Tippi Hedren Biography

Using her Scandinavian charms, the girl from Minnesota worked as a New York fashion model, until she married Peter Griffith in 1952, and gave birth to her first daughter, Melanie Griffith, before the couple split.

She married her second husband, Noel Marshall, in 1964, the same year she shot her second film, 'Marnie', co-starring Sean Connery, which achieved cult status as a quirky psychological thriller.

Contracted to Hitchcock’s home studio Universal, Tippi went on to make 'A Countess from Hong Kong' (1967), directed by Charlie Chaplin, and appeared in a succession of films over the next two decades.

Between her TV and film appearances, Tippi devoted herself to human rights, using her celebrity status to raise funds for several aid organizations.

Also close to her heart are wild animals. In 'Roar' (1981), Tippi starred opposite her daughter, under the direction of her then-husband, Noel Marshall, in a drama relating the family’s attempts to preserve African wildlife at the Shambala Preserve in California. Tippi continues to live in a cottage in the park, so she can wake to the roaring din of sixty big cats.