Bruce Dern's New Book Tells Of Strange Hitchcock-Jaws Episode
Filed under: Classics, Horror, Thrillers, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Movie Marketing
Half way through the following article, I had to stop, rewind and somehow digest the fact that I just read a sentence in which legendary director Alfred Hitchcock called himself a "whore" with regards to his involvement in Steven Spielberg's "fish movie," Jaws. In his new memoir, Things I've Said, But Probably Shouldn't Have, actor Bruce Dern tells of the time he attempted to introduce Alfred Hitchcock to a then up-and-coming director Steven Spielberg.
At the time, Spielberg was coming off Jaws and desperately wanted to meet his idol, Hitchcock. Yet, when Hitchcock refused, Dern was determined to find out why -- and, here's how he said Hitchcock replied: "Because I'm the voice of the Jaws ride [at Universal Studios]. They paid me a million dollars. And I took it and I did it. I'm such a whore. I can't sit down and talk to the boy who did the fish movie . . . I couldn't even touch his hand." Whoa. First off, I had no idea Hitchcock lent his voice to that ride, did you? Secondly, it appears to me as if Hitchcock might have been a bit jealous of Spielberg and Jaws -- forced to take a massive pay day for voice over work on a theme park ride, only to go sneak into a corner and watch Jaws become one of the greatest horror flicks in history.
Of course, Hitchcock passed away in 1980 and was never able to witness (with the exception of Jaws 2 in 1978) the way in which the Jaws franchise was whored out to the moviegoing public over the years. Man, I'd love to know what he would've said about Jaws 3-D.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-31-2007 @ 2:29AM
GhaleonQ said...
Someone humbled Hitchcock?
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1-31-2007 @ 2:40PM
ben small said...
I don't know if he was jealous, but I think Hitchcock was probably depressed about the changing nature of movies in the mid-70s that forced he and other greats of the past (Orson "No Wine Before Its Time" Welles, notably) to whore themselves out to stay in the business - after all, Bruce Dern knew him from starring in Family Plot which was a failure. But, I think with his ego and the wave of adulation that was rising for Hitch at that time, he was jealous of no one.
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2-02-2007 @ 12:14AM
Wambo Cambo said...
Hitchcock was actually the voice on the Universal Studios TV spots here in LA during the early to mid-70's. It can only be this that he is referring to.
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