November 30, 1959

Psycho Production Begins

Production begins on Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller Psycho.

starring Anthony Perkins as murderous hotelier Norman Bates. The film, released in June 1960, is considered one of Hitchcock’s most frightening, and the terrifying shower scene is still referenced today.

The son of a poultry dealer and fruit importer, Hitchcock started out designing silent-film title cards for the newly formed London branch of Hollywood’s Famous Players-Lasky Corp., which later became Paramount Pictures. He worked closely with screenwriters, who occasionally allowed him to direct a scene. He became an assistant director and was promoted to director in 1925. He married film editor and script girl Alma Reville the following year, with whom he wrote several screenplays.

Hitchcock continued to direct English suspense films, including The 39 Steps, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and The Lady Vanishes. In 1939, he moved to Hollywood to take advantage of American filmmaking technology. His first American movie, Rebecca, won the 1940 Oscar for Best Picture.

During the 1950s, he produced some of the most popular films of his career, including Psycho, The Birds, Vertigo, and Rear Window. He became renowned for his psychologically complicated thrillers. Psycho was such a success that Anthony Perkins appeared in three Psycho sequels in the 1980s and 1990s, though none were directed by Hitchcock.

Hitchcock won the Irving Thalberg Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1967 and the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award in 1979. The following year he was knighted, though he had long since become a United States citizen. He died in 1980.