Hedren accepted any low-budget television or cinema role that could help bring funds to her foundation to provide protection, shelter, care, and maintenance for the animals at the Shambala Preserve. In 1982, she co-starred with Leslie Nielsen in Foxfire Light. She appeared in several television series, including Hart to Hart in 1983 and the late-night horror series Tales from the Darkside in 1984. In the 1985 pilot episode of The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents, she made a brief appearance as a waitress in a bar who berates a customer, played by her daughter Melanie Griffith. In 1990, she had a nonspeaking, minor part as a wealthy widow romanced by Michael Keaton in the film Pacific Heights (1990), which also starred her daughter. That same year, she had a role on The Bold and the Beautiful, a daytime soap opera she said she was "proud to have in my resume".

In 1994, Hedren appeared in the made-for-cable sequel, The Birds II: Land's End, in a role different from the one she had played in the original. She was, however, disappointed that she did not get a starring role and admitted before the film's release, "I wish that it was more than a cameo. I think they made a mistake by not doing that, but it has helped me to feed my lions and tigers." When asked about what could have been Hitchcock's opinion on the film, she answered: "I'd hate to think what he would say!" However, in a 2007 interview Hedren said of the film: "It's absolutely horrible, it embarrasses me horribly."

From 1994 to 1996, Hedren had a guest-starring role in Dream On. The sitcom gave her "the opportunity to do comedy. I'd never done comedy before and it was just wonderful for me to be able to do that. Everybody just thought of me as a serious actress, so I owe that to John Landis (the executive producer), giving me that opportunity." In 1996, she played an abortion rights activist in Alexander Payne's political satire Citizen Ruth with Laura Dern. In 1998, she co-starred alongside Billy Zane and Christina Ricci in I Woke Up Early the Day I Died, a film she felt was "incredible". "I must say I really love that film. It was a unique kind of film to do also, because it had no dialogue in it. It was very, very different." That same year, she guest-starred in a special episode titled "Psychodrama" of the television series Chicago Hope, that paid tribute to the Hitchcock movies. Hedren's character, Alfreda Perkins, was a reference to Alfred Hitchcock and actor Anthony Perkins, who starred in the director's 1960 film Psycho.

After appearing in a number of little-exposed films between 1999 and 2003, Hedren had a small but showy role in the 2004 David O. Russell comedy I Heart Huckabees, as a foul-mouthed attractive older woman who slaps Jude Law in an elevator. She felt that the director, who had a reputation for being difficult, was "totally crazy", but also "very interesting. I was able to work well with him." She also added it was a strange experience as, "... all of a sudden, he'd be like, 'Now I'm going to do it this way,' and you'd think, 'How is he going to edit this? How is this going to work?' But he made it work." In 2006, Hedren was a cast member of the short-lived primetime soap opera Fashion House with Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild, and continued to guest-star in television series such as The 4400 (2006) and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2008). In 2012, Hedren and her daughter guest-starred together on an episode of Raising Hope. That same year, she appeared in Free Samples, an indie film where she had a supporting role as an old movie star. In 2013, she made an appearance as herself in the fourth-season finale of Cougar Town.

Hedren published her autobiography, Tippi: A Memoir, co-written with Lindsay Harrison, in 2016 through William Morrow and Company, as she felt it was "about time I stop letting everyone else tell my story and finally tell it myself". In 2018, at age 88, Hedren became the new face of Gucci's timepieces and jewelry and starred as a mysterious fortune teller in the brand's commercial ad, The Fortune Teller.

Influence
A Louis Vuitton ad campaign in 2006 paid tribute to Hedren and Hitchcock with a modern-day interpretation of the deserted railway station opening sequence of Marnie. Her look from The Birds (1963) inspired designer Bill Gaytten's designs for John Galliano's pre-fall 2012 collection.

Naomi Watts stated that her character interpretation in Mulholland Drive (2001) was influenced by the look and performances of Hedren in Hitchcock films. Watts and Hedren both appeared in I Heart Huckabees (2004), but did not share any scenes together. Off screen, the film's director David O. Russell introduced them, and Watts said of Hedren: "I was pretty fascinated by her then, because people have often said we're alike." Watts was styled as Hedren's title character from Marnie for a photo shoot for March 2008 issue of Vanity Fair. In the same issue, Jodie Foster was styled as Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels, from The Birds.

Animal rights activism
Hedren's strong commitment to animal rescue began in 1969 while she was shooting two films in Africa and was introduced to the plight of African lions. In an attempt to raise awareness for wildlife, she spent over a decade bringing Roar (1981) to the screen. She started her own nonprofit organization, the Roar Foundation, in 1983; it supports the Shambala Preserve, an 80 acre wildlife habitat that enables her to continue her work in the care and preservation of lions and tigers.

Shambala Preserve
In 1981, Hedren produced Roar, an 11-year project that ended up costing $17 million and starred dozens of African lions. "This was probably one of the most dangerous films that Hollywood has ever seen", remarked the actress. "It's amazing no one was killed." During the production of Roar, Hedren, her husband at the time, Noel Marshall, and daughter Melanie were attacked by lions; Jan de Bont, the director of photography, was scalped. Hedren later co-wrote Cats of Shambala (1985) about the experience. Roar made only $2 million worldwide. Hedren ended her marriage to Marshall a year later in 1982. The film directly led to the 1983 establishment of the nonprofit The Roar Foundation and Hedren's Shambala Preserve, located at the edge of the Mojave Desert in Acton, California, between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley, 40 mi northeast of Los Angeles. Shambala houses some 70 animals. Hedren lives on the Shambala site and conducts monthly tours of the preserve for the public. In a 2015 interview with magazine Ability, Hedren emphasized that there is no human contact with the animals and that all of the cats are spayed and neutered, since they are being raised in captivity. Hedren was the founding president of the American Sanctuary Association, a post she still holds.

She took in and cared for Togar, a lion that belonged to Anton LaVey, after he was told by San Francisco officials that he could not keep a fully grown lion as a house pet. Shambala became the new home for Michael Jackson's two Bengal tigers, Sabu and Thriller, after he decided to close his zoo at his Neverland Valley Ranch in Los Olivos. Thriller died in June 2012 of lung cancer.

On December 3, 2007, Shambala Preserve made headlines when Chris Orr, a caretaker for the animals, was mauled by a tiger named Alexander. Several documentaries have focused on Shambala Preserve, including the 30-minute Lions: Kings of the Serengeti (1995), narrated by Melanie Griffith, and Animal Planet's Life with Big Cats (1998), which won the Genesis Award for best documentary in 1999. The animals at the preserve served as the initial inspiration for the life's work of artist A.E. London, who started her career working for Hedren.

As of 2020, Hedren still maintains more than a dozen lions and tigers; her granddaughter Dakota Johnson is involved in their care.

Personal life
Hedren met future advertising executive Peter Griffith while doing a walk-on role on The Aldrich Family in 1951, when she was 21 and he was 17. On October 24, 1951, a day after Griffith turned 18, the couple took out a marriage license in New York, and were married the following year. Their daughter Melanie was born on August 9, 1957. They divorced in 1960, after which Hedren dated comedian Mort Sahl. On September 27, 1964, Hedren married her then-agent Noel Marshall, who later produced three of her films. The marriage came under strain during the filming of Roar and they divorced in 1982, with Hedren securing a restraining order forbidding Marshall from coming within 20 feet of her. On February 15, 1985, she married steel manufacturer Luis Barrenechea, but they divorced in 1992. According to Hedren, Barrenechea "was everything I wanted in a man, except that he was an alcoholic and that was unbearable." Hedren was engaged to veterinarian Martin Dinnes from 2002 until their breakup in mid-2008. In September 2008, Hedren told The Sunday Times "I'm waiting for someone to sweep me off my feet." Hedren has three grandchildren.

Hedren played a role in the development of Vietnamese-American nail salons in the United States. In 1975, while an international relief coordinator with Food for the Hungry, she began visiting with refugees at Hope Village outside Sacramento, California. When she learned the women were interested in her manicured nails, she employed her manicurist to teach them the skills of the trade and worked with a local beauty school to help them find jobs. Hedren's work with the Vietnamese-Americans was the subject of several documentaries: Happy Hands, directed by Honey Lauren, which won Best Documentary Short at the Sonoma International Film Festival in 2014 and Nailedit: Vietnamese and the Nail Industry which won the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) 2014 Documentary Fund Award. CND and Beauty Changes Lives Foundation (BCL) have announced the BCL CND Tippi Hedren Nail Scholarship Fund to support professional nail education and will be administered starting January 1, 2014.

Hedren was instrumental in helping a desperate Nguyen Thi Chinh to enter the US after the fall of the South Vietnam government in 1975. Hedren arranged for an air ticket and a visa for Chinh and then invited her to stay in her house.

Hedren suffered from severe and persistent headaches for a long time, which rendered her unable to accept several projects, including a television series produced by and starring Betty White. After she got a titanium plate put in her neck, she improved and then agreed, with the blessing of her doctor, to take the part of a dying woman in the 2006 soap opera Fashion House. While she was rehearsing a scene, a gallon of water fell from the ceiling onto her head. The headaches returned after the incident and persisted. Hedren filed a suit to receive recompense following her inability to work. Hedren's lawyer, Joseph Allen, made a mistake in his discussions with the defendants that allowed them to block him from filing suit. Hedren sued Allen for malpractice. In 2013, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Hedren had been awarded a $1.5 million settlement, including $213,400 for past lost earnings and $440,308 for future lost earnings, against her former lawyer. Hedren was hurt by the report since she had not collected the award. She gave an interview to explain that her former lawyer does not have the money to pay her, and discussed how the report put her in a difficult situation since her foundation was in dire need of funds. She explained that she has to raise $75,000 monthly just to keep it going. "Chances are I won't ever even see the money, and that's what hurts so badly, that in all of this pain and suffering that publication ran with a swift and not researched story, which told people around the world who have been so gracious and thoughtful about sending donations, that I no longer needed them."

Hedren is a pescetarian.

Honors and awards

 * 1964: Most Promising Newcomer Award by Photoplay
 * 1964: Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actress (shared with Ursula Andress and Elke Sommer)
 * 1994: Life Achievement Award in France at The Beauvais Film Festival Cinemalia
 * 1995: Life Achievement Award in Spain, La Fundación Municipal de Cine
 * 1995: The Helen Woodward Animal Center's Annual Humane Award
 * 1996: Founder's Award from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
 * 1997: Lion and Lamb Award from Wildhaven
 * 1999: Woman of Vision Award from Women of Film and Video in Washington, D.C.
 * 1999: Presidential Medal for her work in film from Hofstra University
 * 1999: Humanitarian Award at the Las Vegas International Film Festival
 * 2000: Best Actress in a Comedy Short Award in the short film Mulligans! at the Method Fest, Independent Film Festival
 * 2002: Best Actress Award for the short film Tea with Grandma from the New York International Independent Film Festival
 * 2003: Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
 * 2003: Women of Los Angeles Annual Hope is a Woman Honor
 * 2004: PAWS Companion for Life Award
 * 2004: Best Actress Award for the short film Rose's Garden from the Los Angeles TV Short Film Festival
 * 2004: Animal Rights Advocacy Award at Artivist Film Festival
 * 2005: Living Legacy Award
 * 2006: Conservationist of the Year—Dino Award from the Las Vegas Natural History Museum
 * 2007: Lifetime Achievement Award—Riverside Film Festival
 * 2007: Jules Verne "Nature" Award — the 1st Annual Jules Verne Adventure Film Festival of Los Angeles
 * 2008: Academy of Art University's 2nd Epidemic Film Festival Award
 * 2008: Jules Verne Legendaire Award
 * 2008: Thespian Award – LA Femme Film Festival
 * 2009: "When a Woman Wills She Will!" Award by the Woman's Club of Hollywood
 * 2009: Workhouse's first Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award
 * 2009: Received the First Star on the Orinda Theater Walk of Fame
 * 2010: Received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 24th Annual Genesis Awards show from the Humane Society
 * 2010: BraveHeart Award
 * 2010: Who-Manitarian Award
 * 2011: Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce at its 90th Annual Installation & Awards Luncheon
 * 2011: "The Women Together Award" from the United Nations
 * 2011: Vietnamese-American Marton Saint Award from the Boat People SOS Organization
 * 2011: Omni Youth Humanitarian/Career Achievement Award
 * 2012: Honorary Masters of Fine Arts Degree from the New York Film Academy
 * 2012: Mayor Career Achievement Award from Starz Denver Film Festival
 * 2013: Legacy of Style Award
 * 2013: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Puerto Rico Horror Film Fest
 * 2013: "People Helping People" Award by the Touching Live TV Award Show, broadwayworld.com; accessed November 14, 2015.
 * 2014: Lifetime Achievement Award from Bel-Air Film Festival
 * 2014: Special Recognition Award from Acton Women's Club
 * 2014:The Women's International Film & Television Showcase Foundation International Visionary Award, thewifts.org; accessed November 14, 2015.
 * 2015: Choreography of Desire (A Tribute to Tippi Hedren) by the Vienna International Film Festival, viennale.at; accessed November 14, 2015.
 * 2015: Believe, Achieve, Empower Award
 * 2017: Los Angeles Press Club's 2017 Visionary Award
 * 2017: Waggy Award recipient from the Tailwaggers Foundation
 * 2017: The Icon Award
 * 2018: "Friend for Life Award" from The Palm Springs Animal Shelter

title: Tippi Hedren


text:
Talk:Whistle register

definition
"Children can also phonate in the whistle register as can some men, though McKinney states this to be quite rare" Should a person's name be included, and abbreviated, then they only appear in a reference and not anywhere proceeding this statement in the article? Sgrizzle (talk) 15:31, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

notes/frequencies
the notes and their respective frequencies are frequently incorrect and inconsistent

examples of C6 are given as both 1047hz and 2093hz

also a rare singer is mentioned who can hit G10. while i'm not disputing this, the frequency given for this note is over 25khz, far beyond the reach of human hearing (around 18khz for most human adults) as well as the overwhelming majority of sound recording and measuring apparatus (20-22khz).

i'm going to figure out what the correct frequencies are and edit accordingly... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.207.233 (talk) 21:06, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the inaccuracies. Part of the problem may be that different people tune pitches to different hertzes. Americans tune their notes higher than Europeans do (a fact that a lot of people don't know). Or it is posible that bad information has crept into the article or vandalism occured at some point and was not caught until now. I will investigate the matter.Nrswanson (talk) 21:54, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

There was some vandalism in regaurds to the high C frequencies and I edited those. I checked the other frequencies with Scientific pitch notation and they are correct. Also, the Guiness book does put Georgia Brown at G10 so that must be correct.Nrswanson (talk) 22:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

 * I am sorry but I don't care where you read it or who quoted it. Homo sapiens cannot register much above 15 KHz. Period. If you want people to keep laughing at Wikipedia then you keep it up. This article is grossly shambolic.

 * You're right only as far as the majority of older humans goes. However, I'm an audio engineer with grandchildren yet I've tested my hearing out to 17kHz. Sensations have been registered by test subjects made to listen to tones above 20k. Whatever source you have that says 15k maximum is woefully out of sync with science. Binksternet (talk) 21:57, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

 * Two problems with your argument: First, saying that a human cannot produce a tone above X because a human couldn't hear it is like saying that humans don't radiate infrared light because we can't see it.  Secondly, many humans, myself included, can hear well above 20 kHz.  It's actually not as cool as one might think:  I hear the buzz from a typical CRT TV like an unending siren wail. Rebbing (talk) 14:24, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

 * Just a comment about Rebbing's TV siren wail. The high pitched noise from a TV is in the order of 15 KHz Flyback_transformer which is high pitched but nowhere near 25 Khz. Mtpaley (talk) 22:49, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

 * I looked at the talk pages to see if anyone has commented on the 25087Hz claim and the discussion seems to have gone stale. Personally I think it is highly unlikely that anyone can sing at >25KHz and that anyone could hear it if it could be done.  The reference points to the guinness book of records but the wikipedia article about Georgia Brown seems to imply that the claim is now regarded as invalid.  I think the Georgia Brown sentence needs to be removed.  Comments anyone? Mtpaley (talk) 23:31, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

There is just something wrong with this search field, Whistle register don't start at a certain note, that differs for everyone I'm a guy and I have a really low voice and I can use that 'whistle register' and it still quite low. I can hold it for a long time it's not my falsetto or whatever but I'm sure it's that what mariah uses to sound that high, this article is crap. I know it's original research but it's just wrong —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.67.222.138 (talk) 20:51, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

 * Some time ago when I did a bit or a rewrite on this article I included the line "Though the whistle register is most commonly used to produce pitches above E6, it can be used to produce lower pitches." The whistle register is a register, just like chest voice or head voice - in other words, it's a way of producing tones that sounds sufficiently different as to merit its own name. It has nothing to do with a particular pitch, though it's most commonly and most famously used by sopranos for very high pitches. Clearly I need to add that line back. -George (talk) 01:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

 * Its a bit more complicated than that George but I definitely see where you are coming from. Pitch actually does play a factor in registers. There are three constituent elements with each register 1. a certain vibratory pattern of the vocal folds, 2. a certain series of pitches, and 3. a certain type of sound. In this case number two is important to remember and clarify. While its absolutely true that registers may overlap, they still are limited to a certain pitch range, which varies to some extent from person to person. In the case of the whistle register's pitch area, it overlaps somewhat with the pitch areas of the falsetto and modal registers but is clearly the highest vocal register. Also, I would avoid using the terms head register and chest register as those terms are not used in the sciences (remember whistle register is a term used in phonetics, speech pathology, and auditory sciences, not just singing) but only in vocal pedagogy (and there with a great deal of inconsistancy and controverssy).Nrswanson (talk) 02:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Georgia Brown
Her record has been discussed a bit above, but to avoid confusion with other conversations, I decided to start a new subsection. The article currently states "The female singer, Georgia Brown, was listed in the 2005 Guinness World Records for highest note (G10) ever reached,[8] but this claim was removed by the time the 2007 edition came out due to a lack of any verifiable recording of such a feat.[9]" The latter statement uses Guinness World records 2007, page 366, as a reference. I'd appreciate it if someone who has that edition to hand could check on this: it's not usual for Guinness to publish retractions of previous records, but it is usual for some records which have not changed since the previous year to be omitted to make room for new records. I am therefore suspicious that the editor's good faith attribution of the reason for the record's ommission may be their  own interpretation. Could someone please verify what, if anything, the 2007 edition actually says about Georgia Brown? Contains Mild Peril (talk) 22:08, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Lisa Fischer
Lisa Fischer is one of the few prominent vocalists in both R&B and Rock and Roll music today-- (I think Mariah Carey is one of the only others that come to mind...) an attempt was made to place a clip from the Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter from their 1995 album, Stripped to demonstrate her ability, but the clip came from a You Tube recording and wasn't clear. It would be a kindness if anyone has a clearer original version of that DVD performance to place a clip of her part in the song here. Having a couple clips from different genres would be essential in conveying how the whistle register sounds. --Leahtwosaints (talk) 12:49, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that audio clips would be nice. However, along with any audio clip must come a published verifiable source which identifies the audio file as an example of whistle register. The last audio clip in my opinion was not a good example of whistle register... It sounded possibly like an employment of head voice with a mix of female falsetto. It didn't have enough of the characteristic "whistle" or flute like sound. Perhaps something like a Georgia Brown (Brazilian singer) clip (she is the world's highest singer) would be more appropriate. And a clip of something like The Bell song from the opera Lakme or the Der Hölle Rache aria from The Magic Flute would also be good.Plumadesabiduría (talk) 20:01, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Or take a piece of emotions of mariah carey, the whistles are very clear on this one and very loud you can identifie them immediately —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.21.60.224 (talk) 17:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Need help clarifying notation.
I got to this sentence and my comprehension went way down: "The whistle register is the highest phonational register, that in most singers begins D6 and usually extends to about D above (D7 or 2349.3 Hz)." I'll look up phonational because I see a wikilink nearby but could somebody explain in the article what D6 is? I've studied organ, piano and voice and I never came across these terms before. I'm guessing it's the sixth D on the piano keyboard. If only I had a keyboard! A picture would be worth a thousand words! DBlomgren (talk) 02:21, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

'Middle C' is generally (not always) referred to as C4. 86.178.190.225 (talk) 21:08, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

 * See Scientific Pitch Notation.4meter4 (talk) 16:22, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Men can use it in very rare instances
I've changed the wording that men can use the register in "very rare instances", to "some men" can use it. I do not believe it is "very rare" that men should be able to make whistle register sounds, just that most men don't experiment with this register. I can do it (thought not especially well) and am not a professional singer, and there are numerous examples on YouTube of men doing it, sometimes with impressive range and control; I see no reason to believe they are just "very rare" freaks of nature, they are just men with good whistle registers that they've worked on. Orlando098 (talk) 11:00, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

 * The cited source material says it is quite rare.4meter4 (talk) 13:45, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Well can we change it to "quite" then, not "very"??? I can do it, my singing teacher can do it and tons of men on YouTube can do it. I don't see how it can be "very rare" Orlando098 (talk) 21:37, 1 October 2012 (UTC) Here is a video on how men can do it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqO4hoNNQeU --- I re-edited the intro text and added this link at the bottom of the page. It's relevant to anyone who wants to know more about how to use this register. Also, that book cited is nearly 20 years old, there was no widespread internet, not many people knew what whistle voice was and few men were experimenting with it.

Request for semi-protection?
Given that this article is constantly being inundated with original research over the last several years (particularly when fans are wanting to add their favorite pop singers to the article), I am wondering if we shouldn't request a permanent semi-protection of this article. This is an issue that is not likely to ever end, and often the uncited inaccurate material has not been caught for months at a time. Thoughts?4meter4 (talk) 03:15, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Glottal cycle
Where's the Glottal cycle? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.2.142.50 (talk) 20:03, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Registers, whistle and range in women
"In some sopranos, the modal register vocal production may extend into what is usually thought of as the whistle register.[1] With proper vocal training, it is possible for women within all voice types to develop this part of the voice. However, some women are unable to phonate or comfortably produce sound in this register. Children can also phonate in the whistle register and, rarely, some men" I agree that many notes that a soprano might sing in the whistle, could sing them in a different register as well, but are you sure it's modal, especially if we talk about operatic soprano head voice, if we don't and we talk about high belters, that might be true for a G5, but hardly for a C6, certainly not comfortably, usually. We have to recognized that most of operatic head voice might be full in terms of being projected and resonant, might be considered modal "ad honorem" but it's technically not modal, it lies in the falsetto register, so yes, the C6 might be not whistle, but is full "falsetto" head voice, sometimes more operatic sounding sometimes more belt like or pop. A curious thing is indeed that in classical music, passaggio is often taught differently between men and women, for women it involves a register change, for men it usually doesn't, it consist more of a dynamical lightening and covering of the modal register, an action which is sometimes considered registering from a didactical standpoint, but usually it's not. That's unless we think that for females the falsetto range overlaps 100% of the upper end of their modal range. About men phonating rarely in their whistle register, that's hardly proof that they "can't", many can when they try and excercise it, it might come out harder than it does in woman, but it's in their phisical capabilities. There are tenors as well as bass baritones who can. Thanks for your time --78.15.208.11 (talk) 21:41, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Removal of Morisette Amon for "not being famous"
A few days ago an anonymous user removed Morissette Amon from the list of contemporary singers who use the whistle register by claiming that she's "not famous".

I undid this removal. Morissette Amon is famous. Of course, more famous in Asia (probably the most famous female singer from the Philippines) but also in the West. And she's especially known in vocal circles due to her high vocal skill level (and she's inter alia famous for her whistle register). To show my point a little further. To showcase the "relevance" of the respective singers with respect to WP: The mentioned singers are the following: Mariah Carey, Minnie Riperton, Betty Wright, Christina Aguilera, Morissette Amon, Ariana Grande, Adam Lopez, Dimash Kudaibergen, Wang Xiaolong and Georgia Brown. The WP pageviews of their articles (measured on WP in 60 day spans) are as follows: 1.) Ariana Grande: 1.242.000 2.) Mariah Carey: 577.000 3.) Christina Aguilera: 318.000 4.) Minnie Riperton: 153.000 5.) Dimash Kudaibergen: 97.000 6.) Betty Wright: 67.000 7.) Morissette Amon: 26.000 8.) Adam Lopez: 4.000 9.) Georgia Brown: 2.700 10.) Wang Xialong: doesn't have a Wikipedia page

Yet, Morissete Amon was removed for allegedly being the least famous one. With all due respect: That doesn't seem legitimate :) I hope you understand my decision to undo the removal. Best wishes, Jasmin Ariane (talk) 00:21, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
 * To prevent the list from lengthening, we should only include the most relevant artists. They are only mentioned as examples, each of them from different era. The purpose is not to list every female singer who has skill. Best regards.  Miaow  01:50, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Definition
It is stated that the whistle register is also called flute or flageolet register, but is that true? There are various videos online by vocal coaches (such as by Justin Stoney from NY Vocal Center) in which it is demonstrated that what they call the flageolet or flute register is actually the register above modal (chest, mix and head voice) and it still involves the vocal chords to produce the sound, meaning that in flute/flageolet register you can still sing and articulate words, though it might be difficult. Whereas the whistle register in their demonstrations is even higher - above the flute register - and does not involve the vocal chords to produce the sound. In whistle you can only vocalise certain high pitches, but no longer sing words... I would therefore think that this means that both registers are, both in essence and in range, not two different words for the same thing, but actually two different registers. And the name flageolet or flute register, would then be a different word for the falsetto register (which is also mentioned in the current wikipedia article on the whistle register). Hence a request: could someone with actual knowledge besides youtube videos maybe include a comment on the naming conventions for registers in this wiki-topic?

 * Falsetto is not considered the same as the whistle/flageolet/flute register in published literature. The whistle register is the same as the flageolet register, flute register, whistle tone, etc. according to the majority of vocal pedagogy writers, among them, William Vennard and William McKinney (see page 105-106 in The Diagnosis and Correction of Vocal Faults: A Manual for Teachers of Singing and for Choir Directors). For a few other sources all saying they are the same: Page 125 of Singing and Teaching Singing: A Holistic Approach to Classical Voice indicates this as well as Whistle tones section in Musical Theatre for the Female Voice: The Sensation, Sound, and Science, of Singing, The Whistle Voice section beginning on page 92 of Singing: The First Art, Whistle Register section beginning on page 86 in Voice Classification by Phonetography: A Manual for Voice Testing, Education, Therapy and Research, and Registers in Singing section in The Oxford Handbook of Singing.

 * I've never heard that whistle register can't use words, although most of the literature is on extended vowel sounds in operas with some consonants on the onset and end of a vocal run. It probably would be nearly impossible to produce certain consonants in whistle register. There are lots of unsung consonants (examples: CH, K, P, and T are unsung explosive consonants; and F, H, S, SH, WH AND TH are unsung sibilant consonants), and those would be placable as text onto very high tones making some words possible because they are consonants without pitch. Sung consonants (such as m, n, and many others) have definite pitch and are sung at the same pitch as the vowel sound. It's more difficult to execute certain sung consonants at higher pitches which is why the highest vocal lit is usually on vowel sounds, although  a run with a lot of high coloratura on a vowel sound might be part of the word because the beginning and ending pitches may have consonants forming a single word.  Or the librettist was smart enough to place the whistle tones on a word that ends in a vowel sound. For example the doll song from The Tales of Hoffman has the singer performing the whistle tone on the word Olympia (the name of the character who sings the aria) with the vocal runs all happening on the last vowel sound of the word. Even unsung consonants can present challenges because they can interrupt air flow which impacts breath support. So... Singing on vowels is easier. But a master coloratura soprano probably could sing words in whistle register if they were carefully crafted by a composer and librettist knowledgable about what a particular singer could successfully say while singing in that register. 4meter4 (talk) 23:03, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Whistle register


text:
Frederick Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby

Frederick Arthur Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby, (15 January 1841 – 14 June 1908) styled as Hon. Frederick Stanley from 1844 to 1886 and as The Lord Stanley of Preston between 1886 and 1893, was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom who served as Colonial Secretary from 1885 to 1886 and Governor General of Canada from 1888 to 1893. An avid sportsman, he built Stanley House Stables in England and is famous in North America for presenting Canada with the Stanley Cup, the championship trophy in ice hockey. Stanley was also one of the original inductees of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Background and education
Stanley was the second son of Prime Minister Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, and the Hon. Emma Caroline, daughter of Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, 1st Baron Skelmersdale. He was born in London, and educated at Harrow and Sandhurst. He received a commission in the Grenadier Guards, rising to the rank of Captain before leaving the army for politics. He later served as Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant of the part-time 1st Royal Lancashire Militia (The Duke of Lancaster's Own) from 23 June 1874 (though his political duties often kept him away from the regiment's annual training) and became Honorary Colonel of its successor, the 3rd and 4th Battalions, King's Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment), from 27 February 1886 until his death. He also followed his father and grandfather as Hon Colonel of the 1st Volunteer Battalion, King's (Liverpool Regiment), being appointed on 15 January 1894. After his death he was succeeded in this appointment by his son in turn.

Political career
As the Hon Frederick Stanley he served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (for Preston from 1865 to 1868, North Lancashire from 1868 to 1885 and Blackpool from 1885 to 1886). In government, he served as a Civil Lord of the Admiralty (1868), Financial Secretary to the War Office (1874–1878), Secretary to the Treasury (1878), War Secretary (1878–1880) and Colonial Secretary (1885–1886). In 1886, he was created Baron Stanley of Preston, in the County Palatine of Lancaster. He served as President of the Board of Trade (1886–1888), remaining in that office until he was appointed Governor General of Canada.

Derby was a Freemason.

Governor General of Canada
Stanley was appointed the Governor General of Canada and Commander in Chief of Prince Edward Island on 1 May 1888. During his term as Governor General, he travelled often and widely throughout the country. His visit to western Canada in 1889 gave him a lasting appreciation of the region's great natural beauty as well as permitting him to meet the people of Canada's First Nations and many western ranchers and farmers. During his visit, he dedicated Stanley Park, which is named after him. He also experienced the joys of fishing and avidly pursued the sport whenever his busy schedule allowed. As governor general, Stanley was the third holder of that office to whom Queen Victoria granted the power of granting pardons to offenders or remitting sentences and fines and the power of mitigating capital or any other sentence.

When Prime Minister John A. Macdonald died in office of heart failure on 6 June 1891, Stanley lost the close friendship he had enjoyed with Macdonald. He asked John Abbott to take over as prime minister. Once the government was in place, Abbott resigned for health reasons and turned the government over to John Thompson. Stanley helped cement the non-political role of the governor general when, in 1891, he refused to agree to a controversial motion in the House of Commons. The motion called on him as governor general to disallow the government of Quebec's Jesuit Estates Act, which authorized paying CA$400,000 as compensation for land granted to the Jesuits by the King of France. The opposition to the bill was introduced by the other provinces who were motivated by mistrust of the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec. Stanley declined to interfere, citing the proposed disallowance as unconstitutional. In holding to this decision, he gained popularity by refusing to compromise the viceregal position of political neutrality.

Stanley's wife, whom Wilfrid Laurier described as "an able and witty woman", made a lasting contribution during her husband's term of office. In 1891, she founded the Lady Stanley Institute for Trained Nurses on Rideau Street, the first nursing school in Ottawa. She was also an enthusiastic fan of hockey games at the Rideau Rink.

Stanley Cup

Stanley's sons became avid ice hockey players in Canada, playing in amateur leagues in Ottawa, and Lord and Lady Stanley became staunch hockey fans. In 1892, Stanley bequeathed to Canada a trophy today named in his honour as the Stanley Cup, known originally as the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup. He originally donated the trophy as a challenge cup for Canada's best amateur hockey club, but in 1909, it became contested for by professional teams exclusively. Since 1926, only teams of the National Hockey League have competed for the trophy. This now-famous cup bears his name as a tribute to his encouragement and love of outdoor life and sport in Canada and in recognition, he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1945 in the "Honoured Builders" category. The original size of the trophy was 7 in and is now around 36 in and weighs 35 lb.

Later years
Stanley's term as Governor General of Canada was due to end in September 1893 but in April of that year, his elder brother, the 15th Earl of Derby, died. Stanley succeeded him as the 16th Earl of Derby. As a result, Stanley, now known as Lord Derby, left Canada on 15 July 1893 and returned to England. An administrator was appointed to fulfil his duties until Lord Aberdeen was sworn in that September.

Also in 1893, Toronto's "New Fort York" (built in 1841) was renamed The Stanley Barracks in honour of Lord Stanley. Back with his family in England, he soon became the Lord Mayor of Liverpool and the first Chancellor of the University of Liverpool. Stanley Park, Liverpool is also named after him. In November 1901 Lord Derby was elected Mayor of Preston for the following year, and took part in the 1902 Preston Guild. He later received the honorary freedom of the borough of Preston, with which his family had been associated for centuries.

During the last years of his life, he increasingly dedicated himself to philanthropic work. He was founder president of the committee for the building of Liverpool Cathedral in 1901, and helped fund the Coronation Park, Ormskirk, in 1905.

Family
Derby married Lady Constance Villiers, daughter of George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon, on 31 May 1864. She was born in 1840. They had eight sons and two daughters (of whom one son and one daughter died as children). Her Ladyship remained and several of their children lived in Canada throughout his term as Governor-General. She was responsible for the foundation of the Lady Stanley Institute for Trained Nurses in Ottawa, Ontario, as well as a Maternity Hospital. She was president of the $4,000 fund instituted by the women of Canada for the presentation of a wedding gift to the present Prince and Princess of Wales: a sleigh, robes, harnesses and horses and a canoe. In 1890 Prince George of Wales (the future King George V) was their guest at Rideau Hall. In 1903 King Edward VII was their guest at their residence, St. James Square, London, England.

Their 10 children (8 boys; 2 girls) were:
 * Edward George Villiers Stanley (1865–1948), who succeeded his father as 17th Earl of Derby.
 * Katherine Mary Stanley (circa 1866-21 October 1871).
 * Hon. Sir Victor Albert Stanley (1867–1934), was an Admiral in the Royal Navy who married a Canadian lady, the daughter of Hon. C. E. Pooley, KC, of British Columbia.
 * Hon. Sir Arthur Stanley (1869–1947).
 * Geoffrey Stanley (18 November 1869 – 16 March 1871).
 * Hon. Ferdinand Charles Stanley, was educated at Wellington and Sandhurst, before joining the King's Royal Rifle Corps in 1891, rising to the rank of Brigadier-General. He married the Hon. Alexandra Fellowes, the eldest daughter of William Henry Fellowes, Baron de Ramsey; they lived at 8 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, London, now renamed Stanley House.
 * Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir George Frederick Stanley (1872–1938), Royal Horse Artillery, MP, junior minister and Governor of Madras. Married Lady Beatrix Taylour (died 1944), daughter of Thomas Taylour, 3rd Marquess of Headfort; they had a daughter.
 * Hon. Col. Algernon Francis Stanley (1872–1962), married the widow Mary Cavendish Crichton (her late husband Lt-Col. Henry William, son of John Crichton, 4th Earl Erne was KIA in 1914 on the Western Front), daughter of Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster. They had one son and a daughter.
 * Lady Isobel Gathorne-Hardy, was their longest-living child, living until 1963. She was instrumental in convincing her father to create the Stanley Cup. She is mentioned in one of the first games of women's hockey, played at Rideau Skating Rink in 1899. Her role as a women's hockey pioneer is recognized in women's hockey with both the Isobel Gathorne-Hardy Award, given across women's hockey in Canada, and the Isobel Cup, the Premier Hockey Federation's championship trophy.
 * Lt.-Col. Hon. Frederick William Stanley (1878–1942), married Lady Alexandra Louise Elizabeth Acheson, the daughter of Archibald Acheson, 4th Earl of Gosford and Louisa Acheson, Countess of Gosford on 17 June 1905. They had one son and two daughters, one of whom married the son of Lieutenant-General Sir George Sidney Clive. He would go on to serve and be wounded in the Second Boer War, and later the First World War.

Derby died on 14 June 1908, aged 67, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward, who also became a distinguished politician. Lady Derby died on 17 April 1922.

Legacy
After Edward Whymper made the first ascent of Stanley Peak in 1901, he named the mountain after Lord Derby. Vancouver's Stanley Park and Stanley Theatre were also named after him, as was Stanley Park, Blackpool.

The Preston Squadron of cadets at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean was named in his honour. Stanley Park, Liverpool, an area that famously separates Anfield and Goodison Park, the home grounds of English Premier League football teams Liverpool F.C. and Everton F.C., was named after him. Stanley House Inn, named for Lord Stanley and was built as his summer residence in 1888 along the Cascapedia River.

The Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup is today known as the Stanley Cup and is awarded to the winning team of the National Hockey League playoffs each season. In October 2017, Lord Stanley's Gift Monument was erected in Ottawa at Sparks Street and Elgin Street, near the location of the dinner party announcing the Cup at the Russell House, which has since been demolished.

Stanley Quay, later renamed Stanley Street, in Brisbane, Australia, was named after him when he was Colonial Secretary.

Honorary degrees

 * Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario (LL.D) in 1889

Honorific eponyms

 * Stanley, New Brunswick
 * Stanley, Nova Scotia
 * Port Stanley, Ontario
 * Stanley (Oliver Paipoonge), Ontario
 * Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia
 * Stanley Park, Liverpool, UK
 * Stanley Peak (Ball Range) (British Columbia)
 * Rue Stanley, Montréal, Québec
 * Stanley Avenue, Victoria, British Columbia
 * Stanley Street, Brisbane, Queensland
 * Stanley Street, Townsville, Queensland

title: Frederick Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby


text:
Fawzia of Egypt

Fawzia of Egypt (فوزية; 5 November 1921 – 2 July 2013), also known as Fawzia Pahlavi or Fawzia Chirine, was an Egyptian princess who became Queen of Iran as the first wife of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran. Fawzia was the daughter of Fuad I, seventh son of Ismail the Magnificent. Her marriage to the Iranian Crown Prince in 1939 was a political deal: it consolidated Egyptian power and influence in the Middle East, while bringing respectability to the new Iranian regime by association with the much more prestigious Egyptian royal house. Fawzia obtained an Egyptian divorce in 1948, under which their one daughter Princess Shahnaz would be brought up in Iran. Fawzia, who was known as the "sad queen" in the press, lived in isolation and silence after the 1952 Egyptian revolution and never published her memories of the court of Iran and Egypt.

In 1949, Fawzia married Colonel Ismail Chirine, an Egyptian diplomat, with whom she had a son and a daughter.

Early life and education
Princess Fawzia was born Her Sultanic Highness Princess Fawzia bint Fuad at Ras el-Tin Palace, Alexandria, the eldest daughter of Sultan Fuad I of Egypt and Sudan (later King Fuad I), and his second wife, Nazli Sabri on 5 November 1921. Princess Fawzia was of Albanian and Circassian descent from her father's side, and French, Turkish and Egyptian descent from her mother. Her mother's maternal grandfather was Major General Mohamed Sherif Pasha, prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, who was of Turkish-Circassian origin. She was the great-great-granddaughter of Muhammad Ali of Egypt as well as the great-granddaughter of the French-born officer Suleiman Pasha. Suleiman Pasha served under Napoleon, converted to Islam, and oversaw an overhaul of the Egyptian army under her great-great-grandfather Muhammad Ali Pasha the Great.

In addition to her sisters, Faiza, Faika and Fathia, and her brother, Farouk, she had two half-siblings from her father's previous marriage to Princess Shwikar Khanum Effendi. Princess Fawzia was educated in Switzerland and was fluent in English and French in addition to her native Arabic.

Her beauty was often compared to that of film stars Hedy Lamarr and Vivien Leigh.

Marriage
The marriage of Princess Fawzia to Iran's Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was planned by the latter's father, Rezā Shāh. A declassified CIA report in May 1972 described the union as a political move. The marriage was also significant in that it united a Sunni royal, the princess, and a Shia royal, the crown prince. The Pahlavis were a parvenu house as Reza Khan, the son of a peasant who entered the Iranian Army as a private, rising up to become a general, had seized power in a 1921 coup. He was most anxious to have the House of Pahlavi married to the House of Ali, which had reigned over Egypt since 1805.

The Egyptians were not impressed with the gifts sent by Reza Shah to King Farouk to persuade him to marry his sister to the prince Mohammad Reza. When an Iranian delegation arrived in Cairo to arrange the marriage, the Egyptians took the Iranians on a tour of the palaces built by Isma'il Pasha, known as "Isma'il the Magnificent", to show them proper royal splendor. King Farouk was not initially interested in marrying off his sister to the Crown Prince of Iran, but Aly Maher Pasha, the king's favorite political adviser, persuaded him that a marriage alliance with Iran would improve Egypt's position within the Islamic world and against Britain. At the same time, Maher Pasha was working on plans to marry off Farouk's other sisters to King Faisal II of Iraq and to the son of Emir Abdullah of Jordan, intending to forge an Egyptian-dominated bloc in the Middle East. To prepare for life in Iran, Fawzia was assigned a tutor to teach her Persian.

Fawzia and Pahlavi were engaged in May 1938. However, they saw each other only once before their wedding. They married at the Abdeen Palace in Cairo on 15 March 1939. King Farouk took the couple on a tour of Egypt, showing them the pyramids, Al-Azhar University, and other famous sites. The contrast between the Crown Prince Mohammad Reza, dressed in the simple uniform of an Iranian officer, and the lavish opulence of the Egyptian court typified by the famously free-spending Farouk in his expensive suits, was much remarked upon at the time. After the wedding, King Farouk had a twenty-course meal to celebrate the nuptials at the Abdeen Palace. At the time Prince Mohammad Reza lived in awe of his overbearing father, Reza Shah, and was dominated by Farouk, who was considerably more self-confident. Afterwards, Fawzia departed for Iran together with her mother, Queen Nazli, on a train trip that saw the electricity break down several times, causing the two women to feel like they were going on a camping trip.

When they returned to Iran the wedding ceremony was repeated at the Marble Palace, Tehran, which was also their future residence. As Mohammad Reza spoke no Turkish (one of the languages of the Egyptian elite, the other being French) and Fawzia was described as being only "competent" in Persian, the two talked to each other in French, in which both were fluent. Upon arriving in Tehran, Reza Shah had the main streets of Tehran decorated with banners and arches, and had a celebration at the Amjadieh stadium attended by 25,000 of the Iranian elite with synchronized acrobatics by students being followed by bastani (Iranian calisthenics), fencing, and football. The wedding dinner was a French-style dinner with "caviar from the Caspian Sea", "Consommé Royal", fish, fowl and lamb. Fawzia disliked Reza Khan, whom she described as a violent and thuggish man prone to attacking people with either his whip or riding crop. In contrast to the French food she had grown up with in Egypt, Fawzia found the food at the Iranian court sub-par. In the same way, Fawzia found that the palaces of Iran could not be compared to the palaces that she had grown up in Egypt.

Queen of Iran
Following the marriage, the Princess was granted Iranian nationality. Two years later the crown prince succeeded his exiled father and was to become the Shah of Iran. Soon after her husband's ascent to the throne, Queen Fawzia appeared on the cover of the 21 September 1942, issue of Life magazine, photographed by Cecil Beaton, who described her as an "Asian Venus" with "a perfect heart-shaped face and strangely pale but piercing blue eyes." She led the newly founded Association for the Protection of Pregnant Women and Children (APPWC) in Iran.

With Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the king of Iran, she had one child, a daughter:
 * HIH Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi (born 27 October 1940).

The marriage was a failure. Fawzia was deeply unhappy in Iran, and often missed her homeland of Egypt. Fawzia's relations with her mother-in-law and her sisters-in-law were notably tempestuous as the Queen Mother and her daughters saw her as a rival for Mohammad Reza Shah's affections, and the women constantly feuded with each other. One of Mohammad Reza's sisters broke a vase over Fawzia's head. The womanizing Mohammad Reza Shah was frequently unfaithful to Fawzia, and was often seen driving around with other women in Tehran from 1940 onward. Popular rumor had it that Fawzia for her part had an affair with her minder, described as an athletic, handsome man, though her friends insist that this was merely malicious gossip. Fawzia's son-in-law, Ardeshir Zahedi told the Iranian-American historian Abbas Milani in a 2009 interview about the rumors: "She is a lady and never veered from the path of purity and fidelity". From 1944 onward, Fawzia was treated for depression by an American psychiatrist, as she stated her marriage was a loveless one and she desperately wanted to go back to Egypt.

Queen Fawzia (the title of empress was not yet used in Iran at that time) moved to Cairo in May 1945 and obtained an Egyptian divorce. The reason for her return was that she viewed Tehran as underdeveloped in contrast to modern, cosmopolitan Cairo. She consulted an American psychiatrist in Baghdad for her troubles shortly before she left Tehran. On the other hand, CIA reports claim that Princess Fawzia ridiculed and humiliated the Shah due to his supposed impotence, leading to their separation. In her book Ashraf Pahlavi, twin sister of the Shah, argues that it was the Princess not the Shah who asked for divorce. Fawzia left Iran for Egypt, and despite numerous attempts on the part of the Shah to persuade her to return, she remained put in Cairo. Mohammad Reza told the British ambassador in 1945 that his mother was "probably the main obstacle to the return of the Queen".

This divorce was first not recognized for several years by Iran, but eventually an official divorce was obtained in Iran, on 17 November 1948, with Queen Fawzia successfully reclaiming her previous distinction of Princess of Egypt as well. A major condition of the divorce was that her daughter be left behind to be raised in Iran. Incidentally, Queen Fawzia's brother, King Farouk, also divorced his first wife, Queen Farida, in November 1948.

In the official announcement of the divorce, it was stated that "the Persian climate had endangered the health of Queen Fawzia, and that thus it was agreed that the Egyptian King's sister be divorced." In another official statement, the Shah said that the dissolution of the marriage "cannot affect by any means the existing friendly relations between Egypt and Iran." After her divorce Princess Fawzia headed the Egyptian court.

Later life

On 28 March 1949, at the Koubba Palace in Cairo, Princess Fawzia married Colonel Ismail Chirine (or Shirin) (1919–1994), who was the eldest son of Hussein Chirine Bey and his wife, HH Princess Amina Bihruz Khanum Effendi. He was a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a one-time Egyptian minister of war and the navy. Following the wedding they lived in an estate owned by the Princess in Maadi, Cairo. They also resided in a villa in Smouha, Alexandria. Unlike her first marriage, this time Fawzia married for love and she was described as far happier being married to Colonel Chirine than she ever had been to the Shah of Iran.

They had two children, one daughter and one son:
 * Nadia Chirine (19 December 1950, Cairo – October 2009). She married firstly (and divorced) Yusuf Shabaan, an Egyptian actor. Her second husband was Mustafa Rashid. She had two daughters, one with each husband:
 * Sinai Shabaan (born October 1973)
 * Fawzia Rashid
 * Hussein Chirine (1955–2016)

Fawzia lived in Egypt after the 1952 Revolution that toppled King Farouk. Princess Fawzia's death was mistakenly reported in January 2005. Journalists had confused her with her niece, Princess Fawzia Farouk (1940–2005), one of the three daughters of King Farouk.

Death
In her later life, Princess Fawzia lived in Alexandria, where she died on 2 July 2013 at the age of 91. Her funeral ceremony was held after noon prayers at Sayeda Nafisa Mosque in Cairo on 3 July. She was buried in Cairo next to her second husband. At her death, she was the oldest member of the deposed Muhammad Ali dynasty residing in Egypt.

Legacy
A town in Iran, Fawziabad, was named for Princess Fawzia in 1939. A street in Maadi, Cairo, was again named for her in 1950 as Amira Fawzia street, but in 1956 it was renamed as Mustafa Kamel street.

Honours

 * 🇪🇬 Egypt: Decoration of al-Kamal in brilliants (16 May 1939)
 * 🇮🇷 Iran: Grand Cordon of the Order of Khorshid (27 October 1940)

title: Fawzia of Egypt


text:
Rod Taylor

Rodney Sturt Taylor (11 January 1930 – 7 January 2015) was an Australian actor. He appeared in more than 50 feature films, including Young Cassidy (1965), Nobody Runs Forever (1968), The Train Robbers (1973) and A Matter of Wife... and Death (1975).

Taylor was born in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, to a father who was a steel construction contractor and commercial artist and a mother who was a children's author. He began taking art classes in high school, and continued in college. He decided to become an actor after seeing Laurence Olivier in an Old Vic touring production of Richard III.

His first film role was in a re-enactment of Charles Sturt's voyage down the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers, playing Sturt's offsider, George Macleay. At the time, he was also appearing in a number of theatre productions for Australia's Mercury Theatre. He made his feature film debut in the Australian Lee Robinson film King of the Coral Sea (1954). He soon started acting in television films, portraying several different characters in the 1950s anthology series Studio 57.

He started to gain popularity after starring in The Time Machine (1960), as H. George Wells. He later starred in the Disney film One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), voicing Pongo. In one of his most famous roles, he played Mitch Brenner in The Birds (1963), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. By the late 1990s, Taylor had moved into semi-retirement. His final film role was in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009), portraying a fictionalized version of Winston Churchill in a cameo.

Early life
Taylor was born on 11 January 1930 in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, the only child of William Sturt Taylor, a steel construction contractor and commercial artist, and Mona Taylor (née Thompson), a writer of more than a hundred short stories and children's books. His middle name comes from his great-great-granduncle, Captain Charles Sturt, a British explorer of the Australian outback in the 19th century.

Taylor attended Parramatta High School and later studied at the East Sydney Technical and Fine Arts College and took art classes. His mother wanted him to be an artist, and pressured him into taking the art classes. For a time he worked as a commercial artist, but he decided to become an actor after seeing Laurence Olivier in an Old Vic touring production of Richard III.

Australia
Taylor acquired extensive radio and stage experience in Australia, where his radio work included a period on Blue Hills and a role as Tarzan. Earlier in his career he had to support himself by working at Sydney's Mark Foy's department store, designing and painting window and other displays during the day. In 1951, he took part in a re-enactment of Charles Sturt's voyage down the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers, playing Sturt's offsider, George Macleay. A short documentary, Inland with Sturt (1951), was based on it. Taylor also appeared in a number of theatre productions for Australia's Mercury Theatre.

Taylor made his feature film debut in the Australian Lee Robinson film King of the Coral Sea (1954), playing an American. He later played Israel Hands in a Hollywood-financed film shot in Sydney, Long John Silver (1954), an unofficial sequel to Treasure Island. Following these two films, Taylor was awarded the 1954 Rola Show Australian Radio Actor of the Year Award, which included a ticket to London via Los Angeles, but Taylor did not continue on to London.

Hollywood
Taylor soon landed roles in television shows such as Studio 57 and the films Hell on Frisco Bay (1955) and Giant (1956). In 1955, he guest-starred as Clancy in the third episode ("The Argonauts") of the first hour-long Western television series, Cheyenne, an ABC program starring Clint Walker.

Toward the end of 1955, Taylor unsuccessfully screen tested to play boxer Rocky Graziano in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Somebody Up There Likes Me after James Dean's death, but his use of a Brooklyn accent and physical prowess in the test impressed the studio enough to give him a long-term contract. At MGM, he played a series of supporting roles in The Catered Affair (1956), Raintree County (1957), and Ask Any Girl (1959). He had a significant role in Separate Tables (1958), which won Oscars for two of its stars, David Niven and Wendy Hiller. He also made a strong impression guest-starring in an episode of The Twilight Zone titled "And When the Sky Was Opened" (1959).

Stardom
Taylor's first leading role in a feature film was in The Time Machine (1960), George Pal's adaptation of the science-fiction classic by H. G. Wells, with Taylor as the time traveller who, thousands of years in the future, falls for a woman played by Yvette Mimieux. Taylor played a character not unlike that of his Twilight Zone episode of a year earlier and the film World Without End in 1956.

In or around 1960, he was approached regarding the role of James Bond in the first feature-length Bond film. Taylor reportedly declined to become involved because he considered the character of Bond "beneath him". Taylor later commented: "Every time a new Bond picture became a smash hit ... I tore out my hair."

Taylor starred in Alfred Hitchcock's horror thriller The Birds (1963), along with Tippi Hedren, Suzanne Pleshette, Jessica Tandy and Veronica Cartwright, playing a man whose town and home come under attack by menacing birds. Taylor then starred with Jane Fonda in the romantic comedy Sunday in New York (also 1963).

During the mid-1960s, Taylor worked mostly for MGM. His credits including The V.I.P.s (1963), his first feature film role as an Australian, with Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Maggie Smith; Fate Is the Hunter (for 20th Century Fox, 1964) with Glenn Ford and Suzanne Pleshette; 36 Hours (1964) with James Garner; Young Cassidy (1965) with Julie Christie and Maggie Smith; The Liquidator (1965) with Jill St. John; Do Not Disturb (1965); and The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), both co-starring Doris Day.

He began to change his image toward the end of the decade to more tough-guy roles, such as Chuka (1967), which he also produced, and he starred in Hotel (1967) with Catherine Spaak; Dark of the Sun (or The Mercenaries, 1968), again with Yvette Mimieux; Nobody Runs Forever (1968) where he played New South Wales Police Sergeant Scobie Malone, this being Taylor's first starring feature film role as an Australian; and Darker than Amber (1970) as Travis McGee.

He was also reportedly up for the role of martial artist Roper in the Bruce Lee vehicle Enter the Dragon (1973). The film was directed by Robert Clouse, who had also directed Taylor in the film Darker than Amber (1970). Taylor was supposedly deemed too tall for the part, and the role instead went to John Saxon.

Later career
In 1973, Taylor was cast in The Train Robbers alongside long time friend John Wayne and Ann-Margret. The film was a box office success. Taylor also had some television roles: he starred in Bearcats! (1971) on CBS and in The Oregon Trail (1976) on NBC. He had a regular role in the short-lived spy drama series Masquerade (1983) and played one of the leads in the equally short-lived series, Outlaws (1986). From 1988 to 1990, Taylor appeared in the CBS drama series Falcon Crest as Frank Agretti, playing opposite Jane Wyman. In the mid-1990s, he appeared in several episodes of Murder, She Wrote and Walker, Texas Ranger.

In 1993, he hosted the documentary Time Machine: The Journey Back. The special ended with a mini-sequel written by David Duncan, the screenwriter of the George Pal film. Taylor recreated his role as George, reuniting him with Filby (Alan Young).

Taylor returned to Australia several times over the years to make films, playing a 1920s traveling showman in The Picture Show Man (1977) and a paid killer in On the Run (1983). In the black comedy Welcome to Woop Woop (1997), he played the foul-mouthed redneck Daddy-O.

By the late 1990s, Taylor had moved into semi-retirement. In 2007, he appeared in the horror telemovie Kaw, which revisits the idea of marauding birds turning on their human tormentors. In this film, however, the cause of the disturbance was discovered by Taylor who plays the town doctor. He appeared in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds in 2009, portraying Winston Churchill in a cameo. In 2017, a documentary on Taylor's life, "Pulling No Punches", was released and entered into the Beverly Hills Film Festival.

Personal life
His first wife was model Peggy Williams (1951–1954). They divorced after allegations of domestic violence. Taylor later claimed that they divorced because they felt they were too young to have a healthy marriage. Taylor dated and was briefly engaged to Swedish actress Anita Ekberg in the early 1960s. He dated model Pat Sheehan in the late 1960s.

His second marriage was to model Mary Hilem and lasted from 1963 until they divorced in 1969. The couple had one daughter, former CNN financial reporter Felicia Taylor (1964-2023). Taylor bought a home in Palm Springs, California in 1967.

He married his third wife, Carol Kikumura, in 1980. They had originally dated in the early 1960s when she was an extra on his TV series Hong Kong. The couple got back together in 1971 and dated for an additional nine years before marrying.

Death
Taylor died of a heart attack at his home, surrounded by his family, on 7 January 2015, in Beverly Hills, California, four days before his 85th birthday.

Feature films

 * King of the Coral Sea (1954) as Jack Janiero (film debut)
 * Long John Silver (1954) as Israel Hands
 * The Virgin Queen (1955) as Cpl. Gwilym (uncredited)
 * Top Gun (1955) as Lem Sutter
 * Hell on Frisco Bay (1956) as John Brodie Evans
 * World Without End (1956) as Herbert Ellis
 * The Catered Affair (1956) as Ralph Halloran
 * Giant (1956) as Sir David Karfrey
 * The Rack (1956) as Al (uncredited)
 * Raintree County (1957) as Garwood B. Jones
 * Step Down to Terror (1958) as Mike Randall
 * Separate Tables (1958) as Charles
 * Ask Any Girl (1959) as Ross Tayford
 * The Time Machine (1960) as H. George Wells
 * Colossus and the Amazon Queen (1960) as Pirro
 * One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) as Pongo (voice)
 * Seven Seas to Calais (1962) as Sir Francis Drake
 * The Birds (1963) as Mitch Brenner
 * The V.I.P.s (1963) as Les Mangrum
 * A Gathering of Eagles (1963) as Col. Hollis Farr
 * Sunday in New York (1963) as Mike Mitchell
 * Fate Is the Hunter (1964) as Capt. Jack Savage
 * 36 Hours (1965) as Maj. Walter Gerber
 * Young Cassidy (1965) as John Cassidy
 * The Liquidator (1965) as Boysie Oakes
 * Do Not Disturb (1965) as Mike Harper
 * The Glass Bottom Boat (1966) as Bruce Templeton
 * Hotel (1967) as Peter McDermott
 * Chuka (1967) as Chuka
 * Dark of the Sun (1968) as Capt. Bruce Curry
 * Nobody Runs Forever (1968) (a.k.a. The High Commissioner) as Scobie Malone
 * The Hell with Heroes (1968) as Brynie MacKay
 * Zabriskie Point (1970) as Lee Allen
 * Darker than Amber (1970) as Travis McGee
 * The Man Who Had Power Over Women (1970) as Peter Reaney
 * Powderkeg (1971, TV movie/pilot for Bearcats!) as Hank Brackett
 * Family Flight (1972, TV movie) as Jason Carlyle
 * The Train Robbers (1973) as Grady
 * Gli eroi (1973) (a.k.a. The Heroes) as Lieutenant Bob Robson
 * Trader Horn (1973) as Trader Horn
 * The Deadly Trackers (1973) as Frank Brand
 * Hell River (1974) (a.k.a. Partizani) as Marko
 * A Matter of Wife... and Death (1975, TV movie) as Shamus McCoy
 * Blondie (1976) as Christopher Tauling
 * The Oregon Trail (1976, series) as Evan Thorpe
 * Gulliver's Travels (1977) as Reldresal / King of Blefuscu (voice, uncredited)
 * The Picture Show Man (1977) as Palmer
 * The Treasure Seekers (1979) as Marian Casey
 * Cry of the Innocent (1980, TV movie) as Steve Donegin
 * Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (1981, TV movie) as 'Black Jack' Bouvier
 * Charles & Diana: A Royal Love Story (1982, TV movie) as Edward Adeane
 * A Time to Die (1982) as Jack Bailey
 * On the Run (1983) as Mr. Payatta
 * Terror in the Aisles (1984) as Himself (stock footage)
 * Marbella, un golpe de cinco estrellas (1985) as Commander
 * Half Nelson (1985, TV series)
 * Mask of Murder (1985) as Supt. Bob McLaine
 * Danielle Steel's 'Palomino' (1991, TV movie) as Bill King
 * Grass Roots (1992, TV movie) as Gen. Willoughby
 * Open Season (1995) – Billy Patrick
 * Point of Betrayal (1995) as Ted Kitteridge
 * Welcome to Woop Woop (1998) as Daddy-O
 * The Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy (1998, TV movie) as General Sorenson
 * Kaw (2007, TV movie) as Doc
 * Inglourious Basterds (2009) as Winston Churchill (final film role)

Documentaries

 * Inland with Sturt (1951) as George Mcleady
 * The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal (1985)
 * Time Machine: The Journey Back (1993)
 * All About the Birds (2000)
 * Not Quite Hollywood (2008)
 * Pulling No Punches (2016)

As a regular
Taylor had several lead roles in television, from the early 1960s to the early first decade of the 21st century. Among his television shows as a regular are:
 * Hong Kong with co-star Lloyd Bochner (1960, ABC)
 * Bearcats! (1971, CBS)
 * The Oregon Trail as Evan Thorpe, a widower taking his three children from their Illinois farm to the Pacific Northwest by way of the Oregon Trail (1977, NBC)
 * Masquerade (1983)
 * Outlaws (1986)

Guest appearances

 * Studio 57 (1955) – "The Last Day on Earth", "The Black Sheep's Daughter"
 * Lux Video Theatre (1955) – "Dark Tribute", "The Browning Version"
 * Cheyenne (1955) – "The Argonauts"
 * Suspicion (1957) – "The Story of Marjorie Reardon"
 * Schlitz Playhouse of Stars (1958) – "A Thing to Fight For"
 * Studio One (1958) – "Image of Fear"
 * Lux Playhouse (1958) – "The Best House in the Valley"
 * Playhouse 90 (1958–59) – "Verdict of Three", "The Long March", The Great Gatsby, "The Raider", "Misalliance"
 * The Twilight Zone (1959) – "And When the Sky Was Opened"
 * Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre (1960) – "Picture of Sal"
 * Goodyear Theatre (1960) – "Capital Gains"
 * General Electric Theater (1960) – "Early to Die", "The Young Years"
 * Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (1960) – "Thunder in the Night"
 * Bus Stop (1961) – "Portrait of a Hero"
 * The DuPont Show of the Week (1962) – "The Ordeal of Dr. Shannon"
 * Tales of the Unexpected (TV series) (1980) – "The Hitch-Hiker"
 * Falcon Crest (1988–1990) as Frank Agretti
 * Murder, She Wrote (1995)
 * Walker, Texas Ranger (1996-1997, 2000) – "Redemption", "Texas vs. Cahill", "Wedding Bells"

Theatre credits

 * Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (Independent, 1950)
 * Home of the Brave by Arthur Laurents (Independent, 1950)
 * Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw (John Alden Company, 1951)
 * Twins by Plautus (Mercury, 1952)
 * The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare (Mercury, 1952)
 * The Witch by John Masefield (Mercury, 1952)
 * They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard (Mercury, 1952)
 * The Happy Time by Samuel A. Taylor (Mercury, 1953)

title: Rod Taylor