Calling Alfred Hitchcock introducing Charlize Theron -- Spellbound For Success

 Somewhere up in movie-director heaven, perched on an especially substantial cloud, Alfred Hitchcock must be cursing his luck in that sly, covetous undertone of his. The reason being that the portly idolator of icy, flaxen-haired women with creamy complexions never got to work with twenty-one-year-old actress Charlize Theron. Hitchcock might have devoted entire movies to Theron, just as he did to Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, and Tippi Hendren, whose Waspy chilliness she sardonically echoes -- at least in her first feature, the recently released Two Days in the Valley. Born in Benoni, South Africa, to a German mother and French father, Theron arrived in Hollywood two years ago without any acting experience and swiftly snagged the role ofTwo Days' unsmiling, sexed-up hit girl. Her scenes with fellow assassin James Spader in this droll Short-Cuts-ish ensemble piece are tongue-in-cheek wicked. Lest she by typecast, Theron then fought for and won the part of a small-town '60s good girl in Tom Hanks's directorial debut,That Thing You Do!, which opens this month. Theron says her character "just wants to get married, have kids, picnics, and go to church. I modeled her on my mom when she was young." By sheer will and on the strength of a talent Theron admits she is only just learning to control, she is suddenly happening. Without so much as a Hitch.