What happened to Tippi Hedren while filming The Birds?

Tippi Hedren had a harrowing experience while filming the climactic scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 horror thriller, The Birds. Hedren’s character Melanie suffers a vicious on-camera attack by the birds in the scene.

Up until the day of filming, Hitchcock had promised her they’d use mechanical birds but on the day they started shooting, Hedren was informed by assistant director James H. Brown that “the mechanical birds aren’t working, so we’re going to have to use live ones.”

Hedren writes that she endured five days of filming where handlers hurled ravens, doves and a few pigeons at her: “It was brutal and ugly and relentless,” writes Hedren. On the final day of shooting the scene, live birds were loosely tied to Hedren’s costume while she laid on the floor.

The actress says when “Action!” was called, the birds that were tied to her started pecking her and the wranglers again threw live birds directly at her. Hedren’s only reprieve came late in the day when a bird tied to her shoulder pecked her too close to her eye and she snapped, told her director “I’m done,” and began sobbing from exhaustion.