Sir Alfred HitchcockArticle Free Pass The son of a London
poultry dealer, Hitchcock attended St. Ignatius College, London,
and the University of London, where he studied engineering. In
1920 he began to work in the motion-picture industry, designing
title cards for the Famous Players-Lasky Company. Within a few
years he had become a scenario writer and an assistant director,
and he directed his first film (The Pleasure Garden) in 1925.
With The Lodger (1926), the story of a family who mistakenly
suspect their roomer to be Jack the Ripper, Hitchcock began
making the “thrillers” with which he was to become identified.
His Blackmail (1929) was the first successful British talking
picture. During the 1930s he directed such classic suspense
films as The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), The Thirty-nine Steps
(1935), Sabotage (1936), and The Lady Vanishes (1938). In 1939
Hitchcock left England for Hollywood, where his first film,
Rebecca (1940), won an Academy Award for best picture. During
the next three decades Hitch