In Beverly Hills last week, actress and philanthropologist Tippi Hedren, best known for her role in the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock thriller The Birds, was feted by Creative Nail Design (CND) and an L.A. organization called Beauty Changes Lives (BCL).

Hedren, also known as the "Godmother" of the Vietnamese-American nail salon industry (and mother to Melanie Griffith), is the second recipient of BCL's Legacy of Style Award, first presented posthumously to Vidal Sassoon in 2012. CND co-founder Jan Arnold was one of the 2013 award presenters.

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As well, CND donated more than $180,000 for a new BCL CND Tippi Hedren Nail Scholarship Fund. Starting next year, the fund will assist nail-program students attending US schools registered with the American Association of Cosmetology Schools (AACS), which founded BCL. (So many acronyms!)

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Over the course of her career, Hedren has appeared in more than 50 movies and TV shows. She sparked the beginning of the Vietnamese nail salon industry in 1975, when she took her personal manicurist to a California refugee camp to train a group of 20 Vietnamese women who had admired her nails. According to a CNN report in 2011, the 6-billion-dollar nail industry in the States is still dominated by Vietnamese-American professionals: they make up 40% of all manicurists in the US, and 80% in California.

The following little clip about Tippi Hedren's beauty industry contribution is from a CBC "The National" program by veteran reporter Joe Schlesinger.

The CND sizzle reel below includes more recent footage with Hedren, a bit more on her contribution, and a few words at the awards event from one of the women trained by Hedren's manicurist in 1975.

Tippi Hedren photos by Araya Diaz/Getty Images for Creative Nail Design.