Please Welcome Author Kathleen Kaska

We are delighted to welcome Kathleen Kaska as our guest blogger.

Kathleen writes both fiction and non-fiction, the "Sydney Lockhart" mysteries and a series of trivia books collectively titled "Triviography and Quiz Books", respectively.

Today she is sharing with us some of the stories from her The Alfred Hitchcock Triviography and Quiz Book (LL-Publications, May 2012 trade paperback and ebook editions). All three books in the series are shown below … and our readers can enter to win a copy of one of them! Details at the end of this post.

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To entertain his guests at cocktail parties, Alfred Hitchcock would sometimes paint a sailor's face on his stomach and draw a circle around his navel to represent the sailor's mouth. Then he would whistle a jaunty tune and shake his belly, making it appear as if the sailor was whistling.

Photo provided courtesy of
Kathleen Kaska

Surprised? That's okay. Most people remember Alfred Hitchcock as a shy, serious figure who directed and produced suspense films. But a few people knew that Hitch was a practical joker. He was infamous among the Hollywood crowd for his behind-the-scenes pranks. After the filming of his 1928 movie, The Farmer's Wife, which contained a dinner party scene wherein the farmer's guests are served by a boisterous butler, Hitchcock invited the entire cast and crew to an upscale West End restaurant to celebrate the film's conclusion. Unbeknownst to his guests, he instructed the waiters to be rude and insulting, mimicking the scene in the movie. Reportedly, they did not appreciate the joke as much as he did.

During the filming of The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934 version), Peter Lorre, who played the part of the kidnapper, complained to Hitchcock that the studio had ruined one of his best suits. Hitchcock told Lorre he was acting childish; and to emphasis his point, Hitch ordered Lorre a replacement suit, but it was tailored to fit an infant. Lorre was miffed, but not enough to turn Hitch down when the director offered the actor a part in The Secret Agent two years later.

So Hitchcock's sense of humor was not always appreciated. Moreover, it often leaned toward the sadistic. One time, after a day of filming, Hitchcock bet his prop man, Rodney Ackland, a week's salary that he could not spend that night alone in the dark, deserted studio. Ackland took the bet. He should have been suspicious when Hitchcock offered to help Ackland win the bet by handcuffing him to the camera. And even more suspicious when Hitchcock left a glass of brandy for Ackland in case he needed to steady his nerves. What Ackland didn't know was that the brandy had been laced with a strong laxative. The next morning the entire crew arrived at a messy scene, starring one angry and humiliated colleague.

While filming Rich and Strange (1932), Elsie Randolph complained about Hitch's cigarette smoking, a habit she detested. The next day, Randolph was instructed to sit in a phone booth so Hitchcock could shoot an extra scene. She didn't know was that the booth had been rigged. As the door closed, it locked. Cigarette smoke began to fill the booth. By the time the actress was rescued, she had nearly collapsed.

Even Patricia Hitchcock, his only child, was not immune to her father's antics. She fell victim to one of his jokes while on a carnival set during the filming of Strangers on a Train, in which Patricia had a minor role. Hitchcock had arranged for her to ride a Ferris wheel alone at night. When she reached the top, he ordered the operator to stop the wheel and turn off the lights. Not until she became hysterical, was she was brought down.

It is rumored that before Hitchcock's death in 1980, he requested the following epitaph on this gravestone: "This is What We Do To Bad Little Boys." But don't bother searching for his grave because the Master of Suspense was cremated. Imagine the fun he'd have with that one.

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When she is not writing, Kathleen spends much of her time traveling the backroads and byways around the country, looking for new venues for her mysteries and bird watching along the Texas coast and beyond. It was her passion for birds that led to writing The Man Who Saved the Whooping Crane, a true story set in the 1940s and 50s about Audubon ornithologist Robert Porter Allen, set for publication in September 2012.

You can learn more about Kathleen and her books by visiting her website, KathleenKaska.com.

For a chance to win a copy of The Alfred Hitchcock Triviography and Quiz Book, courtesy of the author, visit Mystery Book Contests, click on the Kathleen Kaska: Triviography contest link, enter your name, e-mail address, and this code — 4191 — for a chance to win! (One entry per person, US residents only. Contest ends July 5th, 2012.)

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