Look at his Hollywood films and you can see that the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock loved flowers.
The next time you watch “Vertigo,” you'll find a ton of floral references – there are probably more in "Vertigo” than in any of his other films.
That said, they also pop up in “Rear Window” and of course at the flower market in “To Catch a Thief.” Once you start looking for flowers in his movies, you might be surprised at how often they appear. I imagine that one reason they appealed to him so much is because they are such a fabulous source of rich and varied color.
Extremely fastidious about every visual element, he created elaborate storyboards for his films and flowers definitely would have been important details.
Hitch and his wife Alma Reville Hitchcock liked flowers off-screen as well. Their daughter Pat O’Connell writes: “My parents never forgot their friends’ birthdays. They would have flowers (I remember azalea plants, anthuriums, red roses and/or wine) delivered to the special people in their life.”
That’s from Pat O’Connell’s book, “Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man.” Born only a day apart in 1899, the couple met in England in the early 1920s and worked together on films for nearly 50 years.
Co-written with Laurent Bouzereau, the book is a fun and chatty read.
When Alfred Hitchcock won the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award in 1979, a year before he died, he had this to say: "I beg permission to mention by name only four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation, encouragement and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter Pat, and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen. And their names are Alma Reville."
An added bonus: The book includes some of Alma’s favorite menus and recipes.
Flower Fact of the Day: This year’s Chelsea Flower Show has “let its hair down.” To read more and see pictures from the show, visit: telegraph.co.uk/gardening/main.jhtml?xml=/gardening/2008/05/21/garden-chelsea-green119.xml.
And for the fashionista parts of the show (Susannah Hunter’s lovely floral-accented bag, for one) see: vogue.co.uk/news/daily/080519-chelsea-flower-show-2008.aspx.
