When Alfred Hitchcock cast his leading men, they were as charming and dignified off the screen as they were in his films. These actors exuded style and grace from Cary Grant to Paul Newman, setting them apart from most Hollywood men of that era. The scripts were ahead of their time, and Hitchcock chose actors that complimented the writing, leaving an indelible mark on his legacy.
10 Anthony Perkins
Paramount Pictures
Psycho (1960) horrified moviegoers, and Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates terrified his audience. The young actor’s innate boyish charm makes viewers sympathize with the killer. Bates’ kindness instinctively twitches as quickly as a nose tickled by a hair. Perkins had less swagger than most of Hitchcock’s male leads (and female leads) but coveted more intensity than nearly any actor the director starred in his films.
9 Sean Connery
Universal Pictures
The 1964 psychological thriller, Marnie, gave audiences a delightful surprise — Sean Connery. Connery plays Mark, who falls in love with Marnie (Tippi Hedren) — a con and a thief suffering from childhood trauma. The subject is undoubtedly ahead of its timeframe, but Connery never appears out of place. Mark marries Marnie to monitor her whereabouts, and their honeymoon turns dark as Mark rips his bride’s nightgown off in frustration at her barring him from her body. Settling into the character with his James Bond image, Hitchcock uses it and doesn’t demand the debonair Connery stray too far away from 007. The Bond actor is just as headstrong and in command as viewers saw him in From Russia with Love and Dr. No. Connery gives a stellar performance and lives up to his suave identity that Bond enthusiasts love and the gem Hitchcock fans discover.
8 James Stewart
Standing at 6 foot 3 inches tall and considered handsome by many of his fans, James Stewart and Hitchcock did four films together — Rope (1948), Rear Window (1954), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), and Vertigo (1958) — all of which Stewart gifted his worldly wit and distinct magnetism. Without a leading lady in Rope, Stewart played the charismatic professor who led two of his students to believe he was serious about killing those deemed as society’s weight.
In Rear Window, Hitchcock delivered a special treat — Grace Kelly as Steward’s leading lady. Immobilized throughout the entire film, Steward manages to thrill audiences, using his desirability to make audiences fall for his character. His dynamic facial illustrations pulled viewers into the script about a wheelchair-bound man who witnesses a murder in an apartment across the courtyard from his living quarters.
7 Cary Grant
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
If ever there was a man who could have portrayed an impeccable James Bond, it was Cary Grant. Perhaps his age prevented him from playing the suave 007, but he did choose to collaborate on four movies with Alfred Hitchcock. Grant didn’t merely play the characters, he became them, holding onto a piece of each with every Hitchcock movie. Born Archibald Leach, the actor said, “Even I want to be Cary Grant. I have spent the greater part of my life fluctuating between Archie Leach and Cary Grant, unsure of either, suspecting each. I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally, I became that person. Or he became me.” And for that reason, Grant was Hitchcock’s favorite actor. Hitch, as Grant called him, invited the actor to play the guy falling for a jewel thief (To Catch a Thief) and a promiscuous woman (Notorious), chased by planes (North by Northwest), and suspected of murdering his wife (Suspicion). And he performed these roles while dressed to the nines and being an Adonis.
6 Paul Newman
Warner Bros.
The espionage Hitchcock’s film, Torn Curtain starring Paul Newman released in 1966. Newman was a method actor and student at The Actors Studio, along with Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Fonda, and many others, including his second wife, Joanne Woodward, whom he began dating while married. His extra-marital affair never imposed on the actor’s talent, professionalism, and ideology. Newman marched during the civil rights movement, was pro-gay rights, and publicly stated his political stance. The ten-times-Oscar-nominated actor (winning for The Color of Money) said in an interview, “I’m a supporter of gay rights. And not a closet supporter either. From the time I was a kid, I have never been able to understand attacks upon the gay community. There are so many qualities that make up a human being… by the time I get through with all the things that I really admire about people, what they do with their private parts is probably so low on the list that it is irrelevant.”
Newman rarely did a film that didn’t reference his good looks in a script. This attribute qualified him as a leading man for a Hitchcock film. The Hitchcock-Newman film created interesting discussions between Hitch and the press — Professor Michael Armstrong (Newman) takes four-minute to strangle a man in a scene. According to IMDB, Hitch said, “[I] included the fight scene deliberately to show the audience how difficult it can be to kill a man because several spy thrillers at the time made killing look effortless.” And effortless was Newman’s acting style. Whether playing the prisoner that all the other convicts thought was cool in Cool Hand Luke or hustling pool in The Hustler, Newman made acting appear elementary and life interesting.
5 Henry Fonda
United Artists
Fans recognize Henry Fonda as a man of few words and an acting virtuoso. Hitchcock cast him in The Wrong Man — based on a story about a lower-class family man and musician mistakenly accused of a crime. There was an innocence about Fonda that gracefully transferred into films. Hitchcock said, “What makes the whole ordeal even more dreadful is that when he protests his innocence, all the people around him are very nice about it, saying, ‘Yes of course!’” That’s why Fonda was necessary for the role. The character and film demand subtly in the actor, and in The Wrong Man, like The Grapes of Wrath and Twelve Angry Men (neither directed by Hitchcock), Hitch focused on the absence of charisma, which isn’t a slight when describing Fonda.
4 Rod Taylor
CBS Television Distribution
Released in 1963, Rod Taylor (Mitch Brenner) co-stars in the Hitch film The Birds. In a change of pace in Hitchcock movies, the woman, Tippi Hedren (Melanie Daniels) falls in love with the male character at first sight. Taylor was a ruggedly handsome man, who Hitchcock personally called to play the role, for Mitch had to possess the look that would make the audience question why he was single. The actor welcomed the role and enjoyed learning from Hitchcock. Taylor said about working with the director:
3 Farley Granger
Farley Granger was the timid killer in Hitchcock’s Rope and blackmailed husband in Strangers on a Train. In Rope, Phillip Morgan (Granger) needs convincing by his roommate to kill a former schoolmate they believe is of lesser intelligence. But Morgan’s conscience takes over and is brilliantly conveyed by Granger — the profuse sweating, the shaky voice, the stretching of the eyes — and the audience’s heart races with Granger as he increasingly shows viewers he’s not the murdering type.
I didn’t say all the right things. I remember that. I said I hope the birds and things don’t kind of totally out shadow the people. Of course, that’s the story… they’re supposed to. So that was number one. Wrong. But then we really talked about making movies and how I loved it, and how I was interested in his work. I brought that up and said the right thing. And we just got on extremely well. That was it. We didn’t get into any deep discussions about the movie itself at all. No “What do you think of the character?” — none of that. It was taken for granted that I loved it and wanted to work with him and I was absolutely flattered and astonished that he wouldn’t mind working with the kid… then.
Hitchcock had an appreciation for the tall, dark, and handsome leading man for his movies, and he won the total package in Granger. Strangers on a Train involves Guy Haines (Granger), who unknowingly and serendipitously entangles himself in a quid pro quo with a murderer on the train — the stranger will murder Haines’ wife if Haines murders his — which is the epitome of Hitchcock cinema.
2 Ray Milland
Turner Classic Movies
Fans know Ray Milland as the duplicitous villain in roles outside of Hitchcock films. In Dial M for Murder (1954), Tony Wendice (Milland) orchestrates a conniving plot to murder his wife, and through it all, his personality is unwavering. The wisdom in this performance is that Milland is as cool at the beginning of his arrogant scheme as he is in his capture.
If fans are wondering why wasn’t Cary Grant summoned for the role that required smoothness, he was. According to IMDB, Hitchcock initially wanted Grant. The actor refused to play a villain. The part delighted Milland, and he left moviegoers enamored.
1 Montgomery Clift
Montgomery Clift was a Hollywood hunk until a car accident altered his face. Three years before the collision, Hitch cast Clift in I Confess — a film about a priest falsely accused of murder. Father Michael (Clift) is the only one who knows the true killer because the murderer confesses to him. Bound by the cloth, he remains silent.
A real-life secret tormented Clift. The actor was gay.Vanity Fair labels him as a “posthumous gay icon.” As an actor, directors expect performers to bleed in front of a camera, using pain, embarrassment, and humiliation as tools to get the job done. Clift’s expressive eyes always looked like buckets full of emotions, anxiously waiting to spill onto a stage or in a film for his audience. Perhaps he used this complicated matter of homosexuality as his muse. While many Hollywood insiders knew Clift’s closeted status, it became public knowledge years after the actor died in 1966. According to Vanity Fair, during the zenith of Clift’s career, the lack of public, intimate relationships with women sparked conversations about Clift’s sexual preference. The magazine reported, “When a columnist asked if he had any hobbies, Clift replied, ‘Yes, women.’ But as the years passed, it became more and more clear that Clift wasn’t just picky. He was, at least in the press, something approaching asexual.”
