Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born August 13, 1899, in Leytonstone, a suburb of London, England, to William Hitchcock, a greengrocer, and Emma Jane (Whelan) Hitchcock. He was the youngest of three children; his brother William was born in 1890 and his sister Nellie in 1892.
Alfred Hitchcock was raised in a lower middle-class cockney Catholic family that enforced a strict upbringing. Young Alfred's main interests included maps and timetables; in fact, at one point he memorized the schedules of most of England's train lines.
Hitchcock attended a Jesuit day school for boys, but most of his adolescence was spent working to help support his family, particularly after his father died in 1914. Early the next year he found steady employment at the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company, allowing him to take night courses in economics, drawing, art history, and painting. His first job at Henley's was as a technical estimator specializing in electric cables. When his employers discovered he was taking art courses at the University of London, he was switched to the advertising department. There he began to draw, designing ads for electric cables.
He was fascinated by the mystery fiction of Edgar Allan Poe and spent much time at the local cinema; American and German films particularly appealed to him.
The text in the Chronology section has been adapted from "Alfred Hitchcock" by Robert E.
Kapsis, from American National Biography, edited by John Garraty. © 1999
by the American Council of Learned Societies. Used by permission of Oxford University
Press, Inc.
Adapted by Robert E. Kapsis, Kathie Coblentz, and Amy Stoller.
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