Actress Kim Novak, one of Alfred Hitchcock’s blondes and the star of the 1958 film Vertigo, widely hailed as one of greatest movies of all time, has taken the Venice Film Festival by surprise with a tell-all documentary about her extraordinary life.
The film, which premiered last night in advance of the 92-year-old actress getting a lifetime achievement Golden Lion today, tells of her upbringing in Depression-era Chicago, followed by ten years of Hollywood superstardom, and then a retreat from the movie business.
She says of the revelations: ‘I have been feeling the need to free the memories that have been hiding in the closet of my mind.’
Among them are her that mother Blanche, who she loved, twice tried to kill her. First she tried to abort her with knitting needles and then, having failed, attempted to smother her as an infant with a pillow.
She also said that her father Joseph, who she said had mental health issues, kept the body of her dead infant brother in the basement of the family home, in a jar.
In the film she says: ‘The Depression caused so much hardship. My mother got pregnant and she could not afford a child.
Kim Novak has revealed that her mother Blanche tried to abort her pregnancy with knitting needles as she detailed her poverty-stricken upbringing in an extraordinary new documentary
The actress, one of Alfred Hitchcock’s blondes and the star of the 1958 film Vertigo, has detailed her extraordinary life in the film, which has taken the Venice Film Festival by storm
The film premiered last night in advance of the 92-year-old actress getting a lifetime achievement Golden Lion on Monday (pictured)
‘She tried to abort me with knitting needles and it failed. So she tried to suffocate me with a pillow. I remember fighting to stay alive. I won, I stayed alive, and made it through.’
She added that it was her sister who found her brother’s foetus in the basement, amid her father’s collection of animals and insects.
‘The foetus, his only son, in the basement. He kept him,’ she said.
Catholic Joseph Novak had been a teacher in Czechoslovakia but worked as a railroad dispatcher in America.
‘He never approved of her stardom, never told her he was proud of her, and didn’t come to see most of her films.
Film maker Alexandre Phillippe said that he was astonished to have the voice mail from Novak outlining these stories. ‘I gasped, and said, is it too dark?’ he said.
He added: ‘It is a privilege to share all these very powerful secrets and memories.’
Novak journeyed from her 13 acre horse ranch in Oregon to accept the honour from the festival.
Kim became the world’s top box office draw during the late 1950s and early 1960s thanks to films such as Picnic, The Man with the Golden Arm and Hitchcock’s Vertigo (pictured)
Despite 10 years of Hollywood superstardom, she left the industry in 1966 after growing tired of being offered cheesecake roles
Novak journeyed from her 13 acre horse ranch in Oregon to accept her Golden Lion honour from the festival (pictured last week)
Her friend and agent Suzanne Cameron said that Novak had been ‘working out with weights’ in her hotel room this morning and lived extremely actively.
‘She is not someone who acts her age,’ she said. Asked if Novak – long absent from public view – enjoyed the limelight, she said: ‘No!.’
Born Marilyn Pauline Novak, she got noticed after winning a beauty contest and landing a contract to demonstrate refrigerators.
On a visit to RKO Studios, she was invited to be an extra in two movies and was signed up by Columbia films, run by Harry Cohn.
She became the world’s top box office draw during the late 1950s and early 1960s thanks to films such as Picnic in 1955, The Man with the Golden Arm and Pal Joey with Sinatra and Hitchcock’s Vertigo in which she played dual roles opposite a besotted Jimmy Stewart.
But she left Hollywood in 1966, tiring of being offered cheesecake roles as a beauty. ‘You get dizzy, being caught up in it,’ she said. ‘I had to get reborn.’
Since that time she has lived mostly in Oregon, with a menagerie of animals and a passion for painting. Her husband, an equine vet Robert Malloy, died in 2020.
She has been diagnosed as bipolar and has said in interviews that she didn’t want to have children for that reason.
Director Alexandre Phillippe uses voice notes recorded by Novak, plus interviews and archival footage to tell her story.
Novak said yesterday: ‘I thought it was a good idea to make [this film] in a way because it was a chance to wrap up my life.
‘Like you would in a confessional, I expressed the things that mattered and meant something to my life.’ In the film she goes further, saying: ‘I might be wrong but I feel like I am very close to the end now.’
She is seen opening a box containing the grey suit which she wore as Madeleine Elster in Vertigo – which had been bought at auction by a fan. The sight and touch of it brings her to tears.
‘My memory of that suit is how much I didn’t like it. It was stiff. I always felt like I was wearing a straitjacket. I also just didn’t like the way it looked on me. I didn’t identify with it, but of course, that’s what made it right in the movie.
Kim has also revealed she has been diagnosed as bipolar and said in interviews that she didn’t want to have children for that reason
‘When I opened the box and touched it, it suddenly wasn’t stiff. It was so soft. It had gotten soft over the years, and it made me realize how I probably got softer in my years, too, through experience.
‘That touched me deeply because it showed how time can make such a difference in how you look at things and how you definitely learn to appreciate everything in life. The closer you get to death, you realize what an incredible thing life is.’
The film also delves into Novak’s feelings about her beauty, which she describes as ‘wearing a crown of thorns. I still look at it that way. Of course, it’s what got me there, but because to me, especially in Hollywood, it was a handicap in a way.
‘I mean. It’s why they always wanted me to play parts that were about how you looked more than how you feel.
‘There were movies that I would have loved to have been a part of because I could have gotten into the depth of my feelings rather than just reacting to how I looked.’
