The Cary Grant character from North by Northwest. Thornhill is a twice-divorced Madison Avenue (New York City) advertising executive who is mistaken for "George Kaplan" — an elusive US secret agent — and kidnapped by a group of foreign agents, led by the cultured Phillip Vandamm, who then try to stage his death. When Thornhill attempts to prove he isn't Kaplan, he is framed for the murder of a Lester Townsend, a United Nations diplomat. Forced to go on the run until he can prove his innocence, he makes the acquaintance of the glamorous Eve Kendall whilst on a train to Chicago. Although Kendall initially aides him in evading the police, she is in fact Vandamm's mistress. Kendall sends Thornhill to a remote isolated location where Vandamm intends to kill him, however Thornhill escapes when the crop dusting plane carrying Vandamm's assassin crashes. As Thornhill closes in on the enemy agents, he is arrested by the police and is taken to meet "The Professor" — a US spymaster — who reveals that Kaplan is in fact a fictitious spy, invented to distract Vandamm from Eve Kendall who is in fact a US agent who has infiltrated his group. It transpires that Thornhill's activities have endangered Kendall and have roused Vandamm's suspicions that she might be a traitor. The Professor organises a staged assassination at the crowded Mount Rushmore cafeteria and Kendall shoots Thornhill, who Vandamm still believes to be Kaplan, with blanks. Thornhill's "dead" body is spirited away by The Professor and where he is to be detained at a nearby hospital until Vandamm and Kendall have left the country. Having fallen in love with Kendall, Thornhill is unwilling to risk her life and escapes from the hospital. After tracking the foreign agents down to their Mount Rushmore hideaway, Thornhill manages to warn Kendall that her life is at risk and together they escape with the microfilm that Vandamm is trying to smuggle out of the country. After a desperate chase across the Mount Rushmore monument, Vandamm is arrested by The Professor and Thornhill is free to marry Kendall.