Tippi Hedren stunned by Toby Jones' Hitchcock

Actress Tippi Hedren froze with terror the first time she heard Toby Jones' pitch-perfect Alfred Hitchcock voice for new movie The Girl - because it brought back awful memories of her time with the movie mogul.

Hedren filmed The Birds and Marnie with Hitchcock and now she's using the new TV biopic about the revered director to reveal all about what a tyrant he was on movie sets - if he didn't get his own way.

The 82-year-old star claims Hitchcock tried to romance her and when she spurned him, he turned life on set into a living hell.

She says, "When I first heard Toby's voice as Alfred Hitchcock, my body just froze. It was hard to go through all of those years that had been eclipsed into an hour and a half. HBO (network bosses) very graciously granted me a screening for 30 of my friends, and at the end of it, nobody moved. Nobody said anything until my daughter, Melanie Griffith, jumped up and said, 'Now I have to go back into therapy.'

"I had not talked about this issue with Alfred Hitchcock to anyone. Because all those years ago, it was still the studio kind of situation. Studios were the power. And I was at the end of that, and there was absolutely nothing I could do legally whatsoever. There were no laws about this kind of a situation. If this had happened today, I would be a very rich women."

Hedren can only hope that young actresses see the film and take a stand against demanding directors: "I hope that young women who do see this film know that they do not have to acquiesce to anything that they do not feel is morally right or that they are dissatisfied with or simply wanting to get out of that situation, that you can have a strength, and you deserve it."

And she only wishes more of Hitchcock's leading women came forward with their on-set horror stories, adding, "I know Kim Novak, and she never said a word about anything wrong. I didn't bring it up. I really didn't talk about this issue for such a very, very long time.

"While we were doing The Birds - because this manifestation happened during the latter part of filming The Birds - I remember Suzanne Pleshette saying to me, because I was a newcomer in the business; she said, 'It isn't always like this.'

"As far as I know, Vera Miles had a terrible time with Hitchcock, and she wanted to get out of the contract. He didn't let her. She did Psycho, and I believe there isn't one close-up of Vera, not one. But she would never even speak about him to anyone. So I think it is common knowledge that Hitchcock had fantasies or whatever you want to call them about his leading ladies, which is very confining.

"Peggy Robertson, his assistant for so many years, and I remained friends until she died, and she, at one point, said to me that he would have these kind of feelings for his leading ladies, and she said, 'But he never got over you'."

The actress is portrayed by Sienna Miller in the film, which chronicles Hitchcock's treatment of Hedren.