Alfred Hitchcock was born to a poultry dealer in London on August 13 1899.

By the time he was done with life and cinema in 1980, he rewrote the rules of suspense in film making, and paved the way for directors like Manoj Night Shyamalan to start sneaking cameo appearances of themselves in their own films. Not bad for a guy who began by designing title cards for silent films!

From working with screenwriters — who permitted him to direct some scenes of the film that didn’t include actors — he then moved up the ladder to the post of an assistant director and then director.

The list of successes to his credit simply grew from there His creations included — The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, and The Man Who Knew Too Much. He then moved to Hollywood and created Rebecca, which won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1940 and got him a Best Director nomination.

By the 1950s, Hitchcock was powerful enough to begin playing with the genre he had helped define. Classics like Psycho, Vertigo, Rear Window and The Birds arrived on screens in quick succession, as he mastered the art of the psychological thriller.

He won the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award in 1979, and was knighted the year he died.