Alfred Hitchcock

Steven Spielberg was said to be hugely disappointed that he never got to meet his hero, Alfred Hitchcock, before the 'Master of Suspense' died in 1980. But this failure to get together was not from want of trying on Spielberg's behalf.

In his audio book Tales of Hollywood, storyteller Stephen Schochet explains that Hitchcock's morning routine was once "upset by an uninvited young man hovering around the movie set" of his last film Family Plot, released in 1976. According to Schochet, that intruder was Spielberg, buoyed by the success of Jaws and anxious to meet his idol.

Throughout his later life, Hitchcock repeatedly refused to meet Spielberg. The reason for his reluctance was only revealed when American actor Bruce Dern, who appeared in two of Hitchcock's films, released his autobiography. Dern said that he tried to convince Hitchcock to finally introduce himself to Spielberg, but Hitchcock refused, wrote Dern. "He said, 'Isn't that the boy who made the fish movie? I could never sit down and talk to him... because I look at him and feel like such a whore.'"

Bemused, Dern finally elicited Hitchcock's reasoning: "I said, 'Why do you feel Spielberg makes you a whore?' Hitch said, 'Because I'm the voice of the Jaws ride [at the Universal Studios theme park]. They paid me a million dollars. And I took it and I did it.'" Enjoli Liston