The film was released in 1963 and became a major commercial success, cementing Hitchcock’s standing further and launching Hedren’s career simultaneously. She won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year. She was, briefly, exactly where she had been working to be: a major Hollywood actress with critical recognition and a powerful director’s continued interest.
The following film was Marnie (1964), in which Hedren played the title character, a compulsive thief with a traumatic secret. Hitchcock managed the production closely, as he had managed The Birds. Hedren has said she considers Marnie her favorite of the two films she made with him. It received mixed reviews at the time, though it has since been reassessed by critics as one of Hitchcock’s more psychologically complex works.
What was happening between director and actress during this period has been the subject of significant dispute. Hedren has said that Hitchcock became increasingly possessive and controlling during both productions — that he had crew members monitor her movements, that he instructed other cast and crew not to speak with her, and that he made a physical advance on her in a car that she rejected. According to her account, after she made clear she would not provide what he seemed to be demanding, he threatened her career and then, when she sought to leave her contract, kept her under contract while declining to cast her in anything. She was paid her contracted salary while being professionally idle. The studio eventually sold her contract to Universal Pictures in 1966.