Alfred Hitchcock built a career on fear — but the terror in his films was drawn from a well of personal anxiety that consumed him. The man who directed Psycho, Vertigo, and Rear Window was obsessed with control because he was terrified of losing it. His genius lay in transforming private dread into public entertainment, but the cost to the people around him — particularly the actresses he obsessively controlled — was severe.

This episode traces Hitchcock from his lonely London childhood through the British thrillers, the Hollywood masterpieces, and the increasingly disturbing pattern of behavior toward his leading ladies that complicates his legacy as cinema's greatest director.

• Hitchcock's isolated childhood, the police station incident, and the fear that shaped his worldview
• The British period, the move to Hollywood, an ...