Advertisement

Wolf Files: Celebrity Phobias

(Page 7 of 9)

7. Alfred Hitchcock: Ovophobia Was Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense, chicken around eggs? To witness his ovophobia, just watch To Catch a Thief.

In the breakfast scene, set in an elegant hotel on the French Riviera, actress Jessie Royce Landis — playing the part of Grace Kelly's mother — harpoons her sunny-side-up eggs like Norman Bates in the shower scene of Psycho.

Hitchcock was ahead of his time in many ways, including his calls for smoking bans at the dinner table — a predilection tied more to his food hang-ups than fears of secondhand smoke.

"He hated eggs, unless they were disguised in a soufflé," Hitchcock's daughter, Patricia O'Connell, told the Chicago Tribune in 1993.

"He just said they were so horrible-looking — that you'd cut into them and that yellow stuff would run all over. He thought it was absolutely disgusting."

While filming the Birds, actress Susan Pleshette recalled a berating she received from Hitchcock's assistant:

"She said, 'Don't put your cigarette out in your eggs,' " Pleshette said. "'He hates eggs, he hates cigarettes, and frankly, he hates you.' " [Next: Woody Allen]

Marketplace