He's been immortalized in bronze, yet his films still seem fresh and modern to moviegoers around the world.

Web posted on:
Friday, August 13, 1999 7:10:16 PM EST

By Kristin Lemmerman
CNN Interactive Entertainment Editor

In this story: A Catholic upbringing Getting established Acclaim and awards RELATED STORIES, SITES

(CNN) -- He's been dead for nearly 20 years, and yet the monumental body of work Alfred Hitchcock left behind continues not only to inspire and influence filmmakers, but also to pack box-office punch. Witness, just last year, the re-release of "The Birds," and Gus Van Sant's (insert your personal opinion here) remake of "Psycho."

And with the 100th anniversary of his birth on Friday, a flurry of retrospectives are taking advantage of the enduring popularity of his best pieces, bringing them to the big screen, some for the first time in many years.

Among a few of the offerings:

  • The Museum of Modern Art, both in New York and in Oxford, England, is holding a retrospective; the Oxford series runs through October 3, and the New York series through August 17.

Janet Leigh is among the Hitchcock alumnae making the rounds for his 100th birthday

  • New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in New York City is holding a conference titled "Hitchcock: A Centennial Celebration," October 13 through 17, with participants including Tippi Hedren ("The Birds") and Janet Leigh ("Psycho").

  • The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is screening his classic pictures from August 26 through September 11 in that museum's retrospective, "Slices of Cake: The World According to Hitchcock." On their list: "North by Northwest," "The 39 Steps," "The Lady Vanishes," "Suspicion," a 70-mm print of "Vertigo" and two films inspired by Hitchcock -- François Truffaut's "Mississippi Mermaid" ("La Sirène du Mississippi," 1969) and Brian De Palma's "Obsession" (1976).

  • The British Film Institute in London is observing the centennial with "The Ultimate Hitchcock," a two-month festival of screenings at the National Film Theatre, featuring major restorations of two of his British silent films, "The Lodger" (1926) and "The Ring" (1927).

  • And the Museum of Television & Radio in Los Angeles is holding "A Centennial Salute: Hitchcock by Hitchcock" from August 13 through September 12.

That's not even mentioning the host of TV specials -- most notably, Encore's 24-hour Hitchcock film marathon the weekend of August 14, with its one-hour biopic "Dial 'H' for Hitchcock" narrated by Kevin Spacey. There are commemorative Web pages, key among them Universal's Hitchcock site. And, of course, there are books focusing on the legacy of this enigmatic filmmaker.

Looking back: From Catholic schoolboy to master of suspense Analysis: Bad-news scenarios were his good fortune Hitchcock's best: The CNN.com Top 10 list The Portfolio: Hitchcock's complete works First Chapter: 'Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho'

Hitchcock was born August 13, 1899, the third and youngest son of Emma and William, a London poultry dealer and fruit importer. He was raised in a strict, religious household, and educated in the Jesuit school St. Ignatius College.

His father apparently was a firm disciplinarian, as reflected by one of Hitchcock's better-known stories of growing up. As he told François Truffaut, then a young biographer: "I must have been 4 or 5 years old. My father sent me to the police station with a note. The chief of police read it and locked me in a cell for five or 10 minutes, saying, 'This is what we do to naughty boys.'"

This tale has been attributed to his recurring theme of the fear of false imprisonment, perhaps most evident in 1956's "The Wrong Man," in which Henry Fonda plays an innocent man sent to jail because he resembles a criminal.

His films may also have been colored by Hitchcock's Catholic upbringing, at a time when Catholics in England weren't popular. Some attribute his outsider characters in "Psycho" (1960) and "I Confess" (1953) to this upbringing.

In any case, Hitchcock entered the film industry in 1920 as a designer of titles for the newly formed London branch of Hollywood's Famous Players-Lasky (Paramount). Before long he was head of the title department. He'd begun to work in assistant direction, art direction and screenwriting when the studio was bought up by another firm in 1922.

In 1925, he was promoted to director, and his film career began. While he worked on an Anglo-German production, "The Pleasure Garden," and directed a two-reel feature film, "Number Thirteen" (it was never completed), "The Lodger" (1926) was the one he considered his first true film, and also the first in which he appeared as an extra. Cameo roles would later become a Hitchcock trademark -- and spotting them would become a sideline passion among fans.

A year after he gained the title of director, Hitchcock married film editor Alma Reville; she'd become his screenwriting collaborator and they would remain married until his death on April 29, 1980.

Over the course of the next 50 years, Hitchcock spun a remarkably consistent thread of suspenseful stories, which earned him six Oscar nominations for best director. He never won. He drew top actors -- from Cary Grant and Doris Day to Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich and James Stewart. And he was a top box-office draw, himself, from his first Oscar nod, 1940's "Rebecca," through 1966's Cold War drama, "Torn Curtain."

He also headed up two television series that bore his name, starting on CBS in 1955. Where that series, first called "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and later titled "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour," left off, a show by the same name picked up again on NBC, running into 1965 with the same format of half-hour mystery and melodramas.

Some say Hitchcock's "Psycho," with its terrifying shower scene, released in 1960, inspired the entire slasher-horror genre.

Not until 1968 did the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally give Hitchcock a statuette, honoring him with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement. In 1979, the American Film Institute also gave him a lifetime achievement award.

But along the way, awards or no, directors have taken notice of Hitch's use of suspense, plot twists and dramatic camera shots. On the individual level, Martin Scorsese is just one director who's paid tribute to Hitchcock: He once wrote of "Vertigo" that it "is ... important to me -- 'essential' would be more like it -- because it has a hero driven purely by obsession. I've always been attracted in my own work to heroes motivated by obsession, and on that level, 'Vertigo' strikes a deep chord in me every time I see it."

In terms of industry impact, some critics say "Psycho" inspired the entire slasher genre, including the "Friday the 13th" series. (Jamie Lee Curtis worked with her "Psycho"-starring mother Janet Leigh in last year's "Halloween H₂0: Twenty Years Later," in a clear tribute to the master.)

When he died in 1980 at 80 years old, Hitchcock was remembered with a Mass in Beverly Hills; Leigh, Hedren, Karl Malden of "I Confess" and Jane Wyman of "Stage Fright" (1950) were in attendance. Ingrid Bergman and Sir John Mills attended a Requiem Mass at Westminster Cathedral for the filmmaker later that year.

"There was nobody like him, and he'll be hard to replace," Stewart said at the time. "I've lost a wonderful friend. The world has lost a tremendous contribution to the art of film and to millions and millions of people."