KIM NOVAK was a HORRIBLE actress, why was she even a star, let alone the biggest box office draw of the 50's ???

Kim was a Movie Star *not* an actress.

But was she good in anything ?

She was considered good enough at the time, r2. You have to remember that her job description at Columbia was sex symbol. She wasn't any worse than Raquel Welch. I think she gives a lovely performance in Middle of the Night (in the role Gena Rowlands played on Broadway).

thks R3, I'll watch that. Ok she wasn't worse than Raquel Welch, but who was ? Raquel was not given serious parts, was she ? And she was not a star in the golden age

What's wrong with Ava's brows?

they're to high and too fake, and Kim's are the same but downright hideous

very natural...

She was excellent in Middle of the Night.

She was the Lavender Blonde.

Loved her in Vertigo.

She had charisma!

OP’s opinion is SO CORRECT that he has to TYPE IN CAPS TO REINFORCE IT!!

So fed up with imbeciles who declare their opinions as facts here.

You’re a piece of shit OP.

Raquel was in BEWITCHED as a stewardess on a plane...they didn't even bother to film her face, you just see her ass

R11 = Kim.

There were two very obvious reasons Kim Novak was a box office draw.

Shut up, r13.

HI Kim !

Are you all having fun being childish?

She was drop-dead gorgeous.

I find her entertaining now. “Look see if I pull my face, I look like her!”

Bell Book and Candle is one of my favorite movies of all time and it's one of the roles that Novak was actually perfect in: slightly mysterious, beautiful, and introspective.

According to the playwright, the play (from which the movie came) was actually about the underground life of gay men in the 1940s and 1950s, the "witches" being the gays. The clubs, the secret meetings, the power players.... all gay.

what a poor taste you have

Kim Novak is a riot as the egotistical, bitchy actress and rival of Liz Taylor in The Mirror Crack’d.

Also a huge fan of Ava Gardner.

*Every* age has their sex symbols with questionable acting talents, r4. Kim was silver age not golden.

silver age ? that's new.

Oh, shut the fuck up, OP.

Kim was playing a mysterious and conflicted witch in "Bell, Book and Candle" and she was just fine.

And Ava was so beautiful and focused the nuances you seem to have missed really didn't matter much in her roles. She even was fine in "Night of the Iguana."

[quote] Also a huge fan of Ava Gardner.

you a lez ? must be. Only lezzies like Gardner

R25 wasn't she supposed to be funny ?

Not really, r24...

I just realized Pink could prob play her in a biopic based on looks alone.

I liked her in the Picnic but it also happens to be one of my favorite moves of the 50s. I saw the movie as a child and was hoping she would go with Holden because they were in love. When I saw the movie as an adult I kept thinking she was a fool for going off with Holden and not marrying the rich guy.

Kim who ?

R11 somehow social media and the internet have brainwashed middle and low brow twatting trolls to communicate in this fashion. With declarative provocative trolling statements.

It's a pity because these people might have once been capable of reasonable and pleasant conversations. Perhaps not brilliant and witty but nevertheless, pleasant.

Blonde/Big tits

R32 tryng to be incisive...LOL. fail, bitch

I've only seen her in The Mirror Crack'd, Vertigo, and Falcon Crest. She was the only reason to watch The Mirror Crack'd.

I confess I've only seen her in Vertigo, and she was very good in the role. As were her breasts.

[quote]She was the only reason to watch The Mirror Crack'd.

True. This movie was vulgar, and everybody was miscast.

At the end of PICNIC, when Betty Field is pleading with her not to run away with Hal, she says, "He'll cheat on you, he won't get a job, he'll drink, he'll beat you," and Kim turns her, flat as an ironing board, and says, "Oh mom, you don't love a man because he's PERFECT!"

Okay, we'll give you the eyebrows in Bell, Book & Candle, but everything else was PURRRRFECT...

Oh, she was decent in BB&C. She was gorgeous and she had a certain smoky charm that worked. Stewart was a worse piece of casting.

And she was decent in Picnic, where, again, the leading man was glaringly awful (Bill Holden).

But, no, she didn't get to Hollywood on her dramatic talent. But then, many others didn't either.

The original stage production was Lili Palmer and Rex Harrison. Oh, how I'd have loved to have seen THAT!

Let's recast the film.

thank you R39, for your honesty. I respect that you love this movie. It made me feel uncomfortable. To me, It was creepy instead of funny, Novak was very sexy but not charming and funny as I thought the script called for, she was speaking in a breathy manner that reminded me of the worst MGM school of acting, and the whole thing was very dark. Stewart OTOH was hilarious and quite charming. Just my opinion

Lili Palmer was probably perfect, and she was stunning

She was positively gorgeous; she was very underrated actress. She was under contract with Columbia Pictures. Studio mogul Harry Cohn was a thoroughgoing bastard. Yet, he mentored her and gave her excellent roles in great movies. She was his top star in the studio, in the 1950s.

Kim drove Harry Cohn into fits of rage. She had an independent streak. Kim sat in his office numerous times and he screamed and hurled invectives at her. When he heard about Kim's alleged affair with Sammy Davis, Jr., he had a heart attack and died. He was filled with rage. (It was 1959.)

Harry Cohn said that Kim's career would dissolve without his guidance. He was right, her career tanked in the 1960s.

wasn't Cohn the prehistoric Weinstein ? He fucked Kim, right ? and again and again and again

R43 She and Harrison were married at the time.

BB&C stage to film had a strange history. Zanuck bought the rights for his then-wife, Jennifer Jones, but she fell pregnant. Then Vera Miles, who was originally cast as the mysterious blonde in "Vertigo" fell pregnant. Novak's studio leant her out for "Vertigo" on the proviso that MGM lend Stewart out for BB&C.

Stewart was far too old and sexless. He admitted himself when he saw the rushes that he was way past romantic roles like this, and they had to work really hard to make him look young enough to get it up for a highly sensual woman being presented as in her late twenties.

I always enjoy the film, though, and one reason was the flawless script: it flowed well. Plus the charms of the lovely Janice Rule, who knocked her bitchy part out of the park, never mind Hermione Gingold as Mrs DePass and Elsa Lanchester as Queenie, Jack Lemmon as Gillian's feckless brother, and Ernie Kovacs as the alkie occult writer.

^I forgot to mention the parrot:

"You're a fool! You're a fool! You're a fool!"

^^And Pyewacket.

Jennifer Jones would have understood the part and made it funny. She was a terrific actress whan she wanted

[quote]but she fell pregnant

*Fell", r46?

R49 I always thought the role should belong to a brunette, and that Merle should be a blonde, but it got reversed in the film.

And Vera Miles might have been a better choice in "Vertigo", too.

Show business is bloody. I'm an old balletomane (yes, that kind of English queer), and I remember the behind the scenes scandal of how Lynn Seymour lost out on the premiere of MacMillan's wonderful version of Romeo & Juliette, for which she'd been cast along with Christopher Gable. She fell pregnant during rehearsals and actually had an abortion to keep the part. Then the RB changed its mind and gave the parts to a still viable but early forties Fonteyn and to Nureyev for the box office. Sol Hurok said he wouldn't bring it over if they weren't in the leads. It was a bitter pill and the entire company was really angry.

Show business stinks.

R50 I'm British. That's how we say it here.

We also say "found herself up the duff".

[quote]And Vera Miles might have been a better choice in "Vertigo", too.

I don't see it. I don't see Vera as having any mystery.

Vera Mles in Vertigo ? as the fascinating Madeleine ? Wasn't Vera Miles a pudgy little thing that was inexplicably cast in some Ford and Hitchcock movies and was always transparent ? who was already forgotten in her peak years ? Isn't there a vera Miles joke in THE MORNING AFTER that goes like "I was supposed to be the new Vera Miles;.. I could you be the new someone nobody remembers ?" ?

Mrs. Gordon Scott, bitches, Mrs. Gordon Scott!

Vera Miles wasn't pudgy. R54! She was, in fact, lithe and beautiful--

she looked fat in PSYCHO

Vera didn't have a "face*, Kim had a *face*.

You type fat, r57.

Kim had a BACK. She was "the most beautiful back in movies"

Novak was never the biggest box office draw of the 50's... she had a few good years as a box office draw and a few good movies, nothing more...she more or less retired from full time acting at only 33 years old...

the greatest scene she ever did on film, was being with the one and only clint walker and running her hands thru that glorious hairy chest and later the characters hinted at screwing (off camera of course) in their film " the great bank robbery" in 1969...

R61 Novak WAS the biggest box office attraction of 1956, at least

[quote] I liked her in the Picnic but it also happens to be one of my favorite moves of the 50s. I saw the movie as a child and was hoping she would go with Holden because they were in love. When I saw the movie as an adult I kept thinking she was a fool for going off with Holden and not marrying the rich guy.

[quote] At the end of PICNIC, when Betty Field is pleading with her not to run away with Hal, she says, "He'll cheat on you, he won't get a job, he'll drink, he'll beat you," and Kim turns her, flat as an ironing board, and says, "Oh mom, you don't love a man because he's PERFECT!"

LOL! r30 and r38. I had to quote your posts. They so perfectly captured my reactions to "Picnic", they earned an encore.

An astute DLer had me look at Novak's performance in "Picnic" in whole new light when they posted that her minimal acting talent actually was well suited, and helped enhance, her playing the role of Madge. Their point was that Madge was harmlessly shallow, if not slow, and a wooden performance helped that depiction.

Off-topic, but "Picnic" (the movie, I've never seen a stage production and I doubt I ever will) carries a personal hallmark for me.

Along with being one of the most poignant, sad movies I've ever seen, and along with what r30 posted, I realized I finally became a mature adult when it dawned on me that the ending is NOT a happy one. Mom is right.

The screenplay also contains a line that has been true throughout the ages and will be so into the far future:

"A pretty girl doesn't have too long. Just a few years. Then she's the equal of kings; she can walk out of a shanty like this and live in a palace!"

Speaking of Bell, Book and Candle, I’m old but sometimes I still can’t believe Ernie Kovacs is dead. He was a huge star and his death was a shock. I knew his daughter Mia and, bizarrely, she died in a car accident 20 years after he did.

Jennifer Jones wasn't married to Zanuck, she was married to Selznick...

R64, every time I see Kovacs and Adams, I think of the last Lucy-Desi show ever filmed where Edie sang a haunting version of "That's All" to the two stars who weren't even on speaking terms at the time.

R10- I like that word- it belongs on the thread Words You Don't Hear Anymore

R64- Speaking of Ernie Kovaks- he was kinda hot. If I had been born when he died in 1962 I would have sucked him to completion.

R66- For you.

[quote]Their point was that Madge was harmlessly shallow, if not slow, and a wooden performance helped that depiction.

See Cybill in The Last Picture Show

We named our family cat, Pyewacket. We loved Kim Novak.

Kim was about as close as one could get to being the textbook definition of an ingenue. The fact that she's still living never ceases to startle me, as most all of her contemporaries died years ago.

[quote]An astute DLer

that.never.happened... -120 000 /10 . Don't quit your day job

R22, the scene is here:

I love how Ernie Kovacs shows up these Kim Novak movies. In "Strangers When We Meet" he plays another bored novelist who's friends with an architect (Kirk Douglas) who works from his suburban home which provides excellent access to a horny housewife (Kim Novak) while her indifferent (implied gay) husband is at work.

Harry Cohn fucked Kim. He fucked her in the pussy, he fucked her in the ass, he fucked her in the mouth, sometimes he ass to mouth fucked her. He passed her around to the studio execs, he recorded her being gangbanged and covered in cum and piss. He used her. He wore her out

She was fucking Richard Quine during SWWM.

who didn't that whore Kim fuck ?

I still don't see anything wrong with Ava's brows.

considering you don't see anything wrong with being a lez....

R62... NO, Novak was NOT the number #1 box office star in 1956.... Back in that era, all the male stars regularly were bigger box office than any female.. in 1956, Novak barely made the top 10 in box office draws and was not even the top female draw, that was Marilyn....Marilyn was #7 and Novak was #9....

Novak was good, perhaps not great in Picnic. She probably knew first hand what is was like to want something more than being the prettiest girl in town and wanted some adventure beyond her sheltered experience. Her limited range works with her character's naivety and while the rich guy was a more practical match, she knew she'd be unhappy with him, too. Cliff Robertson was no great shakes as an actor but it works here---a small town rich guy of limited imagination and depth. The film's cinematogrpahy is one of the best examples I've ever seen of "opening up" an adapted stage play----the cinema verite of the small town Labor Day events and the ending, following the bus out of town (with perfect Copland-esque music), add to a film that could have been weighed down with the stagey dialogue. Novak is supported by a great cast (other than Roz Russell's hammy performance) which actually makes her look better than if they had cast weaker supporting players. Holden is too old but just fine---Roberston also was a little too old, so the two are well matched as former friends.

[quote]Harry Cohn fucked Kim. He fucked her in the pussy, he fucked her in the ass, he fucked her in the mouth, sometimes he ass to mouth fucked her. He passed her around to the studio execs, he recorded her being gangbanged and covered in cum and piss. He used her. He wore her out

Put down the meth pipe, OP.

She was the Jean Harlow of her time; A "sex symbol" whose appeal is strictly limited to the time she was popular.

Look for Broadway fave Phyllis Newman as one of Kim's high school girl friends in PICNIC. She has the rather startling name Juanita Beaver.

Also, look for Kim in her TV debut in 1956 as the Mystery Guest on What's My Line?, publicizing PICNIC, where male panelists Bennett Cerf and Desi Arnaz are virtually frothing at the mouth at her stunning appearance, all the more impressive with that barbaric early TV studio lighting and camera work.

Novak's Madeline/Judy in "Vertigo" is one of the most iconic characters in the history of cinema. Sorry that OP proclaims she was a HORRIBLE (all in caps, lol) actress but I don't think the the camera would agree with that assessment. Some chalk it up to Hitchcock but in the end it's Kim who is spellbinding. Also, she's purr-fection in "Bell, Book and Candle".

...and Phyllis Newman will have to do as Juanita Beaver.

well she's in one of my all time favorite movies, Bell, Book and Candle and she was amazing......

This is ridiculous.

I loved Kim as Kit Marlowe in Falcon Crest. Loved Picnic too. So beautiful.

Jane Wyman was a saint. Kim Novak was one of the many actors "of a certain age" she gave jobs to in the 1980s...Kim play Kit/Skylar stepdaughter of DL fave Ceasar Romero.

Don't know if many of you know this but Kit Marlowe was the name Harry Cohn wanted for Kim when he signed her at Columbia. Which she hated and wouldn't allow.

Her real name was Marilyn Novak and she knew she'd have to change Marilyn, for obvious reasons but insisted on holding onto Novak. When Cohn tried to compromise with the name Kit Novak, she rejected that, too, as she felt Kit suggested someone kittenish or foxy. I believe she herself came up with Kim, which she felt had an innocent child-like quality.

I’ve never understood the appeal of Kim Novak. She was indeed minimally talented and even when she was young, her face was always done up with enough spackle and paint to stock an Ace Hardware. There was just something cheap and stale about her, always.

[quote]—Kim Stanley and Kim Hunter, the first Kims

Bullshit.

She was a major movie star, r93, I don't know what to tell you.

[Quote]Kim drove Harry Cohn into fits of rage. She had an independent streak. Kim sat in his office numerous times and he screamed and hurled invectives at her. When he heard about Kim's alleged affair with Sammy Davis, Jr., he had a heart attack and died.

In an interview on French TV Capucine who was also under contract at Columbia in the 50's said Novak was Columbia's number one star and that Cohn sent the mob to visit Sammy Davis Jr. who was performing at the Sands in Vegas at the time.

Davis was told to stop seeing Novak or he'd get whacked and to marry one of the show girls in his act asap. He followed orders.

@ 35.10

She was difficult on the set of "Eye Of The Devil". She wasn't happy about having a much younger, Sharon Tate beside her in the film. Novak was replaced after a "riding accident" by Deborah Kerr.

Kim could be just fine in the right part But if you want to see her be truly terrible, check out "Jeanne Eagels" (Kim attempting to evoke a legendary actress) and the camp classic "The Legend of Lylah Clare."

Kim had a real sweet clit.

She was Cohn's replacement for Rita Hayworth when Rita left for a vacation and married Prince Aly Kahn.

Some of the posts are laughable. One of the most iconic part in cinema ? ok, but Kim was notoriously AWFUL in VERTIGO. Hitchock himself said he lost interest in the movie when she was cast, couldn't stop apologizing for her TERRIBLE performance during the promotion of the movie, told the press how much he HATED her and how she had DAMAGED and even RUINED the movie. She was BAD in PICNIC, completely WOODEN and AWKWARD, the movie is unwatchable. She was even WORSE in BELL BOOK AND CANDLE. Elizabeth Montgomery wiped the floor with her in BEWITCHED and showed the world how it should have been. She was still ATROCIOUS in THE MIRROR CRACKED. That woman didn't know how to act at all, was not funny, was not charming. She had a heavy face and a good body, and she moved it well, but it all ended when Cohn dropped her, and mercifully so

Novak, Gardner, Mansfield, Jane Russell were whores with big boobs who couldn't act their ways out of a gangbang, and belonged to the Copacabana school of acting . They make Liz Taylor and Natalie Wood look like Sarah Bernhardt and La Duse

She was the Jennifer Lawrence of her day and age, minus the oscar. Cohn did 't dare pull that one

Also from OP:

HAEMORRHOIDS LIGATURE

[quote]I had a huge set of haemorrhoids showing up weekly almost, so doctor boss said he was going to perform "ligature" because " surgery was no picnic". He said it was painless and I could drive home after the operation. He lied to me. It hurts like HELL. I am sorry for every dick I took up there, and I took hundreds. I almost fainted on my way home. I don't want to eat, for fear, of, you know. I don't want anyone or anything messing with that part of my body anymore, ever. HELL!

Why do lthe lez like so much digging up other threads to " confront " posters ?I know what I've written, dearie, what's your point ? you're still a miserable, self-hating dyke, ya know ?

FYI, Gwynn, I also wrote this (which I' quite proud of ), in the "Best leading actress and her specific film role " thread :

Kim Novak : The female lead in " Gangbang in Harry Cohn's office, for the attention of Sam Giancana" part I and II , and its sequel " Gangbang in Harry Cohn's office, ft Sam Giancana, for the attention of Sammy Davis Jr"

Rumors are the Kim Novak also has testicular feminization just like Jamie Lee Curtis

that accounts for the very masculine mug then

It's been reported that when Monroe and Novak were having dinner with Bob Kennedy, they both would prepare "interesting questions" scribbled on little pieces of paper hidden in their garnments , so as not to appear stupid. I bet they didn't read them when they were being drugged and gang raped by Giancana's guys on tape at lake Tahoe

Everybody knows that Novak left Hollywood overnight when Monroe was clipped by Giancana'crew. She knew she was walking over the same bridge

R109, what’s the story about the gang raping??

Giancana used Sinatra to lure Monroe and co to Cal neva lodge, where they were drugged and gang raped on record, and the tapes sent to Kennedy

According to those who saw the tapes, they were filthy. The girls were drugged out of their minds, crawling on the floor, and these wise guys were going everywhere, in their pussy, their ass, their mouth, dribbling everywhere and laughing

No way could I get hot women like Grace Kelly and Kim Novak falling in love with busted face one-note Jimmy Stewart.

Because Rainier de Monaco and Sammy Davis JR were so hot...when men are famous/rich, they can grab'em by the pussy

How could Kim Novak ever be a replacement for Rita Hayworth who could dance her ass off?

Rita was no Dame Edith Evans for sure, but she could dance, she could act a little, and she had tons of class. Comparing her with that prize cow Novak is downright insulting

[quote]According to those who saw the tapes, they were filthy. The girls were drugged out of their minds, crawling on the floor, and these wise guys were going everywhere, in their pussy, their ass, their mouth, dribbling everywhere and laughing

Again, OP, put down the meth pipe.

By the 1950s less musicals were being made. Even Rita stopped making musicals after Down to Earth though they always included a dance in her later films until she wanted to be a straight dramatic actress.

She also didn't sing, r119, so it made sense.

Talk about stupid bitchery! Starting with OP, these nasty, ill-informed queens should get lost, pronto.

The 1950's were rife with big musicals.

Yes but not as many movie musicals were made as in the later 1940s, certainly not a Columbia. Ann Miller picked the wrong time to get married and leave. And she picked the wrong man.

Rita looked older than her years in Pal Joey 1957 with Frank and Novak.. At only 39 pills and booze were already showing on her face. Still magnificent though. And Novak looked stunning.

^^^^

^^ I mean to say and no Kim did not looking stunning.

Novak had a big face. Her face is almost freaky but very masculine.

Kim had one of those massive Hollywood heads that photographs well. She had a good voice too. I think she's better in "Vertigo" than Jimmy Stewart and Barbara Bel Geddes.

She's not supposed to be funny in BB&C. She's supposed to be enigmatic and sexy which she is, in droves. She's sort of the straight man of the play if you will. The jokes are given to the other witches.

I've never seen Vertigo or bell book and Candle but I loved her in Picnic and I love the theme song Picnic/Moonglow. I was a small child when she was popular.

I always liked seeing her>sometimes bad acting on the right person can elevate>

I don't like Vertigo because of her. But then I think Madeleine is a very hard part to play. I love Vera Miles and she was certainly a better actress than Novak but I'm not even sure she could have pulled it off. IIRC Hitchcock didn't really have that kind of woman before. His women tended to be more down-to-earth even when a glamorous blonde.

When Ernie Kovacs was killed cars had no seat belts, airbags and the windshields were made of glass that turned your face into a jigsaw puzzle if you went through them.

Kovacks left behind a lot of debts. Edie Adams took any job that came her way to avoid bankruptcy. She was good at Eve Arden-ish roles.

To me, Novak isn't playing a dual role in Vertigo. She's playing Judy Barton the whole way through. First as Judy, a mistress of a wealthy business man, who's originally from Salina Kansas and now lives in SF and works at a department store salesgirl, pretending to be Madeline in order to lure Scotty to be a dupe in a crazy scheme to knock off the real Madeline. Judy isn't an actress. A girl like Judy should not be a skilled brilliant actress. She manages to pull of Madeline because she's icy hot and that manages to ensare Scotty. Most interesting part of the Madeline half of the film is seeing those brief moments when the real Judy reacts to Scotty and feels drawn to him. And the second half, Novak is excellent playing the trapped and pathetic Judy, who tries at times to hold on to some part of her identity as Judy, but having to give in to be Madeline again because she's fallen for Scotty and feels great guilt for what's she's done.

Picnic also benefits from Novak not being a skilled theatrical actress. Yes she has a few stiff line readings but unlike most of the cast, who seem to be performing for a live theater audience and go over the top (I fault Joshua Logan for this as he was a theater director and still inexperienced to film making), Novak is performing for the more intimate camera. She's not ACTING, she's being and as a result she's quite touching and sympathetic as Madge and it's no wonder Picnic made her a top star.

"To me, Novak isn't playing a dual role in Vertigo. She's playing Judy Barton the whole way through."

Heck yeah! That's the thing about Novak's performance, the first time I saw the movie I thought she wasn't a good Madeline, I thought she was stiff and not nearly as ethereal as she was supposed to be. But she wasn't supposed to be ethereal, she was supposed to be this low-rent shopgirl trying to be ethereal, and not doing an incredibly good job.

She was absolutely fantastic in the role in spite of being a poorly trained and extremely uneven actress. It was IMHO the one time she absolutely nailed a complex, multi-layered role, but then it was probably the only time anyone ever offered her a complex and multi-layered role.

Hitchcock wanted Grace Kelly to be Madeleine.

Grace Kelly could never have made "Vertigo", not in a bazillion years! Yes, she would have been ravishingly ethereal as Madeline... and hopeless as Judy.

That's what made Novak work, the fact that she wasn't ethereal, she was a strong solid gal who didn't actually like glamming up. Like someone said above, Novak was playing Judy all along, and she was far more like Judy than Madeline, she actually was the regular gal who was being glammed up by others. Kelly was far more like Madeline than Judy, she spent her life as the bird in a variety of gilded cages, she wouldn't have had a clue how to play Judy.

That's a good point, R138, I can imagine that Kelly would have 'acted' Judy in a very obvious way.

R64 Did you ever meet Edie Adams? I’m glad Ernie Kovacs got some attention on this thread. His show was a boon while in quarantine.

Rita was 39 ??? she looks 50

R64 Did you know Kippie as well? The husbear's gay Swiss uncle went to Uni in Los Angeles and he knew Kippie who he said was a lesbian. I recall he said she drove a motorcycle like a fabulous fun wild woman.

Edie Adams was well-liked by the Cinecitta crowd in Europe. Decent and unaffected.

TCM showing PICNIC tonight! 7 PM central -

NEEWALLAH!!

I didn't enjoy picnic. THe guy was bad at acting and obviously drunk, Kim was stiff, I wasn't interested in the story

Picnic streams here.

William Holden just oozed sex in "Picnic".

The general opinion seemed to be that he was too old for the part. He’s great, had a great career.

I really like old Bill Holden in Wild Rovers.

He had no gay appeal. I don't find him hot and I've never heard another gay lust for him.

“Hey, beefcake, get in.”

So I…got in”.

It's kind of amazing that Novak, Eva Marie Saint and Tippi Hedren are all still with us. How can actresses from the Hitchcock era still be alive? Those movies feel like they made 100 years ago.

Picnic is a great film and holds up. Kim being stiff and Holden too old actually makes the movie work.

She became a recluse after reading all the comments on DL about her facelift at the Oscars. Now she's being called a horrible actress. This poor woman has been through enough.

Please, she’ll be fine.

I agree with the posters saying that she is absolutely wonderful in Vertigo. She was perfect for the part, and film critics and historians agree. Kim also seems like a lovely and sensitive soul in the interviews she has given for TCM over the years. Kindly fuck off, OP.

Bipolar people do seem lovely and sensitive souls generally. Until they lose their shit.

"The general opinion seemed to be that he was too old for the part."

It's true, some things are only forgivable in the young, like drifting around refusing to get a real job or to commit to anything. And Holden looked about 50, even if he was officially 38, and that's just too damn old for a person to be bumming around and seducing girls just out of high school.

R145 thank you for the link. Just finished watching it. Actresses were a lot fatter in the 50s. Novak is much thicker than the actresses of today. Her arms, waist, and hips are a lot bigger.

She had a great body.

Melanie Griffith looks older than Tippi Hedren. I agree with the poster who said that William Holden looked a solid 50 in picnic. Kim was so thick, no wonder she still alive, she's built like a truck. I prefer elfin celluloid princesses like Pier Angeli and Natalie Wood, but they tend to have the life span of a dragonfly. I wouldn't be surprised if Kim outlived me, and I'm only 52 (looking 41)

Good Lord, R159, Novak was never *fat*, never obese, she was just a big, heavy-boned, man-jawed, solid, muscular, healthy girl! Probably physically healthier than those "elfin" types who spend their youth living on coffee and cigarettes.

You don't have to say that a someone who looked like a strapping Polish farm girl is beautiful, but talking like any female who weighs more than 90 pounds is going to drop dead of an obesity-related heart attack is ludicrous.

Grace Kelly could have played Madeline/Judy. She was a very good actress and was terrific in THE COUNTRY GIRL.

Grace Kelly was laughable bad in "The Country Gilr".

R157 no one is saying she is fat. She is a lot bigger than the actresses of today. She is a normal weight but she could never get away with her body type for a starlet today. I think she had a good body.

She looks to be a size 8 or 10. Today you are expected to be a size 4.

She's PHAT

The word is bovine.

OMG EXACTLY. SHE'S BOVINE

How did she get away with the extra weight? All the babes who went to Hollywood were told almost immediately to slim down to about 10-15 pounds under weight.

Marilyn was bovine too. They were allowed to be fatter in the 50s. Women were supposed to have curves.

The men were getting hard-ons for Marilyn Monroe, not Audrey Hepburn.

Rita put on weight when she did Miss Sadie Thompson. I guess to look more blowsy.

[quote] Novak was replaced after a "riding accident" by Deborah Kerr.

Right by Kerr? Luckily she wasn't hurt as well.

Mitzi claimed to have bigger breasts than Marilyn but I'm not sure.

Novak was about the only costar Holden didn't try to bed. He found her FAT. He liked Audrey.

Rita, Mitzi and Marilyn were toned from dancing and or exercising. Not Kim.

Did Kim ever dance? Not so much in Pal Joey.

Ah yes Moonglow in Picnic. But that is more moving than dancing.

Just shows how we all see things differently. I thought Holden was sex-on-a-stick in Picnic.

Vivian Vance would have been perfect as Judy/Madeleine…

I'm so glad we have Novak rather than Miles, for whom Hitchcock intended the role(s), in Vertigo. All of Novak's strengths and limitations lined up to make her ideal for the film. Stewart is another story. If it's a fever dream of late-middle-aged obsession, Stewart acquits himself fine.

[quote] no one is saying she is fat. She is a lot bigger than the actresses of today. She is a normal weight but she could never get away with her body type for a starlet today. I think she had a good body.

She's tiny. I stood next to her. Probably even smaller in the 50's. Delightful lady, very sweet.

OP, she was not the biggest box office draw of the 50s.

She claimed to have been 5'6" so not tiny for those days. Surely she's shrunk over the decades.

[quote] Did Kim ever dance? Not so much in Pal Joey.

I'm not sure that shuffle Nokak does towards Hall is dancing. As r177 says, it's more moving.

You can see when Madge claps that she's a full-figured woman.

ooops. Nokak - Novak

Now she looks like Terrence and Philip from South Park

Kim Novak was mysterious. That was her ace. Beautiful, smoky voice, alluring, and mysterious. She's actually very good in Vertigo, exactly right. Vera Miles wouldn't have made the movie any better.

But that quality fell away with age, as it always does. Kim could not play characters.

P.S. I like The Mirror Crack'd, for Elizabeth Taylor, again, exactly right (the aging actress who "plays" her scenes over and over). (trembling, terrified) —"The COFFEE..." She's great. Angela Lansbury, post Mrs. Lovett, was wasted here.

Hitchcock blamed Stewart's aging appearance for the failure of Vertigo, not Kim Novak. Notably, Vertigo is now at the top of most "greatest films ever" lists, so Kim Novak must be considered pretty successful in it.

[quote]Kim Novak was mysterious.

She was vacant which read as mysterious.

But that's all you need in the movies.

You need more than that, r190. Kim could get away with it because of her beauty.

Someone post that damn 1956 appearance on What's My Line?!

What is my line

Never found her beautiful. Looked like a hard faced hooker.

She evokes Jean Harlow and her other 1930s divas in that WML clip. How can anyone watching that not see how gorgeous she was in her prime?

She had a mysterious quality that worked for Vertigo just as her naiveity and awkwardness worked in Picnic. She did not transition well into character roles and she lacked the kind of distinct personality that stars of older Hollywood could bank on well into the 70s.

Kim Novak was a movie star with a big box office draw. That was what she was hired for, not so much for her thespian skills. Her looks got her far, and with training and a good director, she was a capable actress.

Her peak years were probably 1955 to 1958. And with Harry Cohn dead in 1958, Novak lost her Queen Bee status at Columbia, which spurred her career decline in the 1960s. By 1965, she had semi-retired from showbiz, popping up occasionally to do crappy movies and tv shows.

Even though Novak starred in the remake of "Of Human Bondage," I don't think she was ever invested in herself to being the next Bette Davis.

I watched about 30 minutes of Picnic last night. Ugh.

Roz steals Picnic. You should have hung on just for her.

Kim Novak is also excellent as Molly in "The Man With the Golden Arm" (1955) playing a cigarette girl with a heart of gold. What is surprising is that Otto Preminger directed that one and you would think that he would have tore Novak to pieces. But she is completely real and believable in the part. Novak was good at playing unsophisticated, beautiful but insecure working class women. That was because that was basically what she was. She said in an interview that she didn't really act like another person but opened up herself to the role. Hence she is believable was Judy the waitress in "Vertigo" but weirdly artificial and unreal (if ethereally beautiful and mysterious) as Madeleine. It works because we learn that (SPOILER) Madeleine was never a real person. She is also good as an unhappy suburban wife in "Strangers When We Meet".

She could be good in the right role.

Roz is a ham in "Picnic". Worst thing in the film.

Her first film, Pushover, she made a very effective and sultry debut.

I just watched Bell Book and Candle last night and thought she was perfection. Also great in Vertigo. Like Natalie Wood she's not a great actress nor is she a terrible actress. But she's never boring on screen.

1958/59 was her peak--4 films in which she's perfectly cast and she delivers in all of them--Vertigo, Bell book and Candle, Middle of the Night and Strangers when We Meet.

Wood was a bit more skilled as an atress.

Well, thank you OP for explaining that to us. Now we know.

She was very sweet in that interview with Robert Osborne on TCM a few years back.

"Like Natalie Wood she's not a great actress nor is she a terrible actress. But she's never boring on screen."

She could be genuinely terrible, "The Legend of Lylah Clare" is considered a camp classic for a reason! Truly a film that only a Datalounger could appreciate.

We don't see too many actors like her any more, someone who was practically pulled off the street because they were photogenic, and shoved in front of the camera without any regard for whether they could act or notm that happened in the Studio Era but not now. Perhaps the closest modern equivalent is Charlize Therone, who started out as just another photogenic blonde... but Charlize buckled down and learn to *act* in a way that Novak never did. Novak never seemed to get serious about acting, she was good in some roles but had as little range as an actor can have.

The TCM interview was phenomenal. She really opened up as it went along and showed all her vulnerabilities to Osborn who was the master interviewer with the Old Hollywood stars who trusted him.

Novak really didn't need range. She had charisma!

Ever since someone said she was born a male I can't unsee it.

I didn't get a pass because of my damn classy good looks.

Could Marilyn had done any of Novak's best known roles?

Supposedly, Marilyn was first choice of Wilder to star in "kiss me stupid"... by that time she had passed away.Then (allegedly) jayne mansfield was to have done the role but she couldn't because she was pregnant with Mariska Hargitay? (Find it hard to believe that Mansfield was anyone's choice to star in the film since besides her nude film promises promises the year before, she was well into her B and C level has been status in films for a few years), and Novak starred instead..

the film was considered "indecent" and a example of Wilder's decline... It did make a profit though...

"Could Marilyn had done any of Novak's best known roles?"

Actually, she could have been absolutely stellar in "Vertigo"! She would have knocked the role of the slutty shopgirl who pretends to be an ethereal rich lady out of the park, her vulnerability and beauty would have made the film breathtaking! But, she was a complete pain in the ass to work with by then, and Hitchcock wasn't putting up with that level of unprofessionalism on his set.

So, he cast an actress who nailed the role, AND who showed up on time. Showing up hours late for work has consequences, an actor who does that isn't going to be offered some roles.

[quote] as little range as an actor can have.

And exactly what do you mean by that ?

I'm just gonna throw this great quote from one of the Harry-and-Meghan threads in here:

"...A remake of Vertigo, but about an obsessed British Redhead who tries to turn his wife into his tragic mother..."

She was terrific in Run Lola Run.

Marilyn would have been ludicrous as Madeline, she was only good at playing dumb blonde whore and slutty schizo saloon whore. Natalie Wood is Simone Signoret compared to Novak. I really can't see Novak coming anywhere near Wood in her great tragic parts. Hitchcok certainly didn't cast Novak in Vertigo because of her professionalism, he didn't cast her at all in fact, he loathed her performance and said that he lost interest in the movie the minute she was cast.

Marilyn in a Kim role.? I'm not seeing this. Marilyn over sexualized her roles. She delivered her lines with a mouth posed for cock sucking. Kim was subtly steamy.

If Kim had played Madeline and Marilyn had played Judy, the movie would be better. It would be like the love,child of Bunuel and Lynch

Poor Marilyn. What a slag. Zero dignity. Jayne Mansfield at least was in on the joke.

Diana Dors was the real thing. Jayne Mansfield was an undignified harlot compared to Diana

[quote] Only lezzies like Gardner

It's possible...

Mamie Van Doren made Diana Dors seem like a fish wife. A FISHWIFE

Whores. All of them.

[quote]Stewart was far too old and sexless. He admitted himself when he saw the rushes that he was way past romantic roles like this, and they had to work really hard to make him look young enough to get it up for a highly sensual woman

Jimmy Stewart was usually sexless - young or old. Casting dumpy guys in movies where a beautiful woman is interested in them is for the DUMPY GUYS IN THE AUDIENCE. Average Joe loves to see Jack Lemmon being pursued by Catherine Deneuve (The April Fools) or James Stewart having Grace Kelly wanting him (Rear Window), and so on. It's their fantasy come true.

"Marilyn would have been ludicrous as Madeline, she was only good at playing dumb blonde whore and slutty schizo saloon whore."

Of course Marilyn would have been fabulous in the "Judy" half of "Vertigo", of course she could be great as the slutty, lonely, low-rent, abandoned shopgirl, who gets involved in an abusive relationship with a crazy man. Nobody could doubt that. But IMHO she also could have been great as the will-o-the-wisp Madeline, IF she'd been willing to stop wiggling for once, and just rely on her beauty and vulnerability. Madeline was meant to be lovely and fragile, Marilyn was lovely and fragile, it could have worked IF Marilyn was willing to buckle down and work like every other actor in Hollywood.

But she wasn't willing, she let her insecurities call the shots till the end, and they told her that it was okay to show up hours late and staggering from champagne and pills. I presume that's why she never made a Hitchcock film, Hitchcock expected everyone on his sets to act like a growup and a professional.

"Casting dumpy guys in movies where a beautiful woman is interested in them is for the DUMPY GUYS IN THE AUDIENCE."

True 99% of the time, but not in "Vertigo", where he and the much younger woman are drawn together by a toxic web of guilt, deception, and dysfunction. There's never a hint that she's attracted by his looks.

^ Notice I mention Rear Window, not Vertigo, R228.

Hollywood had no love for British sex bomb Christine Norden?

Yes, R229, and notice I didn't defend "Rear Window"'. Or "Bell, Book, and Candle".

Because 99% of movies where an old schlub nails a young hottie are, as I said, bullshit made for the schlubby old guys.

Christine Norden wasn't a Kim Novak type. She danced and sang and seemed to prefer the stage. She did appear in a few Hollywood films though, one with Joan.

[Quote]After appearing in ten films within five years, Norden left Britain for America in 1952, where she settled in New York and married her third husband, US Air Force sergeant Mitchell Dodge. She went on to become an American citizen in 1960, starring on Broadway in the musical Tenderloin at around the same time. She also caused a sensation in 1967, when she became the first actress to appear topless on Broadway, in the comedy Scuba Duba.

I wish Hitchcock had used Sabrina.

Never heard of her. I’m into Vera Louise Gorman-Novak

[quote]starring on Broadway in the musical Tenderloin

WTF???

guest of honor

[quote] She could be genuinely terrible, "The Legend of Lylah Clare" is considered a camp classic for a reason!

That's an unfair statement. Everyone and everything in Lylah Clare is completely over the top. I mean, Ernest Borgnine? And don't get me started with the "symbolism" in that movie. I think she actually met the requirements of a campy part in a campy movie for Lylah Clare. Had she played it down she would have looked like a somnanbulist.

I'M LYLAH!!!!!

She slept with Harvey Weinstein’s great grandfather . Hollywood tradition

Hitchcock was on Marilyn's list of approved directors on her contract.....I wonder if he had any say so on this matter?

I thought Kim nailed the cockney waitress perfectly in Of Human Bondage. Outside of that character I don't think she ever played that far out of herself in any other role. I doubt Marilyn could have done as well in that part in a million years.

Has anyone seen The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) about a drug addict named Frankie Machine played by Sinatra? Novak had a serious role as the "good woman" who saves him. She was in way over her head and it was a thankless role. I much preferred his crazy faking it crimple played by Eleanor Parker.

^ his crazy faking it crimple WIFE played by Eleanor Parker.

crimple??

So all the Kim supporters say that she was acting poorly in every movie on purpose, because the character she was playing was not an actress, and therefore was a superior actress ? No, she was wooden and stiff as a board because she was a poor actress with very minimal talent and no range

I'm fascinated by the idea of Marilyn in Vertigo. I think she would've been excellent.

Jimmy Stewart for me, was the weakest link in all of his Hitchcock movies. Too bad that Gregory Peck wasn’t available for any of them.

I'm glad it wasn't Vera Miles in Vertigo. Even though she was a competent actress, she wasn't ethereal. I think Kim Novak was a perfect choice for the role, or roles.

Crimple = a medical condition invented by Apple

Vera Miles lacked charisma.

"So all the Kim supporters say that she was acting poorly in every movie on purpose, because the character she was playing was not an actress, and therefore was a superior actress ?"

No, just that her extremely limited abilities worked really well in a few movies. She was perfect in "Vertigo", which is like a stopped clock being spot-on twice a day.

Apparently, after Vera Miles dropped out of Vertigo, Hitch considered Lana Turner, who was close to 40 but still headlining moneymaking films. Turner was well aware of this and demanded $$$. Hitch balked and went with the less expensive Novak. Lana was another beautiful blonde with limited acting skills who made things work to her advantage.

Novak, already a big star, was on loan from Columbia at her usual salary of $1,250 a week. She went on strike and refused to show up for work. Harry Cohn put her on suspension, but Kim hired a team of agents who renegotiated a new contract worthy of a star, at $3,000 a week.

I'm the one who thinks Marilyn might have been utterly amazing in "Vertigo"... and I'm SO glad that Lana Turner passed! She really was a terrible actress, worse than Novak, who could at least be real on occasion, and who was damn good in this one movie. Turner was utterly artificial, she looked artificial and her acting was pure Studio Coaching for Starlets. She never brought any real feeling to the screen, just a fair amount of glamour and some shallow sensuality.

The female role in "Vertigo" requires vulnerability above all. Novak brought serious vulnerability, Marilyn could have brought even more, and Turner never had a vulnerable moment in her life.

Who would Kim Novak be today?

I thought Lana was serviceable In GREEN DOLPHIN STREET, THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL & PEYTON PLACE. She was kind of okay in everything else. Most of her films were drivel. IMITATION OF LIFE is a favorite of mine, but she was not great in it. Her scenes when Annie died were horrible. Sirk didn’t rein her in like he should have.

Wilder should've stopped while he was ahead, like Tarantino allegedly plans to do.

Lana Turner was a SUPERSTAR and a very enjoyable performer. No one gives glamour like Lana. You knew exactly who she was and she didn't pretend to be anything else; A doll. A broad. Str8 guys wanted to fuck her, and gay guys wanted to be her. Gotta love Lana

Marilyn would never have played Madeline. Stop this nonsense.

The one film in which Marilyn ALMOST plays a character would be BUS STOP. You can ALMOST see the Judy part of VERTIGO Marilyn might have pulled off in her Cherie.

Maybe Marilyn could have played Midge…

Marilyn could have played Blanche Dubois (you can see that in don't bother to knock) , Margo Channing (she had the acting chops as per the misfits) , Maggie the cat (watch out for her dixie drawl), and Deanie Loomis ( she was borderline)

But the "real" Marilyn wasn't the dumb blonde Sugar Cane; the real Marilyn was Roslyn in The Misfits - a somber, though sometimes charming, drifter having a hard time finding meaning in life. So, she was a convincing actress.

I hated her accent in BUS STOP.

Marilyn would've hit it out of the ballpark in "The Nun's Story," "The King and I," and "I Want to Live!"

R254 Margot Robbie. Somehow pretty but hard faced and insecure, pulled out of nowhere, it girl of Hollywood for a hot 5 minutes, gone tomorrow

I'm off this thread. Too much Marilyn fantasy.

Marilyn would have knocked the socks off "the night of the iguana", "whatever happened to Baby Jane", " the roman spring of Mrs Stone" and even "Rosemary's baby" as Minnie Castevet

to R250 -

Kim and Bridget Bardot. They were very similar. Sexy, pretty girls dolled up like movie stars but incapable of acting except in that one role

Now, Bardot is another one who mystifies me. And the more I read about her offscreen personality, I can't with her, I just can't...

[Quote]But the "real" Marilyn wasn't the dumb blonde

Oh, hun.

IN 1954 for her second role, Columbia tried Kim out in a dumb blonde MM type character in Phftt which starred Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon. She's not bad, but glad Columbia didn't make her into an MM clone. Best part of this scene is near end when the Chicago tough girl side of Novak comes out.

Bardot always looked like she put on sexy clothes without bathing.

This is surprisingly good...

Bardot is french. She DID put on sexy clothes without bathing. They don't have bathrooms/Shower rooms. There's a shared loo on each floor generally. They use the kitchen sink or a tub as a bathing spot.

Bardot is seemingly almost forgotten outside of France, where she a polarizing figure based on her politics....

In her heyday in Europe, she was truly the closest rival to Marilyn's worldwide idolatry and fame (forget about novak, mansfield, and whoever else)....

What "hurt" Bardot is she never went hollywood, was content (or lazy) to be a European sex symbol, actress and sensation. She made alot of films, but her career was short on purpose by her because she didn't want the world to see has a 40 year old on screen.

Besides Bardot in europe, Marilyn truly only had one rival in terms of fame and interest throughout the world and that was Elizabeth Taylor...........

Bardot is a crazy old cat lady. An antisemite and racist. Just like her buddy Alain Delon.

I'm old enough to have seen that Kim Novak on TV on Hollywood and the Stars when it was first shown. Great mini-documentary that catches her just as she decides she's had enough of Hollywood and transitions to a happier private life in serene Carmel, as well as a lovely retrospective of her beginnings in Chicago and the start of her career. All Kim fans should watch it.

I can only imagine the pressure that she was under…can’t blame her at all for walking away…too bad Marilyn didn’t have the gumption to do the same thing.

Bardot has the face that she deserves.

her snatch was tight

Bardot looks like she smells like cat piss and French cigarettes.

Bardot was rumored to have slept with Jimi Hendrix. Then she came out against interracial dating.

What did he do to her?

R283, did she come out against interracial dating in the 1960s, or as the old crank she became decades later?

Because when an older person suddenly switches from liberal to paranoid conservative, that is IMHO a sign of the early stages of Dementia.

Bardot is looney but she radiated the kind of charisma in her movies that few came close to. She was also a pretty good actress, more expressive than Kim Novak and many of her French contemporaries. She's spectacular in La Verité.

Bardot is no Sophia Loren.

Terpsichorean Bardot

Sophia and Brigitte = apples and oranges.

Sophia is not the insecure narcissist like Bridgette

Bridgette

Oh dear.

Bardot like most European actresses wasn't interested in Hollywood. Most carried out a hit and run for cash. It was not a shortcoming. It was a preference.

Many big name European stars came out to Hollywood to do pictures only to find themselves bored with the entire process. In Europe, you shoot a scene, then everybody picks up a chair, a prop, a light package, etc., and takes it to the next locale to shoot the next scene. It goes by quick and easy. In the US, you shoot a scene, then you wait for a IATSE stagehand to unplug the lights, another guy to roll up the cables and load them into a case, and yet another guy to push the case. The other guy comes back to unload the case and unroll the cables, then that other stagehand comes back to plug everything back in. This just one small part of a bigger, bureaucratic production machine. Imagine all the divisions of labor involved in a union prodcution. It's an extremely time consuming process and the actor waits and waits and waits.

Why do so many young people (I assume you're under 100, R292) call movies "pictures," like they were born in 1908?

R54 Vera Miles, a "pudgy little thing". People here are fucking weird.

I like Kim in Bell, Book and Candle. I must, because I've seen it about 10 times in my life. Jack Lemmon is wasted in a nothing part in it, though.

A good movie she did was Strangers When We Meet, with Kirk Douglas (and Ernie Kovaks, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau). I liked it also because it was filmed all over LA in 1959 or 60. Not a great film but an enjoyable love story.

There are announcements from around 1956 that Hitch was in talks with Lana Turner for Vertigo. Lana Turner! No.

She was named after Kim Kardashian.

Back to Novak R274's link is really good. Taking aside the sometimes purple prose of the narration (?Joseph Cotten), there's more to her than I expected. her identification with Madge from Picnic, helps explain her her romatic choices and her desire for something different from Hollywood. It's nice that she was still connected to her family in Chicago, despite what had happened n her life otherwise.

Jimmy Stewart wasn't a sex god but he was very attractive to women, and men identified with him (not because he was not sexy or attractive, because he acted like an everyman). I find him good looking, I guess some of you don't.

Osborne interview

Well, r298, he scored with tons of chicks.

R300 He actually did, he was known as a ladies' man. Kirk Doouglas wrote in his autobiography about how he was with some woman at a party and Jimmy Stewart came along and she went off with Stewart.

Norma Shearer, Ginger Rogers, Olivia De Havilland, Marlene Dietrich, Lana Turner, Loretta Young were some of Stewart's girlfriends.

[quote]He actually did,

Yes, r301, I know.

R303 I wasn't trying to prove it to you. I was elaborating. Maybe not everyone here knows what you know.

[quote] Why do so many young people (I assume you're under 100, [R292]) call movies "pictures," like they were born in 1908?

People who work in the movie industry frequently call theatrical movies "pictures" or "shows". Most people outside the industry would never refer to The Godfather or Star Wars as a show.

My parents (not born in 1908) called movies pictures, or would say, "We're going to a show." Or "the show."

Best Picture

I call them...flickers.

The Last Picture Show

R279 wrote: I can only imagine the pressure that she was under…can’t blame her at all for walking away…too bad Marilyn didn’t have the gumption to do the same thing.

I don't think MM would have ever walked away from Hollywood. Stardom was what she aspired to. Kim fell into movie acting as a fluke. She aspired to be a painter and Hollywood turned out to be a big detour for her. She happened to become a star and made a lot of money and she eventually was able to afford to walk away and live a life first in Big Sur and later with her Verteranarian husband in Oregon, largely devoted to painting and caring for animals, while occasionally doing an acting job, or from early 90s on doing the occasional interview or public appearance to nurture her growing legend as a film star thanks to Vertigo becoming an iconic film.

[quote]Jimmy Stewart wasn't a sex god but he was very attractive to women

EVIDENCE? That is besides what gossip columns of yore said. Every man, yes, sexy NOOOOOO.

No gay man ever looked twice at bumbling Jimmy Stewart.

DL Goddess Arlene Francis often referred to movies "pictures". And Broadway theatre as "the legitimate stage"

R313, just shut up and give me my Arpege’…

I hope you're gay, r93, because if you are straight, you're stupid.

Kim Novak was blonde, bosomy, and beautiful, with a peaches and cream complexion. Plus, she had an air of helplessness, neediness. Ergo, she was appealing.

She put the voom in va-va-voom.

Not to William Holden she wasn't.

Lana Turner would have been as good a choice as Kim for Vertigo. Now, serious question, what is Kim living on ? She hasn't made a picture since 1980.

Her last film was in 1991 not 1980. From 1976 to 2021 she was married to a very successful large animal veteranarian. They lived well. He made money and she must have invested her Hollywood earnings very well. Though a widow at 90 she's still living on her ranch in Oregon.

Grace Kelly famously said " I told Kim to take it in the ass only, you have to leave something to be desired, I wasn't cast in "rear window" for nothing. If she hadn't given away her pussy so freely, she would be sitting on my frigging throne right now"

Kim also raised Arabians and Thoroughbreds. I don't know how much they go for, but I'm sure it's a nice side hustle.

Horse breeding is not very lucrative. Unless you produce Derby winners the overhead is too great. One raises horses for the love of it.

[quote]EVIDENCE?

R311 Maybe you should do some reading. Stewart was a staright bachelor until age 41 and he was a popular leading man/star. Women loved his guy-next-door personality and he had many, many Hollywood relationships, some of the women were already named.

*straight

Stewart had moments where he could be sexy. He had beautiful lips and he could convey a darkness and desperation when he needed to, which is why Hitchcock used him regularly in the 1950s.

I thought Stewart's last great performance - and age appropriate role - was as the grizzled pilot in 'The Flight Of The Phoenix'.

Some of Stewart's fans supposedly complained after he did Anatomy Of A Murder, one of his best films and performances (Oscar nominated). It was too frank and adult for them. So rather than letting that open up a new career for him as the 60s was dawning, he decided to do mostly westerns and family-friendly films from then on. Flight Of The Phoenix was a bit grittier but still not objectionable to anyone. Also - he made only one war film, post WWII, I think - The Mountain Road.

Apparently Kim was so discouraged working with Mike Figgis and by his behavior towards her (Liebestraum, 1991) she decided at that time nothing was worth that and quit acting.

Jimmy at @ age 61 at :25

(Without his hairpiece)

I thought he was great in "Anatomy of a Murder," much better than in "Vertigo."

Well, his role in ANATOMY was not romantic in any way, shape or form.

R330 I thought he was great in both.

R322 = Matthew Broderick

Little known fact about J.Stewart, He lived with Henry Fonda for many years, in a "bachelor pad" the same way Grant and Scott did. There was a lot of talk at that time, and Orson Welles joked that they were either the gayest couple in Hollywood or the two most normal men on earth

Tell me you're an eldergay without telling me you're an eldergay

Kim Novak has made it very clear that Jimmy Stewart was her favorite leading man. Once quoted as saying that the person she wants to see after she dies was Jimmy.

In her long Robert Osborn interview, Kim is very kind and generous about all of her directors and co-stars, even producer Harry Cohn, who she's able to perceive very sympathetically in retrospect. The only person she's hard on is herself. Fascinating and poignant to watch her get more emotional and broken apart as it goes on. With a little extra editing and a few more confessions, a transcript of that interview could have been made into a wonderful autobiography.

R337 or anyone know if Novak ever commented on Marilyn before or after her passing?....

I know Loren, Bardot and other female stars, including former "IT GIRL" Clara Bow, adored Marilyn. Taylor did not (her only worldwide rival in fame and attention) adore Marilyn and there has been conflicting comments that Taylor made about Marilyn over the decades...

I never really thought of Marilyn and Kim as rivals as movie stars, any more than I would have compared Audrey Hepburn to Elizabeth Taylor. The really big stars of the 50s like Novak, Taylor, Loren, Hepburn, Grace Kelly and MM, were all very individual and specific women and not terribly exchangeable in the roles they played. Not that there weren't dozens of B list and C list starlets who copied all of them.

Lots of you will probably disagree with me.

R339.. i would suggest sophia loren was more of a bigger star in the early 60s and throughout the 60's than she was in the 50's? Kelly was only a movie star for a few years before she abdicated.

MM is the only famous movie star of the 50's or 60's for that matter who was universally known by her initials. I don't think any of the other female stars could claim that? Course it might just be because MM it a easy simple moniker...

Was Maggie McNamara supposed to be another Audrey Hepburn?

R340, BB (Brigitte Bardot)

Kim was working on her autobiography in the 90s but a fire occurred at her place and destroyed both hard copy and the computer and she had no back up file. So she decided it wasn't meant to be. Two years ago she did publish through the Butler Museum of American Art a book of her paintings along with some reflections about her life. She said that her autobiography can truly be gleamed by her art. And earlier this year a documentary about Kim appeared on French Television in which she cooperated fully with and did an extensive on camera interview. I believe it's called Hollywood Rebel Kim Novak. I wonder if it will end up on TCM?

R342... true bardot could be seen and read in media as BB, But I do not think it was as universal worldwide as Marilyn's MM... Bardot was more or less a european superstar, almost a "art house" star in the united states... and media in the u.s. and hollywood in the u.s. is where it was at during that era...

Didn't Kim agree to change her first name from Marilyn because of possible comparisons to Monroe?

R341 I don't know if she was. She happened to be nominated for Best Actress the same year Audrey won. Even though she reminded me of Audrey (when I was a little kid I used to confuse them), she was so American. They came up around the same time but Maggie's career faded quickly, apparently because she couldn't handle Hollywood.

Maggie McNamara was married to David Swift (from the sausage-making family) who wrote and/or directed Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, and How To Succed In Business Without Really Trying.

[quote]DL Goddess Arlene Francis often referred to movies "pictures".

Arlene Francis was born in 1907

R274, That was rather entertaining, but it also comes off as trite. Almost every Hollywood star uses that line about "living by the sea in seclusion" or having a farm somewhere to try and appear humble and down to earth. Also, that BS about her bohemian friends being the only ones who are "authentic" while everyone else is supposedly fake is typical elitist snobbery.

Her busted wig disguise while walking around New York did give me a laugh, though.

Bardot was universally known as BB. At the peak of her stardom, she was the biggest star in the world, bigger than Monroe and Taylor even. She was a superstar in Latin America, a top ten hitter in the US, THE biggest star in Europe, everywhere.

R349.. sorry but in that era HOLLYWOOD and what one did in the states was where it was at....And Bardot was never a top 10 draw in the united states, as most of her films didn't open to wide release... She was the european Marilyn, But Marilyn was the worldwide Bardot...

And of course most people under the age of 50 or who are not film history fans, do not even know who Bardot is now...

Bardot WAS in the top ten hun

Bardot was world-famous. Hollywood even made a movie in the 60s called Dear Brigitte where a young kid (Billy Mumy) whose dad is played by Jimmy Stewart, has a precocious crush on her and wants to meet her.

yep R352, rub his nose in it !

Novak was the american Bardot

Kim Novak was signed to Columbia Pictures to rival 20th Century Fox's Marilyn Monroe in popularity, and there was a brief moment in the 1950s when Novak's box office numbers topped Marilyn's. But Marilyn and Kim's onscreen personas were so different that its hard to believe they were ever rivals. Where the Monroe persona was fun, ditzy, sexy, accessible, and warmhearted, the Novak persona was cool, aloof, mysterious, and maybe a bit dangerous because there seemed to be some inner conflict beneath that exterior.

I don't see no difference. Big tits and blonde hair

R351... you're link makes no mention of Bardot being in the top ten box office draws of "and god created woman".. it just says it was a huge hit in europe and for a time the biggest box office foreign film (until la dolce vita)... that's it!.. that's 1 film!...

R352. no one said that bardot at the time wasn't world famous... But her fame and box office was for the most majority part NOT hollywood success, and hollywood especially then was the world film capital...

R355... looking up the top box office draws year by year in the 1950s. novak was never ahead of monroe in terms of a year's box office? She did do good box office in 1958, but marilyn didn't make a single film that year...IF Novak for a time had bigger box office than Monroe, you also have to consider how many films each made in a time period for that to have happened.. for instance from 1957 to 1962, Novak made 9 films. Monroe only made 4, 5 if you include the unfinished "something's got to give"..

Bridgitte and Jimmy, two reactionaries of the worst kind.

[quote] Didn't Kim agree to change her first name from Marilyn because of possible comparisons to Monroe?

Yes, she said so herself in a couple of interviews.

[qUote]Fascinating and poignant to watch her get more emotional and broken apart as it goes on.

She's bipolar. They all do this. Osborne was masterful at handling her gently.

Novak must have invested her film money VERY well, if she's been able to spend most of her adult life painting and raising horses, instead of acting. Actors in the 1950s weren't paid that much, not enough that they could afford to retire, after a few years at the top.

And that's the real reason most actors of that era didn't leave the silver screen, they couldn't afford to. Bette Davis her later years taking any role that paid because she needed the money (mostly for her ungrateful family), and that was typical. Most actors made some money and managed to lose it through extravagance, divorce, bad investment, or being related to succubi (as was Davis), and they had to keep working even if they'd much rather be raising show horses in Oregon. There were only a few who could afford to retire, but who kept at it because their egos told them to.

She bought that spectacular cliff house on the 17-mile Drive in Monterey in the 60's, today probably valued at 25M.

Tuesday also kind of retired early, did she finally inherit some of the WELD $$$ ?

[quote] Novak must have invested her film money VERY well

I don't see Novak being very bright

R358 Maybe you should watch the clip at R329 where Jimmy says he believes in strict gun control laws.

R261 They didn't make residuals, then - and they didn't make the ridiculous money stars make now. If you adjust for inflation they still made way, way below what's made now. (And they were paid salaries or fees, not percentages as they are today.)

^R361 Just agreeing with what you said.

r364 Maybe you're right, but maybe her veterinarian husband coached her on investing?

I don't want to hijack a Kim thread, but I found these very interesting outtakes from Something's Got to Give. Laurence Olivier said she had an unconscious resistance to acting. He said she was a "divided person".

Well, yeah, tbh I think we've had a million threads on Marilyn., we don't need to make this another one .

R357, I don't know about box office but according to wiki, Kim was the #6 top money making star of 1957. The only woman to crack the top ten. The year prior, she came in at #9, two steps below Marilyn. Stats are missing for '58, the year Kim had "Bell, Book, and Candle" and "Vertigo" (which flopped).

In 1957, Kim had "Pal Joey" and "Jeanne Eagels." Marilyn had "The Prince and the Showgirl."

"While Vertigo did break even upon its original release, earning $3.2 million in North American distributor rentals against its $2,479,000 cost, it earned significantly less than other Hitchcock productions."

R370 here. I fogot to post the link.

Marilyn was crazy but she could act a little. Liz taylor could act a little. Natalie Wood could act when well directed. Gene Tierney was a good actress, she could do layers. Vivien Leigh was a genious within a narrow range. Kim Novak couldn't act her way out of a ratpack gangbang

R370 Vertigo review from 1958 in The Hollywood Reporter - Jack Moffitt:

That critic was someone who "got" Vertigo at the time of release.

One of the parts of the Kim Novak story that impresses me is on the issue of her screen name. She was born Marilyn Novak and when signed to Columbia in 1953 she was open to changing her first name due to Monroe, but absolutely said no to the name Harry Cohn wanted to give her: Kit Marlowe. She thought it was fake and phony and wanted to hold on to Novak. Cohn replied "who ever heard of a Polack glamour girl". Novak said she's Czech,not Polish and besides what does that have to do with anything. Cohn then offered Kit Novak, but Novak suggested Kim as a compromise and she won. It takes a certain amount of guts to stand up to the likes of Harry Cohn.

Years later when she appeared on Falcon Crest, as an inside joke, she played a character called Kit Marlowe. By then she could have fun with such a name.

Though Novak is a "Polack" name, there's something very sexy about it.

There were probably millions of American baby girls named Kim in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

"Miss Novak has become a fine actress, especially in the latter part of the film where she appears as the love-possessed shop girl. Here, without the support of her ethereal beauty, she does a really fine bit of trouping." -- THR

"Mr. Stewart, as usual, manages to act awfully tense in a casual way, and Miss Novak is really quite amazing in -- well, here is a bit of a hint -- dual roles." -- NYT (Bosley Crowther)

Great reviews for Kim.

[quote] Kim Novak couldn't act her way out of a ratpack gangbang

An insensitive comment since she was actually raped at one such occasion. At any rate, she may not have been a great actress but she was spellbinding to watch.

the trouble with angels "What's your name? Kim Novak? I like it! Me too, but i'm stuck with Mary Clancy...

The trouble with angels. What a delightful movie. Love it

Korda wanted to name Vivien leigh " April Morn" ....

And Jack Warner wanted to change Bette Davis' name to Bettina Dawes.

Anne Shirley first had the stage name, Dawn O'Day.

(Then she took the name of her character in the movie of Anne Of Green Gables)

Wasn't that true of Jane Powell, too, that her name came from a character she played in her first film?

R378 raped by whom?

r374 damn, that review pretty much gives away the entire story except for the last scene!

was it rape-rape ? there was a saying in Hollywood, " you can never rape an audition, or Kim Novak"

One of my favorite pieces Ebert ever wrote.

"Then there is another level, beneath all of the others. Alfred Hitchcock was known as the most controlling of directors, particularly when it came to women. The female characters in his films reflected the same qualities over and over again: They were blond. They were icy and remote. They were imprisoned in costumes that subtly combined fashion with fetishism. They mesmerized the men, who often had physical or psychological handicaps. Sooner or later, every Hitchcock woman was humiliated.

“Vertigo” (1958), which is one of the two or three best films Hitchcock ever made, is the most confessional, dealing directly with the themes that controlled his art. It is *about* how Hitchcock used, feared and tried to control women. He is represented by Scottie (James Stewart), a man with physical and mental weaknesses (back problems, fear of heights), who falls obsessively in love with the image of a woman--and not any woman, but the quintessential Hitchcock woman. When he cannot have her, he finds another woman and tries to mold her, dress her, train her, change her makeup and her hair, until she looks like the woman he desires. He cares nothing about the clay he is shaping; he will gladly sacrifice her on the altar of his dreams."

And introducing April Morn as Scarlett O'Hara. Err, no.

Korda didn't want Vivien to take the part of Scarlett, " a real life spoilt princess playing a spoilt princess, the public will reject you". Olivier warned her as well " you can't do accents, and you'll just make a fool of yourself".

R386 She said she was given a rape drug at a Hollywood function and woke up naked suggesting she had been raped, and she attributed the incident to Tony Curtis.

How horrible.

Lol. Tony Curtis. With his 2 incher, he could have fucked her right in the middle of the "Hollywood function" without her noticing. More likely Giancana and his henchmen, hence the reels that cut her career short and sent her to Big Sur. Marilyn was not so wise, and threatened them with a press conference

More likely? OK, hon.

I'm dubious when Roger Ebert says Hitchcock's female characters reflected the same qualities over and over again. Before Vertigo, what other Hitchcock women were really like the Maleleine character other than their cool blondness? And maybe "cool blondness" is enough similarity right there but I feel like Ebert is stretching a weak thesis.

R386, Miss Novak claims she was raped while in her teens by a group of boys in the backseat of a car.

Mentally ill women are always raped. Always. And the vague accused always got away with it. Life is always tragicaly unfair to them. And there is proof. Somewhere. But don't ask them to produce it. Or else you're evil.

R398: You're like a bad translation of Freud.

Even though Hitchcock, was on Marilyn's list of approved directors, I don't see how the two would have worked together on any project, whether the material/storyline or their personalities... Otto Preminger and Marilyn had issues, I can't imagine how Hitchcock, whose preminger on steroids, would have treated Marilyn...

I find it annoying that Kim complains that she was badly treated in Hollywood, that she was not given interesting parts, that she wanted to play a mentally il woman, because, being mentally ill herself, she would have been great, that she was too good for the business. Miss Deepfreeze... you wouldn't pick a bosomy stranger in the streets and put her in an opera for instance. How can she even think that she was qualified to be an actress ? What mentally ill woman did she want to play ? Blanche fucking Dubois ? Is she even aware that they were people around like Vivien Leigh, who were seasoned Shakespearean actors, RADA trained, stage trained ? At least Jane Russell said that her only talent was her chest and she would never have been an actress outside the old studio system, and she was lucky to have been given lots of money to stand pretty in front of a camera

Marilyn was not that bad in Niagara, but she needed to movie to be about HER. she didn't do supporting parts very well, and I don't see Hitchock making a movie about a voluptuous whore. Novak was already much too heavy for a Hitchcock blonde

Ingrid Bergman, Madeleine Carroll and Doris Day weren't exactly sylphs, r402.

[quote] I can't imagine how Hitchcock, whose preminger on steroids, would have treated Marilyn...

Preminger was a bully who abused and terrified everyone on his sets. Actors dreaded him. How was Hitchcock this on steroids?

[quote]The female characters in his films reflected the same qualities over and over again: They were blond. They were icy and remote.

Has Ebert seen a lot fo Hitchcock films? Other than Tippi Hedren, this really doesn't describe anyone. Ingrid Bergman was never icy or remote. Neither was Doris Day. Joan Fontaine wasn't icy, even Grace Kelly wasn't icy or remote, really. Medeleine Carroll was warm. Anne Baxter was emotional. Eva Marie Saint doesn't fit the description. And of course there were many other "female characters" who weren't cold or aloof, in HItchcock's films.

I agree with you, r405, and it's what I was trying to say at r396. You said it better.

R406 Ebert was really off, there. And what about women in HItchcock's films like Theresa Wright in Shadow Of A Doubt? Shirley MacLaine, Jane Wyman, Jessica Tandy, Vera Miles, on and on.

"Mentally ill women are always raped. Always."

Gee, ya think that being raped might have something to do with developing mental illness later? Think there, you know, might be a correlation?

You can add Margaret Lockwood, Sylvia Sidney, Ruth Roman, Priscilla Lane, Julie Andrews and Karen Black to the list Hitchcock's non-icy non-blondes.

R409 And Laraine Day.

Joan Fontaine?

Joan was rather blonde and cool if not exactly icy.

Madeleine Carroll and Priscilla Lane played unavailable blondes which can be misconstrued as icy by horny straight men.

Ingrid Bergman was the greatest of all the Hitchcock actresses.

And she has the Oscars to prove it, r414!

How about "complex" blondes?

Don't forget Tallulah Bankhead in Lifeboat.

[quote]The funny part of it is, I'm from the same gutter.

Joan Fontaine is the only actress (or actor) to win an Oscar for a performance an Alfred Hitchcock film.

*

[quote]Preminger was a bully who abused and terrified everyone on his sets. Actors dreaded him.

In a 2012 interview Novak said of Preminger: "He was one of my very favorite directors. I loved Otto Preminger." Preminger enjoyed working with her too: "She was a warm girl with a great, great wish to please people and make a success. , She'd been treated like a nincompoop, but she's really quite shrewd. And I knew she was right for the part."

Eleanor Parker, Jane Fonda, Jimmy Stewart and many other actors also had high praise for Preminger. Actors who hated working with him included: : Tom Tryon; Faye Dunaway; Dyan Cannon; Keir Dullea; and Darren McGavin.

There's an excellent biography of Preminger by Foster Hirsch that offers a very balanced picture of his work with actors.

Henry Fonda, who worked with Preminger several times said you don't question John Ford or Otto Preminger.