Kim Novak Interview in the Guardian

Semi? In the 1950s she was A-list major.

Thanks OP.I know she’s had a ton of work but she’s still beautiful for her age.

There were really no bigger stars than Kim Novak at the height of her career in the mid to late 1950s. I've always been fascinated by her. I'd like to think she's finally able to appreciate and perhaps understand the power of her stardom.

R1 Well, I'm sorry. I haven't been around in the 1950's like you have. R2 Thanks. I recently watched Bell Book and Candle. It is not that good, be she is.

R4 No matter what your year of birth, you've been an idiot since day one.

Her face looks much better than it did at the Oscars

She looks great now. Her plastic surgery that everyone mocked on the Oscars several years ago has settled down considerably.

This is always the tragedy of plastic surgery. It looks awful for six years to a month after you get it, and yet none of these old actresses ever sem to get the memo.

[quote] Novak sounds as husky as ever. They used to say it was a voice fashioned by whisky and fags. She says that is nonsense.

"At least I never married one!" she adds, in a veiled reference to Neely O'Hara.

Touching interview. Kudos to her for getting out when she did.

I like 'Bell, Book, and Candle" much better than "Vertigo". I think the latter is overrated, and the former underrated, despite a virtually flawless script.

Mo Rocca did an interview with her last year. She looks sooo much better now than she did at the Oscars.

I couldn’t read that terrible article. “One of the greatest life forces I’ve talked to”? Ick.

Lovely interview. What a survivor!

I remember a fantastic interview she did with Robert Osborne for TCM (I think) about 10 years ago. Check it out on youtube. Or, please, someone clever than me, post it here.

r7, in the OP's Guardian interview, Kim says it wasn't plastic surgery for the Oscar but injections of fat. Which is not to say she hasn't had plastic surgery over the years.

Thank you, r13! I'm going to watch again tonight.

I adore her (more as a person than an actual actress) but while she says she left Hollywood to keep her sanity etc. it’s not like she made that decision at the height of her career.

Her studio contract was up, her mentor Harry Cohn was gone, she had worked as an independent player in semi successful movies, and was now at the end of the spectrum for a romantic lead.

Hollywood has little need for aging, full figured blondes and she saw which way the wind was blowing as she got less offers. So she left. I’m sure she was grateful to get out but she also didn’t give up a lot by leaving.

First Shelley, now Kim. Can we get some more reclusive Hollywood legends to speak? Who's next??

She talks about the Oscars in the OP's interview - she says she got a bunch of fat injected in her face because of her old insecurities, and admits it looked terrible. It reminded her why she left Hollywood - that she is too sensitive to its demands. She seems like a good gal.

She was so lovely in Vertigo.

Her art work isn't good, but it's interesting.

Well, on the other hand it’s not bad.

I think she enjoys painting as a form of self expression, rather than with an eye toward creating a masterpiece.

I want to fuck Mo Rocca with him sitting in one of Kim’s goofy hammocks.

Thanks for posting this, OP. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

R16, more reclusive stars? Jack Nicholson, Julie Christie, Marisa Pavan, and Gina Lollabrigida? There are others who may not be hot copy, but could talk about the last of the Golden Age/contract player days of movies: Jane Powell, George Chakiris (I bet he has some stories!), Russ Tamblyn, Millie Perkins, Dean Stockwell, Terry Moore, others.

Barbara Rush

OP, Why is the Socialist Guardian interviewing this ancient bastion of Hollywood fakery?

She did NOTHING for the Proletariat struggle!

Kim was writing her memoir years ago when a fire destroyed everything she had written down. She said it just wasn't meant to be. I really wish that she would restart her memoir and finish it - I'd love to read about her, Hollywood, her movies, and her life!

OP, you're such a fucking blessing to all of us.

Maybe next time you can just start a fucking thread without the Mother Teresa impression.

Thanks, OP. Wonderful article on one of my favorite screen legends. Kim is fabulous.

Kim and Bacall were back to back Sinatra lovers, not sure who followed whom.

Actually, Bacall was first offered the female role in "The Man With the Golden Arm", but Otto Preminger would not meet her price, so Novak was cast and Bacall later regretted not taking it.

She's bipolar AF.

Picnic

Thank you OP, she looks great

"Vertigo" voted the best film ever made? When was that? That's quite a stretch, to put it mildly.

I love Hitchcock. And I have never "gotten" Vertigo.

Can someone please find and post her appearance on What's My Line? from the mid-1950s when she was at the height of her beauty? IIRC she looks gorgeous, quite ethereal, even with the primitive TV studio lighting.

That show was able to get the biggest stars of the day, many of whom would never have appeared anywhere else on TV.

All Russ Tamblyn talks about is WSS. He was hired at MGM at a fairly young age and played Elizabeth Taylor's brother in Father of the Bride. I wish he would talk about may of the other things he's done.

[quote]r36 Can someone please find and post her appearance on What's My Line? from the mid-1950s

R38 With that platinum hair and thin eyebrows, Novak looks like a 1930s movie star.

She looks flawless which is quite an achievement considering the horrible lighting on the show,

Arlene looks like she's 70.

By the early 1960s as lighting and cameras improved, Arlene and Dorothy suddenly looked 10 years younger .

Thanks so much for posting the WML clip, r38!

Doesn't Kim look gorgeous there? Almost unreal. And so sweet and fresh.

When I first saw "Picnic", decades ago I was all "Yes Kim, run away with gorgeous William Holden." I saw it again just last week, it' s still great of course but now I'm middle aged and I'm like "No Kim, don't. He's a loser (a very sexy one) he'll ruin your life, marry the rich guy. "

I can’t believe the idiot who wrote that article asked Kim Novak how much she weighs. Imagine asking a male star of Novak’s vintage that question.

Two weeks in a row with really well done interviews.

First Shelley Duvall, then this.

I’m sorry —

WML with Kim Novak AND Desi Arnaz?

Gee, I wonder what that was like backstage.

Kim Novak was one of few women in the world who could rock that 1950s boyish haircut she wore in the WML clip and for most of her early career. There's nothing either matronly or mannish about it on her.

I've purchased her book. There are some very nice paintings in it and she offers some brief comments about her Hollywood days. But the focus is on her art as well as her love of animals. It's a very nice coffee table type book. I also had the pleasure of seeing an exhibit of her work at the Butler Museum in Ohio. She was there for the opening and I had the chance to speak to her for a moment as she was doing a meet and greet with attendees. Very much a star of the old school studio system. Poised and polite, looks you directly in the eye. She may have left Hollywood in the mid 60s but that training she got at Columbia on how to properly act like a star in public is very evident.

Poor dear - gang raped in the back of a car. Those were the days (may they never come again)

Anyhow, she did well. Not a good movie but I still loved her in Moll Flanders - a feast for the eyes. In other stuff, I find her stilted and sort of bovine or something. But with the gorgeous Richard Johnson, she lit up the screen. Wonder why they didn't work out? God he was just as beautiful.

I doubt it would be a problem, r42. It's been my experience that actresses lie about their weight and actors lie about their height.

Why does she perpetuate the myth that she and Sammy Davis Jr were just friends? Its so stupid particularly at this time in history.

Even Capucine who was also under contract with Columbia told the Novack/Davis story on French TV. And her version was quite scandelous.

^ Capucine wasn't exactly a bastion of truth. Didn't she lie about "dating" (bearding for) Dirk Bogarde

I can easily believe Kim and Sammy were no more than good pals. I get why she might lie about the relationship yet fully trust she's telling the truth.

Even though she wasn't a brilliant actress I remember really loving her in a Mad Men Era film called STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET opposite Kirk Douglas, where they're two star-crossed suburban lovers married to others. Very simple and real performances with a great supporting cast including Ernie Kovacs, Barbara Rush, Virginia Bruce, DL fave Helen Gallagher and Walter Matthau as the evil neighborhood letch (before he found his comedic forte).

Glad that Strangers When We Meat and Picnic are being mentioned.

I will chip in The Legend of Lylah Claire and Kiss Me, Stupid.

Miss Novak is not welcome here.

In the Robert Osborne interview she comes off as such an unusually nice person for Hollywood. I’ve watched “Strangers When We Meet” twice during Covid, it’s one of those movies from the fifties that critiques the conformity of post WW2 suburbia. I don’t know why, I like that genre. The fifties looked stylistically fun, but terrifying, even for straight white people. Everyone had to stay in their places, and Kim Novak in her tight a line dresses looked like she was literally trying to bust out.

Kim Novak on Healing After Leaving Hollywood:

Vertigo the best film ever? Says who?

ALL I KNOW is she got to fool around on film, basically seducing Clint WALKER's character in their 1969 movie "the great bank robbery"!... damn and double damn that lucky woman!....