1) The problem with Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren is that one of the two people involved in that story is dead (and has been for some four decades)...and the other is still alive. And there are a lot of good reasons to doubt Hedren's story as many Hitchcock
scholars do.
2) The idea that Hitchcock could destroy Hedren's career if he wanted to is also not supported by facts. Now Hitchcock might have said that, or words to that effect (we all say stuff in anger after all) but to actually follow through on that threat would require Hitchcock to have a vindictive and vengeful spirit his biographers generally note that he didn't have. He was generally shy, and tried his best to avoid studio politics and actually trying to use his muscle to ruin someone else's career would require him to have a level of clout that he didn't have (As evidenced by how Lew Wassermann forced him to make projects he didn't like such as Torn Curtain and others rather than his dream projects like Kaleidoscope).
After Hedren made Marnie, Hedren appeared in Charlie Chaplin's A Countess from Hong Kong alongside Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren and a few others. Now that Chaplin film was a commercial failure but in terms of profile and casting, it wasn't a bad choice, and besides Hedren's own films with Hitchcock, with the exception of The Birds (and even that wasn't as successful as Psycho) weren't commercially successful either. So it's probably debatable if she ever really had a chance at a big career. I mean actresses in Hollywood in those days (and to a large extent today) had very limited shelf-lives and prospects. Like Kim Novak was big and important for a few years in the Mid-50s and early-60s and that's it. And even then Vertigo the film she's remembered for, was a failure. The same applies to Janet Leigh, she was the biggest "name" in Psycho in the year of release but she had only a brief career.
3) Tippi Hedren herself considers Marnie her favorite and most complex role. So I think there's too much ambiguity for this to be placed here.
I notice Alfred's "troubled" relationship with Tippi Hedren is glossed over here. When I read up upon this material, upon just the facts, and not what the media love to blow out of proportion - I get the same sad vibe as I do when reading up on what Walt Disney did to Adriana Caselotti - basically destroying the poor women's career and future prospects...
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