Hitchcock Chronology: Herbert Coleman

Entries in the Hitchcock Chronology relating to Herbert Coleman...

1953

September

• Hitchcock begins assembling a new team of key personnel for his first Paramount film, Rear Window, including assistant director Herbert Coleman, production manager C.O. "Doc" Erickson, cinematographer Robert Burks, editor George Tomasini, costume designer Edith Head, production designer Hal Pereira and his team of Joseph McMillan Johnson, John P. Fulton and John Goodman.

1954

May

• Hitchcock dispatches a second unit, headed by Herbert Coleman, to the south of France to photograph background scenes and auto chase footage for To Catch a Thief.

June

• 25th - First unit location filming for To Catch a Thief is completed and the cast and most of the crew return to Hollywood to begin studio-based filming. Producer Herbert Coleman stays on in Cannes with the second unit team to shoot footage for the car chases, including aerial shots from a helicopter. French film critic André Bazin, holidaying nearby in Tourrettes-sur-Loup, later writes of the helicopter shots, "That sequence must have been expensive!"

August

• Hitchcock dispatches Herbert Coleman to New York to look for a suitable lead actress for The Trouble with Harry, where he watches Shirley MacLaine standing in for Carol Haney in musical The Pajama Game. The following day, Coleman arranges a screen test for MacLaine.

September

• In early September, a storm blows through parts of Vermont, forcing The Trouble with Harry producer Herbert Coleman to scout for alternative filming locations. By late September, the area around East Craftsbury and Craftsbury Common had been deemed suitable.

October

• 14th - Due to the unpredictable weather, Hitchcock decides to end location shooting and film the remaining scenes back on the Paramount sound stages, leaving behind Herbert Coleman and the second unit to capture the remaining exterior landscape shots, using stand-in doubles for the actors. The News & Citizen, the local newspaper for Morrisville, Vermont, reported that "Hollywood's experiment with making an entire motion picture in Vermont ended Thursday as director-producer Alfred Hitchcock and his cast leave for their home studios after bucking Vermont's unpredictable weather for more than a month."

1955

April

• 20th - Hitchcock swears American citizenship. En route to the courthouse, Herbert Coleman reportedly asks the director if he was having second thoughts, "No, but the Hitchcock name goes back almost to the beginning of the British Empire and you can imagine what a serious thing it is for me to break away." At the courthouse, his official witnesses are MCA agent Arthur Park and actor Joseph Cotten.

1956

January

• Angus MacPhail and Herbert Coleman travel to New York to research locations for The Wrong Man.

June

• 19th - The Hitchcocks meet up in London with Robert Burks, Herbert Coleman and Angus MacPhail in order to talk with staff from the British Colonial Office to discuss plans for the director's next project, Flamingo Feather. From there, they travel on to Europe and then South Africa to scout locations and to visit Hitch's aunt Emma Mary Rhodes (who dies in September). It soon becomes obvious that the logistics of shooting a film in southern Africa will be too much and Hitchcock decides to abandon the project.

July

• 26th - The Hitchcocks depart from Southampton aboard the RMS Queen Elizabeth, bound for New York. With them are Herbert Coleman, C.O. "Doc" Erickson and Alfred's sister, Ellen Kathleen. They arrive into New York on the 31st.

1957

March

• Actress Vera Miles telephones Herbert Coleman towards the end of March to inform him that she is pregnant. If she is still to play the role of Madeleine/Judy in Vertigo, the start date would need to be delayed.

May

• 9th - Herbert Coleman writes to Kay Selby at Paramount British Productions Ltd. in London asking for her help in tracking down a recording of Norman O'Neill's score for the 1920 production of J.M. Barrie's play Mary Rose. Hitchcock is keen for Bernard Herrmann to hear the recording and use it as a guide for Vertigo.
• 17th - Kay Selby at Paramount British Productions Ltd. replies to Herbert Coleman to say she has managed to track down possibly the only surviving recordings of Norman O'Neill's score for the 1920 production of J.M. Barrie's play Mary Rose. The old recordings are held by Schott Music and are "scratched and ghastly".

1958

March

• With American musicians on strike, composer Bernard Herrmann is unable to record the score for Vertigo. Pushed for time, Paramount London negotiates with the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Muir Mathieson but the recordings in early March are abandoned part way through when the orchestra walks out in support of the American musicians. Associate producer Herbert Coleman quickly tries to find another orchestra in Europe who can complete the score.

1959

April

• Hitchcock, Herbert Coleman, Henry Bumstead and Samuel Taylor travel to London to scout locations for No Bail for the Judge.

May

• Hitchcock, Herbert Coleman, Henry Bumstead and Samuel Taylor return to Los Angeles from London in late May. Despite the careful pre-production work, No Bail for the Judge is soon abandoned, partly due to Audrey Hepburn's concern about the rape scene.

1968

July

• 21st - Hitchcock travels to England with Herbert Coleman and Doc Erickson to scout locations for Topaz in Europe and to interview European actors. Whilst in Rome, Hitchcock shoots a screen test of Frederick Stafford at Cinecittà film studios.

1969

April

• Hitchcock returns to Paris in mid-April to film the duel finalé for Topaz. News that Alma has been hospitalised forces the director to return to Los Angeles before the sequence is completed and Herbert Coleman takes over. Two further endings will be filmed, with Hitchcock returning to Paris once more to film an ending at Orly Airport. The third "suicide" ending is constructed from existing footage.

2001

October

• 3rd - Assistant director and producer Herbert Coleman, who worked with Hitchcock on 8 films and produced 16 episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, dies aged 93.