Venice (AFP) – The Venice Film Festival celebrated Hollywood actress Kim Novak on Monday, bestowing a lifetime achievement award to the reluctant star and platinum blonde heroine of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” now 92. Novak received a standing ovation and extended applause when handed her Golden Lion award from Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, ahead of the world premiere of the documentary “Kim Novak’s Vertigo,” directed by Alexandre Philippe.
Wearing an emerald and black silk gown, the former screen siren, who chose to defy the Hollywood studio system, raised her arms in acknowledgement of the cheers, mouthing “thank you” to the audience. “I’d like to thank the gods up there in Heaven, all of them. Not one in particular. Just all of them,” said Novak. “They have given me such a gift, but they waited, they waited until it would be the most meaningful in my life, at the end of my lifetime to get this from you.”
Novak is best known for playing the chilling dual role of suicidal blonde Madeleine Elster and brunette shop girl Judy Barton in the 1958 Hitchcock classic “Vertigo,” playing opposite James Stewart. However, she had a short-lived career, refusing to accept the iron-fisted rule of studio executives and walking away from Hollywood less than a decade later to focus on painting. Novak was “one of the most beloved icons of an entire era of Hollywood films…until her premature and voluntary exile from the gilded cage of Los Angeles,” said the festival’s artistic director, Alberto Barbera, in announcing the award in June.
Novak’s other memorable roles included a big-hearted prostitute in Billy Wilder’s 1964 “Kiss Me, Stupid,” a witch in Richard Quine’s “Bell, Book and Candle” (1958), and an adulteress in another Quine film, “Strangers When We Meet” (1960).
– Hiding from the limelight –
In a press conference earlier Monday, Novak’s manager, Sue Cameron — who is also the film’s executive producer — said Novak “does not like the limelight,” preferring to “be at home with her horses and her dogs.” “I wanted to give this as a present to her because she’s been so hidden all these years. I wanted her to have one more ‘Pow!’ in her life,” said Cameron of the film.
“She’s now 92. She exercises with weights every day. She walks. She has a 13-acre ranch with three islands on it and horses and horse meadows. She rides the horses. She walks around the meadow. She does not give up. This is not someone who acts her age,” Cameron said.
After years of avoiding the limelight, Novak was a guest of honour at the Cannes film festival in 2013, attending a special screening to mark the restoration of “Vertigo.” As a presenter at the 2014 Academy Awards, Novak was subject to a wave of cruel commentary about her appearance. In her later years, Novak, who was married twice, including to equine veterinarian Robert Malloy from 1976 to his death in 2020, raised horses and llamas in Oregon and California.
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