'Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints,’ said a brooding Alfred Hitchcock of his penchant for fair-haired actresses. In fact, the often-controversial director had more in common with iconic hair colorists like John Freida than you might think. They've both spent their careers creating an artistic vision of the perfect, imperfect blonde. 

Such was his obsession with the quality of his leading ladies' hair colour, Hitch cast blondes almost exclusively from the start of his directorial career in the 30s all the way through to the 60s. He believed that an audience would always be naturally more suspicious of a brunette than a blonde, which though it may seem Freudian and antiquated to us now, added multiple layers of intrigue to his already, often wildly, complicated plots. 

In fact, Hitchcock heroines are so famous for their dramatic tones of blonde that each has it's own identity and character. Be it a manipulative bottle-blonde platinum (Karen Black) or a trustworthy natural dark honey (Julie Andrews), never was a hair colour so powerful on film, even in the early days before colour.

Click through the gallery above to journey through the characters who made up Hitchcock's army of indomitable blondes.