Patricia Hitchcock, in 'Strangers on a train'.
For decades she complained that her father did not believe in nepotism, but the actress Patricia Hitchcock, the daughter of the master of suspense and the editor and screenwriter Alma Reville, will be remembered above all for her works with her father, as
Strangers in a train
or
psychosis.
On Monday, the interpreter died at the age of 93 in Thousand Oaks (California), as announced by one of her three daughters, Katie O'Connell.
More information
Alfred Hitchcock, from A to Z
Alfred Hitchcock: so fat, so twisted, so cool
Hitchcock was born in 1928 in London, when his father was already a renowned filmmaker and his mother had passed from an editor to the director's right hand. She grew up in Los Angeles, where the family moved in 1939 and there Patricia decided to become an actress, so she started working in plays as a teenager. She made her Broadway debut in
Violet,
before her father decided she had to study in London (Patricia preferred an
American
college
). Back in the US, he began on television in 1949 with the telefilm
The Case of Thomas Pyke.
His first film character came the following year in a film by his father,
Panic on the Scene.
Patricia Hitchcock will be remembered mostly for her character as Barbara Morton, a funny, talkative, and bespectacled girl in
Strangers on a Train
(1951).
Patricia Hitchcock, with her father on the set of 'Strangers on a Train' Collection Christophel / Warner Bros / Prod.DB / imago images
Credited as Pat Hitchcock, she appeared in 10 episodes of her father's television series (she herself said they called her whenever they needed “a maid with an English accent”), and in other series such as
Suspense, Suspense, My Little Margie, Matinee Theater
or
Living with Riley.
Also in 1956 she played a courtesan in
The Ten Commandments,
by Cecil B. DeMille when we have the information.
All these jobs were carried out after marrying Joseph O'Connell - whom she had met on a cruise ship with his parents in Italy in 1950 - in 1952 and being the mother of three daughters, which prompted her in 1960 to give up acting. and dedicate himself to taking care of them.
His last character from that period was that of Marion's officemate (Janet Leigh), the one who offers to share tranquilizers, in
Psycho
(1960).
Patricia Hitchcock, with her parents on the set of 'Psycho'.
Patricia Hitchcock would return to act for pleasure, with her grown daughters, in two telefilms,
Ladies of the Corridor
(1975) and
Six Characters in Search of an Author
(1976), an adaptation of Pirandello's work transferred to the world of television, and in the movie
Skateboard (The super-stars of the skateboard)
(1978). In an interview in
The Washington Post
in the eighties, Pat Hitchcock said that his father was opposed to nepotism, and that is why he did not work on any more of his father's films. He did contribute to
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine,
and in 2003 he co-wrote with Laurent Bouzereau the biography of his mother
Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man,
in which he vindicated Alma Reville and underlined her influence on the decisions and work of Alfred Hitchcock.