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  • Hitchcock's Blondes

  • The Unforgettable Women Behind the Legendary Director's Dark Obsession
  • Written by: Laurence Leamer
  • Narrated by: Sharmila Devar
  • Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins

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Hitchcock's Blondes

Written by: Laurence Leamer
Narrated by: Sharmila Devar
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Publisher's Summary

Bestselling author of Capote’s Women Laurence Leamer shares an engrossing account of the enigmatic director Alfred Hitchcock that finally puts the dazzling actresses he cast in his legendary movies at the center of the story.

Alfred Hitchcock was fixated—not just on the dark, twisty stories that became his hallmark, but also by the blond actresses who starred in many of his iconic movies. The director of North by Northwest, Rear Window, and other classic films didn’t much care if they wore wigs, got their hair coloring out of a bottle, or were the rarest human specimen—a natural blonde—as long as they shone with a golden veneer on camera. The lengths he went to in order to showcase (and often manipulate) these women would become the stuff of movie legend. But the women themselves have rarely been at the center of the story, until now.

In Hitchcock’s Blondes, bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer offers an intimate journey into the lives of eight legendary actresses whose stories helped chart the course of the troubled, talented director’s career—from his early days in the British film industry, to his triumphant American debut, to his Hollywood heyday and beyond. Through the stories of June Howard-Tripp, Madeleine Carroll, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Janet Leigh, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, and Tippi Hedren—who starred in fourteen of Hitchcock’s most notable films and who bore the brunt of his fondness and sometimes fixation—we can finally start to see the enigmatic man himself. After all, “his” blondes (as he thought of them) knew the truths of his art, his obsessions and desires, as well as anyone.

From the acclaimed author of Capote’s Women comes an intimate, revealing, and thoroughly modern look at both the enduring art created by a man obsessed…and the private toll that fixation took on the women in his orbit.

©2023 Laurence Leamer (P)2023 Penguin Audio
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What the critics say

One of Entertainment Weekly’s 41 New Fall Books We’re Most Excited to Read
One of CrimeReads’ Most Anticipated Crime Reads of Fall 2023
One of PureWow’s 9 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in October

“Through their work and place as the prism for Hitchcock's obsessions and desires, we come to understand the inner workings of his mind—and how these women were key to constructing a legend of his own devising” —Entertainment Weekly

"Laurence Leamer peels away the glamour of Hollywood to detail the director’s troubling relationships with eight high-profile blonds who starred in his movies. Readers unfamiliar with Alfred Hitchcock’s methods will learn about his obsession with these women and, explicitly, how he controlled every aspect of their lives.” —Washington City Paper

“The bestselling author of Capote’s Women turns his focus to Alfred Hitchcock in his latest…In Hitchcock’s Blondes, Leamer offers an intimate look into the lives of eight legendary actresses—including Ingrid Bergman and Tippi Hedren—whose stories helped propel the troubled, talented director’s career forward, from Janet Leigh’s first marriage (when she was 14 years old) to forcing The 39 Steps star Madeline Carroll to rehearse while handcuffed and soaking wet.” —PureWow

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