This day in history: Happy heavenly birthday, Alfred Hitchcock!

Nourhan SandoukThu, August 13, 2026 at 9:56 AM UTC

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His films offered an intimate gaze into the strangest and sometimes darkest places. Alfred Hitchcock was born in Leytonstone, part of what is now called the Cockney area of London.

Hitchcock worked in the sales department at W.T. Henley’s Telegraph Works Company until 1918, when he moved to the advertising department.

After that, Hitchcock decided to take drawing and design classes at the University of London, which helped him land a spot designing title cards for silent films at the American film company Famous Players–Lasky.

When the company closed down its British branch in 1922, he worked on films for independent producers and started working as an art director, production designer, editor, assistant director, and writer.

His first film was the comedy Mrs. Peabody in 1922, but he couldn’t finish it for lack of funding.  A year after he released his first film, Always Tell Your Wife, which he co-directed with its star Seymour Hicks, but he didn’t receive credit.

After two years, he directed The Pleasure Garden, his first solo-directed film, followed by The Mountain Eagle. Then, in 1927, his film The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog was released, which both he and cinema students see as his first real work.

After that came Hitchcock’s first talking picture, Blackmail, in 1929. One of the biggest hits in England at the time, it became the first British film to use synchronized sound after the completed silent version was dubbed and some parts reshot.

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In 1934 Hitchcock signed with Gaumont-British. His first film with them was The Man Who Knew Too Much; it also marked his first international success.

The ‘50s and early ‘60s were his major time. He directed some of his most important films, Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960).

In 1955, he began hosting the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, a classic American series with drama, thriller, and mystery, which aired on CBS and NBC.

Hitchcock died on April 29, 1980, at age 80, from kidney failure at his home in Los Angeles.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”