Introducing 'Tippi' Hedren

One morning in 1961, Alfred Hitchcock watched the Today Show on NBC and saw a commercial which would not only change his life, but irrevocably the life of the actress in the commercial. The actress' name was Tippi Hedren. She explains in an interview with Joe Bob Briggs:

And he saw one particular . . .
TIPPI: One of them was a Pet milk product called Sego. It was a diet drink. And it was a story line; it wasn't just holding up a product and talking about it. It was a story and apparently he saw it.
But what exactly did you do in the commercial to make such an impression?
TIPPI: Apparently, the action that attracted him was I'm walking down the street and a little boy whistles at me and I turn to react to him and smile, and that's what apparently caught his eye.
Really?
TIPPI: Yeah.
If you look at all his leading ladies, like Grace Kelly and Kim Novak and Eva Marie Saint and Janet Leigh, he had a thing for blondes didn't he?
TIPPI: Oh didn't he?

Some screenshots of that very commercial can be found in this elegant French 'Tippi' Hedren site (yet another tribute site!), which also has shots from some of her screen tests (directed by Hitchcock himself), along with plenty of production stills and publicity shots from The Birds and Marnie. If you're not familiar with the strange relationship between Hitchcock and Hedren, here's a recent interview with Hedren from the Times Online (the title of which, "The birds attacked me but Hitch was scarier". should give you a clue.