Dakota Johnson, Tippi Hedren, Alfred Hitchcock.Photo: Gabe Ginsberg/Getty; Greg Doherty/Getty; Ron Tom/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
Dakota Johnsonis opening up about her grandmotherTippi Hedren’s experiences working in Hollywood.
TheFifty Shades of Greystar sat down for a live taping ofThe Hollywood Reporter’s “Awards Chatter” podcastwhere she said Hedren— the mother of actressMelanie Griffith— “was encouraging” of her when it came to pursuing an acting career despite the abuse she endured in the industry.
“She’s always been really honest and firm about standing up for yourself. That’s what she did,” Johnson said. “[Alfred] Hitchcock ruined her career because she didn’t want to sleep with him, and he terrorized her. He was never held accountable.”
“It’s completely unacceptable for people in a position of power to wield that power over someone in a weaker position, no matter the industry,” Johnson continued, growing emotional. “It’s hard to talk about because she’s my grandmother. You don’t want to imagine somebody taking advantage of your grandmother.”
Tippi Hedren inThe Birds.Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
“I think the thing that she’s been so amazing for me and with my mother is just like, no you do not put up with that s— from anybody,” she said. “She would say it in a far more eloquent way. She’s such a glamorous movie star, still.”
Hedren recounted her experiences with Hitchcock, who died in 1980, in her memoir, saying the director would have his driver drive past her home and had once asked Hedren to “touch him” while they were working onThe Birds.
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She also said the director once tried to force her to kiss him in the back of a limo, writing in the book, “It was an awful, awful moment.”
Hedren wrote she didn’t tell anyone of the assault because “sexual harassment and stalking were terms that didn’t exist” in the early 1960s.
Dakota Johnson, Tippi Hedren, Melanie Griffith and Stella Banderas.Michael Kovac/Getty
The actress said things escalated once again when she worked with the filmmaker onMarnie, writing of one instance where he showed up at her dressing room and “put his hands on me.”
“It was sexual, it was perverse,” Hedren wrote of the incident.
In May 2020, Johnson revealed during an interview onThe Graham Norton ShowthatHedren continued to live with tigers and lionsin her home.
“She has 13 or 14,” Johnson said. “There used to be like 60 cats, and now there’s just a couple.”
source: people.com
