List of Hitchcock cameo appearances

To Catch a Thief (1955) features Hitchcock on a bus alongside Cary Grant.

This is a list of Alfred Hitchcock's cameo appearances. He made cameo appearances in 39 of his 52 surviving major films. (His second film, The Mountain Eagle, is lost.) For a brief moment, he would be seen for example boarding a bus, crossing in front of a building, standing in an apartment across the courtyard, or even appearing in a newspaper photograph (required for the film Lifeboat, which otherwise provided no other opportunity for him to appear).

This playful gesture became one of Hitchcock's signatures and fans would make sport of trying to spot his cameos. As a recurring theme, he would carry a musical instrument — especially memorable was the double bass case that he wrestles onto the train at the beginning of Strangers on a Train.

In his earliest appearances he filled in as obscure extras, in a crowd or walking through a scene in a long camera shot. His later appearances became more prominent, such as when he turns to see Jane Wyman's disguise as she passes him in Stage Fright, and in stark silhouette in his final film Family Plot. His appearances became so popular that he began to make them earlier in his films, so as not to distract the audience from the plot.

Hitchcock's longest cameo appearances are in his British films Blackmail and Young and Innocent. He appears in all 30 features from Rebecca (his first American film) onward; before his move to Hollywood, he only occasionally performed cameos.

Cameo appearances in Hitchcock films

This is a list of Hitchcock's cameo appearances in films that he directed.

Title	Year	H:M[:S]	Description
The Birds	1963	0:02	Leaving the pet shop with two of his own Sealyham terriers, Geoffrey and Stanley, as Tippi Hedren enters.
Blackmail	1929	0:10:25	Being bothered by a small boy as he reads a book on the London Underground. This cameo is 19 seconds long.
Dial M for Murder	1954	0:13:13	On the left side in the class-reunion photo.
Easy Virtue	1928	0:21:15	Walking past a tennis court carrying a walking stick.
Family Plot	1976	0:40	In silhouette through the door of the Registrar of Births and Deaths.
Foreign Correspondent	1940	0:12:44	After Joel McCrea leaves his hotel, wearing a coat and hat and reading a newspaper.
Frenzy	1972	0:03	In the center of a crowd, wearing a bowler hat; he is the only one not applauding the speaker; and a minute later, right after the victim washes ashore, standing next to a gray haired man with a gray beard.
I Confess	1953	0:01:33	Crossing the top of a staircase.
The Lady Vanishes	1938	1:32:31	In Victoria Station, wearing a black coat and smoking a cigarette.
Lifeboat	1944	0:25	In the "before" and "after" pictures in the newspaper ad for "Reduco Obesity Slayer".
The Lodger	1927	0:03	At a desk in the newsroom.
		1:32	In the crowd watching an arrest.
The Man Who Knew Too Much	1934	0:33	Possible cameo walking across the road in a dark trench coat as a bus passes by (unconfirmed).
The Man Who Knew Too Much	1956	0:25	Watching acrobats in the Moroccan marketplace (back to the camera).
Marnie	1964	0:05	Entering from the left of the hotel corridor after Tippi Hedren passes by.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith	1941	0:42:57	Passing Robert Montgomery in front of his building.
Murder!	1930	1:00	Walking past the house where the murder was committed.
North by Northwest	1959	0:02:09	Missing a bus, just after his credit passes off screen during the title sequence
Notorious	1946	1:04:44	At the big party in Claude Rains's mansion, drinking champagne and then quickly departing.
The Paradine Case	1947	0:38	Leaving the train at Cumberland Station, carrying a cello case.
Psycho	1960	0:06:35	Through Janet Leigh's window as she returns to her office, wearing a cowboy hat.
Rear Window	1954	0:26:10	Winding the clock in the songwriter's apartment (Some argue that Hitchcock breaks the fourth wall in this cameo, possibly turning to look at the audience in a "What are you looking at?" sort of manner, although he may merely be looking at Ross Bagdasarian who lives in the apartment).
Rebecca	1940	2:06	Walking near the phone booth just after George Sanders makes a call.
Rope	1948	0:02	Walking along a street (holding a newspaper) after the opening credits.
		0:55	His trademark silhouette can be seen on a red neon sign advertising "Reduco" in the view from the apartment window.
Sabotage	1936	0:09:00	Hitchcock walks on the sidewalk from the center to the (viewer's) left, looking up right after the lights go back on and before the lady shuts the kiosk window.
Saboteur	1942	1:04	Standing in front of "Cut Rate Drugs" as the saboteur's car stops.
Secret Agent	1936	0:08	Possible cameo coming down gangplank before hero.
Shadow of a Doubt	1943	0:17	On the train to Santa Rosa, playing cards, back to the camera.
Spellbound	1945	0:43:15	Coming out of an elevator at the Empire Hotel, carrying a violin case and smoking a cigarette.
Stage Fright	1950	0:39:49	Turning to look back at Jane Wyman in her disguise as Marlene Dietrich's maid.
Strangers on a Train	1951	0:10:34	Boarding a train with a double bass as Farley Granger gets off in his hometown.
Suspicion	1941	0:46:54	Mailing a letter at the village postbox (long shot).
		0:04	Walking a horse across the screen at the hunt meet.
The 39 Steps	1935	0:06:56	The man tossing a white sheet of paper while the bus pulls up for Robert Donat and Lucie Mannheim to leave the theatre.
To Catch a Thief	1955	0:10	Sitting to the left of Cary Grant on the bus (Grant, who had previously been directed by Hitchcock in Suspicion and Notorious, gives the director a look as if to say, "Oh, no. Not you again!").
Topaz	1969	0:33	Being pushed in a wheelchair in the airport. Hitchcock gets up from the chair, shakes hands with a man, and walks off to the right.
Torn Curtain	1966	0:08	Sitting in the Hotel d'Angleterre lobby with a baby on his knee. He shifts the child from one knee to the other.
The Trouble with Harry	1955	0:22:14	Looking outside of the window-the man walking past the parked limousine of an old man who is looking at paintings.
Under Capricorn	1949	0:03	In the town square during a parade, wearing a blue coat and brown hat.
		0:13	One of three men on the steps of Government House.
Vertigo	1958	0:11:40	In a grey suit walking in the street with a trumpet case.
The Wrong Man	1956	0:00:18	Seen in silhouette narrating the film's prologue. Donald Spoto's biography says that Hitchcock chose to make an explicit appearance in this film (rather than a cameo) to emphasize that, unlike his other movies, The Wrong Man was a true story about an actual person.
Young and Innocent	1937	0:16	Outside the courthouse, holding a camera.

Other cameo appearances

• Alfred Hitchcock regularly made cameo appearances in his films. However, only once did he appear in an installment of his Alfred Hitchcock Presents television show (aside from his personal introductions and closings). The one cameo was in the 1958 episode of the third season titled "Dip in the Pool". At 5:15 minutes into the episode, Hitchcock appears on the cover of a magazine being read by Mr. Renshaw (Philip Bourneuf).

• Hitchcock's image also shows up in Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad, as an homage to Hitchcock's cameo appearances.

• Director Richard Franklin also incorporates a Hitchcock cameo into Psycho II (1983), even though Hitchcock had been dead for three years. When Mary Samuels and Norman Bates pay an early nighttime visit to Mother's bedroom, Hitchcock's famous silhouette can be seen in shadow on the far right wall just after they enter the room and before they turn on the lights.

• In Gus Van Sant's 1998 shot-for-shot remake of Psycho he can be seen standing next to a Hitchcock lookalike at the same point in the film as in the original.

External links

• Cameo picture gallery