The day I learned about Charlie Chaplin's bizarre directing style with Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren

I first met Charlie Chaplin two years after Marnie was released. He wanted me to be in his movie with Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren. Who in their right mind would turn that down?

By then the “Tippi Hedren” heat in the industry had cooled down. Hitchcock had kept me under contract so that I couldn’t work. We’d had a disagreement and I wanted to get out of the contract, but he said: “Well, you can’t. You have your daughter to support and your parents are getting older.” I said: “You wouldn’t want me in a situation where I couldn’t be happy.”

It was really difficult to move on. I’d hear about films that were offered, but to get to me they had to go through him. It was a sad time for me. To every producer, director, agent and screenwriter who called wanting to hire me, he had the same answer: “She’s not available.” Finally, two years later, he let me go. Two weeks after that, I got the call from Chaplin to work on his new film, A Countess from Hong Kong.

This was a fresh start, something different. I thought, isn’t it amazing that I get to work with two of the most famous icons in cinema? It was interesting to meet Chaplin after Hitchcock, their directing styles were so different. Chaplin’s method was to act out all our different roles, which was brilliant to watch. Instead of directing, he’d get out there on set and say: “OK, do this,” and show us how. He’d become Sophia Loren. He’d become me and Marlon. It was really unusual and I’d never seen it happen before. Can you imagine Marlon Brando handling that?

Sophia was fun and charming, and we became good friends. She came out to see me at Shambala, my wildlife reserve, where I live in California and I showed her the lions, tigers and elephants – Timbo and Cora.

What I do remember is Sophia losing her notebook with all her appointments and contact numbers – she left them on a big rock while we looked around. The wildlife director suddenly realised what had happened, opened Timbo’s mouth and there were the remains, the spiral binding rolled into a solid steel ball. It was horrible – everything was in that book. I felt so bad for Sophia, but really there was nothing we could do about it.

Charlie and Marlon put up with each other, you might say. Marlon was so insulted to see someone acting out his role and that’s why he wanted to leave. I thought it was charming and funny but Marlon wanted to quit and Charlie had to convince him to stay on.

My take was, you have to look at life with a sense of humour, and the fact that Chaplin went out there and became our characters I thought was delightful. But Marlon wasn’t thinking in those terms at all.

Tippi: a Memoir is published by William Morrow, £20. To order a copy for £16.40, go to bookshop.theguardian.com