Hedren achieved great praise for her work in two of his films, including the suspense-thriller The Birds (1963), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year, and the psychological drama Marnie (1964).

Hedren's strong commitment to animal rescue began in 1969 while she was shooting two films in Africa and was introduced to the plight of African lions.

[14] She had a highly successful modeling career during the 1950s and early 1960s, appearing on the covers of Life, The Saturday Evening Post, McCall's, and Glamour, among others.

In 1961, after seven years of marriage to the actor Peter Griffith, Hedren divorced and returned to California with her daughter, Melanie, and rented an expensive home in Sherman Oaks.

When she was told it was Alfred Hitchcock, who while watching The Today Show, saw her in a commercial for a diet drink called Sego, she agreed to sign a seven-year contract.

[16][17] Being an unknown actress with little training, Hitchcock put Hedren through an extensive color screen test that lasted two days and cost $25,000, doing scenes from his previous films, such as Rebecca, Notorious, and To Catch a Thief with actor Martin Balsam.

Hitchcock became her drama coach, and gave her an education in film-making, as she attended many of the production meetings such as script, music, or photography conferences.

[27] Instead, Hedren endured five solid days of prop men, protected by thick leather gloves, flinging dozens of live gulls, ravens, and crows at her (their beaks clamped shut with elastic bands).

Miss Hedren, undertaking a role originally offered Grace Kelly for a resumption of her screen career, lends credence to a part never sympathetic.

"[45] In 1983, author Donald Spoto published his second book about Hitchcock, The Dark Side of Genius, for which Hedren agreed to talk for the first time in detail about her relationship with the director.

"[27] According to Spoto's book, Hitchcock brought in two members of his crew during the filming of The Birds and asked them to keep careful watch on the activities of Hedren, "when she left the set—where she went, who she visited, how she spent her free time".

"[52] Hedren's co-star in Marnie, Diane Baker, later recalled, "She was never allowed to gather around with the rest of us, and he demanded that every conversation between her and Hitch be held in private...

"[52] Hedren asked Hitchcock's permission one day to travel to New York to appear on The Tonight Show, where she was supposed to be presented an award as the "Most Promising New Star".

[61] Hedren's contract terms gave Hitchcock the final say as to any work she could take on and he used that power to turn down several film roles on her behalf.

[57] In 1966, Hitchcock finally sold her contract to Universal Studios after Hedren appeared in two of their TV shows, Kraft Suspense Theatre (1965) and Run for Your Life (id.).

She agreed to take part in Satan's Harvest (1970) and Mister Kingstreet's War (1973)—which were shot back-to-back despite the discrepancy in their release dates—for the sole reason that they were being filmed in Africa.

[39] In 1973, Hedren played a teacher at an experimental sex school in The Harrad Experiment, which starred James Whitmore and Don Johnson—the latter who would later marry her daughter, Melanie Griffith.

[This quote needs a citation] They started to raise a lion cub named Neil in their Sherman Oaks house and made sure that the animal slept in their bed.

[92] After Roar, Hedren accepted any low-budget television or cinema role that could help bring funds to her foundation to provide protection, shelter, care, and maintenance for the animals at the Shambala Preserve.

In the 1985 pilot episode of The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents, she made a brief appearance as a waitress in a bar who berates a customer, played by her daughter Melanie Griffith.

"[74] That same year, she guest-starred in a special episode titled "Psychodrama" of the television series Chicago Hope, that paid tribute to the Hitchcock films.

[99] After appearing in a number of little-exposed films between 1999 and 2003, Hedren had a small but showy role in the 2004 David O. Russell comedy I Heart Huckabees, as a foul-mouthed attractive older woman who slaps Jude Law in an elevator.

"[101] In 2006, Hedren was a cast member of the short-lived primetime soap opera Fashion House with Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild, and continued to guest-star in television series such as The 4400 (2006) and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2008).

[103] A Louis Vuitton ad campaign in 2006 paid tribute to Hedren and Hitchcock with a modern-day interpretation of the deserted railway station opening sequence of Marnie.

During the production of Roar, Hedren, her husband at the time, Noel Marshall, and daughter Melanie were attacked by lions;[90] Jan de Bont, the director of photography, was scalped.

[111] Shambala became the new home for Michael Jackson's two Bengal tigers, Sabu and Thriller, after he decided to close his zoo at his Neverland Valley Ranch in Los Olivos.

[citation needed] On December 3, 2007, Shambala Preserve made headlines when Chris Orr, a caretaker for the animals, was mauled by a tiger named Alexander.

After she got a titanium plate put in her neck, she improved and then agreed, with the blessing of her doctor, to take the part of a dying woman in the 2006 soap opera Fashion House.

She gave an interview to explain that her former lawyer does not have the money to pay her, and discussed how the report put her in a difficult situation since her foundation was in dire need of funds.

"Chances are I won't ever even see the money, and that's what hurts so badly, that in all of this pain and suffering that publication ran with a swift and not researched story, which told people around the world who have been so gracious and thoughtful about sending donations, that I no longer needed them.