“I can’t talk to the boy who did the fish movie.” Steven Spielberg's idol and legendary director refused to meet with him because he would feel like a “wh*re” in front of him
Steven Spielberg didn’t meet his idol, as the latter would have felt uncomfortable in front of him. The legendary filmmaker preferred to avoid the Jaws director.
Alfred Hitchcock is Steven Spielberg's idol, with whom the filmmaker in the past wanted to meet and talk. Bruce Dern, who told the Hollywood legend about Spielberg when he appeared on the set of Family Plot, wanted to help him achieve this goal. Dern told Hitchcock that he was Spielberg's idol and the latter would like to meet him, but his efforts were for nothing – the director immediately rejected the possibility.
Bruce Dern described that situation in his biography Things I've Said, But Probably Shouldn't Have (via Far Out Magazine).
I said, ‘You’re his idol. He just wants to sit at your feet for five minutes and chat with you,’” Dern wrote in his memoir, Things I Said, But Probably Shouldn’t Have. Hoping to serve as the facilitator for two distinct creative visionaries to finally cross paths, his pleas fell on completely deaf ears when Hitchcock brazenly waved away the suggestion.
Not only did Hitchcock call Spielberg “the boy who made the fish movie” referring to Jaws, but he didn't want to talk to him. But the reason is surprising and certainly different than anyone would have expected – Hitchcock stated that he would have felt like a “wh*re” in front of him, which, given his track record, seems strange and incomprehensible.
Isn’t that the boy who made the fish movie? I could never sit down and talk to him, because I look at him and feel like such a wh*re.
It turns out that such sentiments in Hitchcock didn’t come from nowhere and have their origin in an offer he received – he was offered $1 million to lend his voice to the Jaws theme park attraction at Universal Studios. And the filmmaker accepted that offer. However, he felt uncomfortable at the thought of meeting Spielberg, whose success earned him a million dollars just by lending his voice.
And I took it, and I did it. I’m such a wh*re. I can’t sit down and talk to the boy who did the fish movie. I couldn’t even touch his hand.
And it was because of this that Alfred Hitchcock refused to meet with Steven Spielberg, who was anxious to meet the idol.
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