My Personal Story with Norman Lloyd (RIP)

As detailed elsewhere, Norman Lloyd not only was an actor who played "the man who fell from the Statue of Liberty" in Hitchcock's Saboteur(1942), he spent much of the 50s and 60s' helping run Hitchcock's two TV series -- a "trusted right hand man."

I attended(from outside on the street only) Hitchcock's memorial service in Beverly Hills. 1980. He died in late April, it may have been in May. I never got in the church, but I watched the stars and studio folk and writers go in. Interesting: no Grant, no Stewart(and he lived just blocks from the church), no Bergman, no Kelly. No Perkins. No Balsam.

But Janet Leigh was there(smoking privately and tearing up a bit.) And Vera Miles. And John Forsythe. And Gregory Peck(who starred in the hit Spellbound but didn't feel Hitchcockian enough to me.) And Reggie Nalder, the ugly assassin from Man Who Knew Too Much '56. And Tippi Hedren(to make sure the SOB was dead? Or to promote herself?) And Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft(wha? Answer: High Anxiety.)

And as I walked from the church to my car (parked on a residential street), I saw Norman Lloyd walking with...Francois Truffaut! And somebody pushed an old man in a wheelchair up to Lloyd and Truffaut, and Lloyd said to Truffaut...with great erudite elegance:

"May I introduce you two great directors to each other...Francois Truffaut..Lewis Milestone!"

Truffaut was effusive, shaking the rather decrepit Milestone's hand(hey , HE came to the funeral.)

And the only other person there was...me. At a respectful distance.