Kim Novak | Biography, Vertigo, Movies, & Facts | Britannica (2025)

Kim Novak (born February 13, 1933, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.) is an American actor who was a popular star in the mid- to late 1950s, best known for her dual performance as Madeleine Elster and Judy Barton in Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thriller Vertigo (1958). The two women portrayed by Novak are part of a plot to trick an acrophobic former detective (played by Jimmy Stewart), with whom Barton falls in love. Although it was not a commercial success at the time of its release, Vertigo and Novak’s performance are now celebrated as significant contributions to cinema history and to what is arguably Hitchcock’s finest film.

As a teenager, Novak left Chicago, where she was working as a model, and moved to Hollywood to audition to be an extra in The French Line (1954), a film starring Jane Russell. She succeeded in that mission and also came to the attention of the president of Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn, who offered her a contract and groomed her for a career as a Hollywood sex symbol. Cohn transformed her image, instructing her to lose weight and, as another young actress named Marilyn—Marilyn Monroe—was then a rising star, suggested that she change her name. Although she insisted on keeping her surname, she adopted the given name Kim. She also took acting lessons and, early on, was cast in films opposite well-established actors such as Fred MacMurray (Pushover, 1954) and Jack Lemmon (Phffft, 1954).

In the mid-1950s Novak was given leading roles in several films. In The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), Frank Sinatra played a master card dealer and ex-con trying to make it as a jazz drummer, a path impeded by his heroin addiction and his deceptive wife. Novak was cast as the strip-club dancer Molly, his sympathetic former flame, who stands by him as he goes “cold turkey” in an attempt to get his life back on track. In Picnic (1956), which starred William Holden, Novak’s character—a small-town young woman—laments always being “the pretty one” instead of “the smart one.” Novak earned a nomination for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award for that role. Picnic is often considered her breakthrough film. In both Picnic and The Man with the Golden Arm Novak’s characters try to deflect the infatuation of her suitors, desiring to be more than just a sultry sex object, a challenge, it is thought, that the actress herself faced throughout her career. In addition, Novak’s performance as a socialite who marries the title character in The Eddy Duchin Story (1956) won her a Golden Globe for most-promising newcomer.

She won praise for her performance as a singer and dancer who is able to resist the charms of a womanizing singer (Sinatra) in the popular musical Pal Joey (1957), which also featured Rita Hayworth. After Vertigo Novak gave another standout performance in the romantic comedy Bell, Book and Candle (1958) opposite Stewart and Lemmon. Novak played an art gallery owner who is also a witch. She is forced to conceal her true identity and choose between love (with Stewart) or her supernatural powers. In Billy Wilder’s farcical comedy Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), Novak starred as Polly the Pistol, a waitress and prostitute. Although it is considered to show her in one of her better roles, the film opened to poor reviews and was criticized for its coarseness.

Novak was the top box-office star for three consecutive years in the 1950s. The trajectory of her career began to stall, however, when she appeared in such unsuccessful features such as Kiss Me, Stupid and The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965). That career change coincided with Cohn’s death, which Novak believed had much to do with the professional struggles she faced thereafter. None of her intermittent later movies approached the success of her early films. Her most notable later role was that of the conniving Kit Marlowe in the 1986–87 season of the television series Falcon Crest (1981–90). She retired from acting after a disagreement with the writer-director Mike Figgis during the filming of Liebestraum (1991).