Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, John Carpenter, Sam Raimi, M. Night Shyamalan, Martin Scorsese, George A. Romero, Peter Bogdanovich, Dario Argento, William Friedkin, David Cronenberg, and Quentin Tarantino have named him as an influence.
Walt Disney refused to allow him to film at Disneyland in the early 1960s because Hitchcock had made "that disgusting movie Psycho (1960)".
Alma Reville and Hitch had one daughter, Patricia Hitchcock, who appeared in several of his movies: Stage Fright (1950), Strangers on a Train (1951) and Psycho (1960)
Destiny (1921) by Fritz Lang was his declared favorite movie.
A statistical survey he did among audiences revealed that according to moviegoers the most frightening noise in films was the siren of a police patrol-car, followed by the crash of a road accident, cracklings of a burning forest, far galloping horses, howling dogs, the scream of a stabbed woman and the steps of a lame person in the dark.
According to Hitchcock himself, he was required to stand at the foot of his mother's bed, and tell her what happened to him each day.
According to many people who knew Hitchcock, he couldn't stand to even look at his wife, Alma Reville, while she was pregnant.
Although some of the movie going public knew him, his fame really took off after 1955. That's when "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (1955) started. When the show was broadcast in homes week after week it gave him a much bigger exposure in the public eye. He also became quite rich from the show when it was syndicated in the US and overseas.
Appears on a 44¢ USA commemorative postage stamp, issued 11 August 2009, in the Early TV Memories issue honoring "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (1955).
As a child, Hitchcock was sent to the local police station with a letter from his father. The desk sergeant read the letter and immediately locked the boy up for ten minutes. After that, the sergeant let young Alfred go, explaining, "This is what happens to people who do bad things." Hitchcock had a morbid fear of police from that day on. He also cited this phobia as the reason he never learned to drive (as a person who doesn't drive can never be pulled over and given a ticket). It was also cited as the reason for the recurring "wrong man" themes in his films.
As a longstanding friend of Sidney Bernstein (the pair had formed production company Transatlantic Pictures together in the 1940s) Hitch was the first celebrity visitor to the set of long-running UK soap opera "Coronation Street" (1960), during a June 1964 visit to the Manchester studios of Granada Television which Bernstein co-founded with his brother Cecil.
As of the 5th edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (edited by Steven Jay Schneider), Hitchcock is the most represented director, with 18 films. Included are his films Blackmail (1929), The 39 Steps (1935), Sabotage (1936), Rebecca (1940), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Rope (1948), Strangers on a Train (1951), Rear Window (1954), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), The Wrong Man (1956), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960),
As with W.C. Fields and Arthur Godfrey before him, he was legendary for gently tweaking his sponsors during the run of his TV show. One typical example runs, "We now interrupt our story for an important announcement. I needn't tell you to whom it will be most important of all."
Asked writers Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac to write a novel for him after Henri-Georges Clouzot had been faster in buying the rights for "Celle qui n'était plus" which became Diabolique (1955). The novel they wrote, "From Among the Dead", was shot as Vertigo (1958).
Born only one day before his wife, Alma Reville
Directed 8 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, Judith Anderson, Albert Bassermann, Michael Chekhov, Claude Rains, Ethel Barrymore and Janet Leigh. Fontaine won an Oscar for Suspicion (1941).
Directed the pilot episode of the radio series "Suspense" which aired from 1942-1962, and made a brief appearance at the end. It was an adaptation of his 1927 film The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) and starred Herbert Marshall and Edmund Gwenn , who reprised his brother Arthur Chesney 's role as Mr. Bunting.
Due to his death in 1980, he never got to see Psycho II (1983) . It remains unsure as to whether or not he was approached regarding the second movie, or any other "Psycho (1960) -Expansion" motion picture.
During production of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (1955) he was said to have hid from producer Joan Harrison every time there was a problem with production. His favorite hiding place was behind the couch in his office.
Education: St. Ignatius College, London, School of Engineering and Navigation (Studied mechanics, electricity, acoustics and navigation); University of London (Studied art).