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Did Alfred Hitchcock make a secret cameo appearance in drag?

by HarryDownes 3 months ago
Last updated 3 months ago.

Hitchcock-cameo-2 Alfred-hitchcock Hitchcock-cameo-3

Alfred Hitchcock may have made a secret cameo appearance as an old woman in one of his most famous films, fans believe.

I Have always been a fan of Alfred Hitchcock films but I thought I would post this as a matter of interest to any film buffs.

Debate is raging on movie message boards over whether a plump, jowly woman who briefly features as a train passenger in North by Northwest was actually the acclaimed film director in drag. Hitchcock was known for making quirky cameo appearances in his movies, but was never previously thought to have played a woman. The key scene comes around 44 minutes into North by Northwest, which was released in 1959. The woman, who is wearing a turquoise dress and blue and white hat, is one of several passengers who have their tickets checked by an inspector.

It is known from some of Hitch’s biographies that he wasn’t averse to dressing up as woman for the amusement of guests at his house.

If the woman is Hitchcock, it would be one of his longest cameo roles. Most of of his appearances, including one earlier in North by Northwest, are fleeting, but the old woman stays on screen for several seconds.

Do you think the woman is Alfred Hitchcock?

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  1. MikeCovell Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    It’s quite possible Harry, after all he did make cameo’s in most of his movies and was something of a practical joker.

    On the Internet Movie Database, Hitchcock is listed as "Man who misses bus" but I am sure it is him.

  2. YourMailWill Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    Good evening…

    Having seen it some time ago I can confirm that Hitch appears as ‘Man who misses bus’ in the opening moments of the film. Whether he plays the female train passenger as well, I do not know. Looking at the attached pictures, it certainly seems possible. Perhaps it was a female relative.

    Hitchcock was perhaps the most famous exponent of the director’s cameo. Who else have you spotted in front of the camera? Leading roles like Orson Welles in Citizen Kane don’t count.

  3. Mikey_forrester

    YourMailWill Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    For example, Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh appears as drug dealer Mikey Forrester in one scene of the film adaptation.

  4. MikeCovell Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    Kevin Smith is in all of his films. Tarantino appears in all his films. Robert Rodrigues appears in a number of his films. Speilberg appears in Jurassic Park, his face can be seen in the TV screen at the end of the movie. Other popular directors in their own movies include, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Michael Moore, Kenneth Brannagh, Peter Jackson, Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, M. Night Shamalayan, Michael Bay, Luc Besson, George Lucas, Sam Raimi, and Oliver Stone to name a few.

    Actors who direct have also starred in their own films, these include, Kevin Costner, Nicolas Cage, Danny Devito, Jodie Foster, Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, Stallone, Bill Murray, and many more.

    Writers often appear in movie adaptations, Stan Lee is in all the Marvel Films.

    Peter Benchley was the newsreader in Jaws.

  5. Lazarus Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    Kevin Smith stars in all his films. Hunter S. Thompson makes an appearance in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, although he probably thought it was a flashback.

  6. YourMailWill Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    I suppose I’m more interested in the small (often uncredited) roles rather than central characters. So Spielberg in Jurassic Park is more interesting than any Woody Allen role.

    The film 24 Hour Party People tells the story of the Manchester music scene from the late 70’s onwards through the eyes of Factory Records founder Tony Wilson, played by Steve Coogan. It has many cameos from people who were actually involved, including Paul Ryder (Happy Mondays), Mark E Smith (The Fall), Howard De Voto (Magazine), Clint Boon (Inspiral Carpets), Mani (Stone Roses)and Wilson himself.

  7. MikeCovell Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    Francis Ford Coppola directed Godfather and in the christening scene were all the heads of the five familes get "Wacked" the baby is Sofia Coppola, his daughter.

    She went on to appear in Godfather 3 and became a director in her own right.

  8. YourMailWill Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    You’ve just reminded me: FFC briefly appeared in his Vietnam film Apocalypse Now. In an amusing choice of roles, he plays a documentary film maker, who instructs the soldiers to act natural and ignore the camera.

  9. Lazarus Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    At the beginning of The Hours the author Michael Cunningham makes a cameo appearance. Although, due to ‘time constraints’, his conversation with Streep was cut, and so he ends up looking like some smiling lunatic waving at Streep.

  10. MikeCovell Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    Eli Roth, Director of the Horror movie "The Hostel" appears in the film….as a severed head!

  11. YourMailWill Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    The Julia Roberts movie Erin Brockovich contains a cameo by the real Erin Brockovich, playing a waitress named Julia.

    Similarly Tom Hanks plays Jim Lovell in Apollo 13, and is seen at the end of the film shaking hands with a senior NASA official played by the real Lovell.

  12. Maria-guitar-460_781627c

    Rosy Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    The real Maria von Trapp appeared in the Sound of Music. I believe it was during the market scene where the youngest child dropped a tomato.

  13. HarryDownes Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    Hitchcock made several cameo roles in most of his films. In the film-THE BIRDS, 2 minutes into the film,he is seen leaving a pet shop with two white terrier dogs as Tippi Hendren enters.In the film-PSYCHO, he is seen 4 minutes in, through Janet Leigh’s window as she returns to her office. He is wearing a cowboy hat.

  14. MikeCovell Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    A few years ago (back in the days of vhs) there was a re-release of Hitchcocks films. Each one had a not on the back and a picture showing his cameo appearance!

  15. HarryDownes Submitted 3 months ago Unsuitable Content? Report it!

    Alfred Hitchcock had many critics and some believed that there was a dark side to his personality In his best-selling biography of Alfred Hitchcock,Donald Spoto claimed that the celebrated film director of the macabre as a man in the grip of uncontrollable impulses. Hitchcock’s pathological urges, according to Spoto,included sadistic tendencies, and fantasies of rape; other fetishes about sex and the body; mother fixation; and phobias toward women. Hitchcock sought a certain type of female star, blond and cold, because he felt audiences had a greater sexual interest for example such stars as Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly, He attempted to dominate such actresses as Vera Miles and Tippi Hedren, interfering in their home lives and finally, propositioning Hedren and threatening her career when she rejected him.

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