I've never had blonde hair (and wouldn't suit it quite frankly) but thanks to the stars of Alfred Hitchcock's classic films, it has a lasting allure.

Hitchcock once said that "blondes make the best victims" and the blondes in his films are glacial, cool and unattainable.

They are the polar opposite of that other blonde archetype: the ditsy blondethat actresses such as Marilyn Monroe played so well.

From the posh society gals that Grace Kelly plays in Rear Window and To Catch a Thief to Tippi Hedren as the put-upon heroine in The Birds and Marnie, blondes are at the centre of Hitchcock's films. They tear up the screen, leaving Hollywood's best leading men in their wake. James Stewart and Cary Grant have suffered this fate, as both were arguably upstaged by their leading ladies Kim Novak and Eva Marie Saint in Vertigo and North by Northwest respectively.

There are drawbacks to being a Hitchcock blonde though, as the TV film The Girl and the movie Hitchcock, bith released last year, show. They document the predatory nature of Alfred Hitchcock and show the mental abuse and unwanted sexual attention that the director enforced on his female stars.

I like to think that the Hitchcock blondes get the last laugh, though, as the director's legacy is now tarnished as a result of his cruel behaviour. Unfortunately standing up to Hitchcock never worked out well at the time as Tippi Hedren found to her cost when she refused to work with Hitchcock again and demanded he release her from the exclusive contract she had signed. He refused to do so, which stopped her from being able to work elsewhere and effectively ended her career.

But now she is getting her own back and telling the world what sort of man Hitchcock really was.