Deft biography captures Hitchcock's enigmatic essence
Biography: Alfred Hitchcock. By Peter Ackroyd. Chatto & Windus, €17.50.
Alfred Hitchcock was watching TV one day in the early 1960s. An advert for a diet drink came on where a blonde actor turned her head to the camera to acknowledge a wolf-whistle.
Hitchcock was transfixed. The next day, before he ever met or spoke to her, he offered the unknown actor a seven-year ...