Norman Lloyd Recalls Storied Work With Hitchcock

Veteran Actor-Producer-Director Had Long Association With Director

Oct 1, 2009

Norman Lloyd's remarkable film career has spanned seven decades and included filmmakers from Hitchcock and Chaplin to contemporary directors including Peter Weir.

Norman Lloyd pops up on television Friday, Oct. 2, adding thoughtful insights to the comprehensive, excellent Turner Classic Movies' special A Night at the Movies: The Suspenseful World of Thrillers.

Norman Lloyd's Career Diverse

Lloyd has a unique perspective. In his early twenties, he worked closely with Orson Welles and John Houseman on Broadway. Later, he appeared in Charlie Chaplin's Limelight.

But for decades, Lloyd was closely associated with Sir Alfred Hitchcock -- starting in 1942 when he played the villain in the director's thriller Saboteur. Later, as a television executive, Lloyd supervised Hitchcock's long-running series.

Lloyd never stopped acting. And he has a long list of TV credits as a director, producer, executive producer and actor. The shame is that too many people only remember him as Dr. Daniel Auschlander on the long-running 1980s TV series St. Elsewhere.

At 94, Lloyd remains enthusiastic and busy. In a recent interview with Suite101, he reflected on an astonishing career. In Part One, Lloyd discusses Sir Alfred Hitchcock:

S101: Hitchcock -- you worked for him in front of and behind the camera. Which did you have more fun doing?

Norman Lloyd: There was no difference. I mean, it was fun either way, so far as I was concerned. I loved working in front of the camera for him, and I love working behind the camera. He was a joy. I mean, he was not only a man of enormous talent and knowledge of pictures, but he was a fun guy! With some outlandish jokes. Very dry, very English. And we hit it off from the word "go."

Way back in 1942, I was recommended by John Houseman to go up and see him for this part. You see, Hitchcock and Houseman both worked for David O. Selznick. And Hitchcock asked Houseman, who was vice president for Selznick of international films, he asked John Houseman if he knew of an actor who could play a heavy, but he didn't want a familiar face.

And Houseman recommended me because we had worked together at the Mercury Theatre with Orson Welles. So that connection got me to Hitchcock. And from the word "go," we hit it off, and I really loved him, and I loved his family. His wife Alma was a dream, was marvelous.

She did a lot of work on all of his scripts, didn't she? Wasn't she deeply involved in them?

Hitchcock would never ship a picture until he saw it alone with her...And they couldn't ship it until she said it was okay. Now, you know the great story of Psycho? He had that running with her, that final running with just her. And she said when the lights came up in the projection room, "You cannot ship it."

She said, "Because when Janet Leigh was lying dead in the bathroom, in the famous pull-back shot, she swallowed once.

Now, nobody spotted that. Hitch didn't. The cutter didn't. The assistant cutter didn't. The sound department. The music department. None of the departments spotted that. The only one who spotted that was Mrs. Hitchcock. So they withdrew, and took out one frame, and then shipped the picture.

Lloyd addressed Hitchcock's penchant for using American landmarks in his thrillers, in particular the Statue of Liberty in Saboteur and Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest:

I was thinking about the symbolic nature of all these places that he used, and how American they are.

Well, you're very sensitive and you got it. The thing is, if one looks at Saboteur again, which was made in 1942, when the war was on, you realize that this was -- Hitch would never call this a "political" picture. He did not believe in "political pictures." His whole feeling was, "I don't like that social content in movies. I make entertainment." To use Graham Greene's phrase. But...if you look at Saboteur again, you've got a political picture. Not only the fact that it's on the Statue of Liberty that the villain finally falls -- although Hitch always said he made a mistake on that scene.

Hitchcock Admits MIstake to Lloyd

The mistake was that the wrong man was in jeopardy. Meaning, the villain [played by Lloyd]. It should have been [protagonist] Bob Cummings in jeopardy.

You know, you're right. He put Cary Grant in jeopardy in North by Northwest, hanging from Mount Rushmore.

These pictures are, or, well, Saboteur and North By Northwest, reveal a political slant. And if you look at Saboteur again, there's a whole scene that Dorothy Parker wrote. Which is with the blind man, played by Vaughan Glaser. When Cummings goes into that house, with the blind man there. That's a political scene. You listen to it and (it's) the essence of the America First people, headed by Otto Kruger. That's a political statement. The America First (Committee) was on everybody's mind at the time. [Note: the America First Committee was committed to keeping America out of World War 2.]

So yes, in addition to his thing that, "It'd make a helluva place to do a chase" ...I think his subconscious (was thinking politically). And I think the same thing with North By Northwest.

Does 9/11 seem almost Hitchcockian, since it involved attacks on such American landmarks as the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?

In Part 2 of the interview, Lloyd discusses Orson Welles, and also recalls the amazing moment he witnessed when one silent film giant quietly, and quite without invitation, directed another in their only film together.

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