The Only Main Actors Still Alive From Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds

It's one of the best-remembered chillers of the 1960s, and one of the most stylish. "The Birds" would have been enough to cement Alfred Hitchcock's legacy if it were the only production he'd ever participated in. The film centers around Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), a society girl whose impulsive attraction to lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) leads her into surprising danger. 

Trying to deliver a pair of lovebirds to Mitch in celebration of his younger sister Cathy's (Veronica Cartwright) birthday, Melanie finds herself trapped in Bodega Bay. Mitch's hometown seems pleasant initially. But soon enough, it's being attacked by flocks of murderous birds, who quickly lay waste to the local citizens and cause widespread havoc. Melanie, meanwhile, has to cope with Mitch's women-hating mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy), and Mitch's ex and Cathy's teacher, Annie (Suzanne Pleshette). It's man versus beast, and it's a toss-up as to who will triumph.

"The Birds" will live forever, but its main actors have sadly mostly passed away since the movie's premiere. Yet two of them are among the living as of this writing. Who are they? Read on to find out who's still alive in the main cast of "The Birds."

"The Birds" helped immortalize Tippi Hedren as Alfred Hitchcock's favorite blonde. As she admitted in her autobiography, "Tippi: A Memoir," and a 2012 documentary entitled "The Girl," her fame came with a price — Hitchcock's controlling ways and personal attention. While Hedren would play the title character in "Marnie," she reported that his sexual harassment made her fight her way free from both his control and his contract. 

Hedren subsequently suffered through a career setback, but her other passion — for big cats and animal conservation — led to the film "Roar," billed as "the most dangerous movie ever made," much to the actor's dismay. She continued to act through 2017. 

She became a well-known humanitarian during the 1960s and helped so many newly minted Vietnamese Americans enter the nail technician industry she's been nicknamed "The Godmother of the Vietnamese Nail industry." She also founded and runs the Roar Foundation, which runs the Shambala Preserve. Shambala is dedicated to caring for big cats and other wild animals rehomed from circuses and other situations. On top of that, she's the matriarch of an acting dynasty — her daughter is Melanie Griffith, and her granddaughter is Dakota Johnson. 

While Hedren hasn't announced her retirement from the screen yet, she reportedly has dementia. As such, her professional future remains uncertain, but despite that, the actor continues to presumably live a comfortable, happy life in the bosom of her family.

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Child actor Veronica Cartwright had already proven that she had the range to make in Hollywood by the time she stepped into Cathy's penny loafers. Her first major role had been in "The Children's Hour" as the sweet Cathy's diametric opposite, Rosalie Wells, whose lies about her teachers ruin them. After appearing in "The Birds," Cartwright popped up in "Spencer's Mountain" and "One Man's Way" before taking 10 years off to resurface playing adult roles.

She made quite a name for herself in the horror world; she's Nancy in the 1979 remake of "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers" and followed that up by essaying the part of Lambert in "Alien," a character who is much more important than you realize. She also appeared in the astronaut drama "The Right Stuff," as mom Helen in "Flight of the Navigator," and the puritan scold Felicia Alden in "The Witches of Eastwick," which is set to be remade.

On television, she recurred on "Leave it to Beaver" as two different characters, often appeared as Assistant District Attorney Margaret Flanagan on "L.A. Law," and was Cassandra Spender on "The X-Files" and Peg Kimmel on "Six Feet Under." She's still active in the business and has left quite the legacy behind her.