TERRIFIED LITTLE BOY BECOMES A HOLLYWOOD LEGEND

Fred’s parents should never have done it, but they worked six days a week. They had only Sundays to themselves, and only Sunday evenings—after Fred had gone to bed—absolutely to themselves. So, on one Sunday evening in particular, when Fred was barely six years old, his mother and father listened to his prayers and dutifully tucked him in. Then, they left the house.

Fred did not know this. The outing they had planned was an hour and a half out and an hour and a half back; in other words, they would be gone for at least three, but more likely four or five, hours. Fred was not told they were leaving. He did not hear the door close, and he went to sleep.

It was still light outside when he had gone to bed, but he awakened with a start to pitch blackness. He called out into the oppressive darkness, and nobody answered—only a terrible, echoing stillness. At once, Fred realized he was home alone. Instantly, he began to tremble.

Quietly, he slipped out of bed and groped his way through the gloom, past furniture that was so friendly by day but now served as menacing, startling obstacles. The little boy’s hand reached outward ahead of him like a tugboat escorting a great vessel through an impenetrable fog. Then, suddenly, his hand amazed itself by discovering the cold doorknob resting in its palm.

Fred twisted the knob slowly, silently, so as not to arouse whatever horrible creature might be slumbering in the night. The door opened to the child’s dread; the hallway was as dark and ominously void as his own bedroom. Fred began to cry—not out loud, for the sound itself, he was certain, would frighten him all the more. 

Still, the tears rolled down, scalding his little cheeks as he inched his way forward down the hall, down the stairs, through the awful, undeniable aloneness, until he reached the kitchen.

Whether it was a spark of courage or a reflex of spontaneous desperation, he did manage to call out. "Mother?" he called. Silence.

When Fred’s parents returned, they found their little boy wandering the house in a terrified stupor. He could not recall how long he had been awake and alone, but it was long enough to make an indelible impression. Moreover, it was long enough to leave a wound that never healed. Never.

From that night on, little Fred was pathologically afraid of the unknown and, ultimately, thoroughly intolerant of surprises. Even as an adult, he couldn't bear to prepare food in an oven unless the appliance had a glass door. Otherwise, the thought of what may or may not be happening as the food cooked on the inside was utterly unbearable.

This Christmas season, moviegoers nationwide are delighting in record numbers at a charming, touching, and mostly funny film entitled Home Alone—a delightful fantasy where a youngster is left home alone. But once upon a time, when this century was young, a little boy went through that ordeal for real. A child who would grow up to make motion pictures.

Oh yes, you have seen and admired his movies. But now, and henceforth, as you watch them, you will remember the first taste of terror of the boy who became the man who hated suspense, but was determined to become its master: Alfred Hitchcock.

Now you know the rest of the story.