“Vertigo” star Kim Novak was honored with a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement on Monday at the Venice Film Festival, where the reclusive Hollywood diva made her first public appearance in decades since leaving the limelight in the mid 1960s.
She was welcomed with a warm protracted ovation before Guillermo del Toro took the stage to deliver a glowing tribute.
Novak, 92, became the world’s top box office draw during the late ‘50s and early ‘60s thanks to films now considered classics such as Joshua Logan’s “Picnic” (1955), Otto Preminger’s “The Man with the Golden Arm” (1955), George Sidney’s Pal Joey (1957) and, of course, Alfred Hitchock’s “Vertigo” (1958), in which she plays dual characters in the role of her lifetime.
After listing the top directors Novak worked with, del Toro singled out the single aspects of her career that struck him the most: “Most impressive is the fact that she was capable of projecting frailty, power, mystery. To appear, endearing, dynamic, mythical and phenomenal. And with all those wonderful arresting performances, she always carried a little bit of warmth, a little bit of heartbreak and a little bit of mystery.”
Del Toro added: “Over time, she made her performances her own. Remarkably, she also chose to slow down, to take a break at the peak of her powers and to seek personal fulfillment raising horses and as a lyricist and a painter.”
In 1966, the Hollywood star withdrew from acting and retired to her ranch in Oregon to dedicate herself to painting and to her horses, only working sporadically in film since then.
“Oh my God! This is so beautiful,” said the visibly moved Novak. “I am receiving this. But it’s the same as if you were,” she said, gesturing towards the audience. Then she exclaimed: “You are me!”
“First of all, I’d like to thanks the Gods up there. Not one in particular. Just all of them. It’s such a gift that they waited until the end of my lifetime [for me] to get this,” Novak added.
“I want to thank my dad for being my moral compass,” she added. “And my mom. I was very shy and she would make me look in the mirror and make me say, ‘You are the captain of your own ship!’ That is something I think we all need to say. We all need to make our voices heard.”
As part of the tribute, Venice premiered the documentary biopic “Kim Novak’s Vertigo,” directed and written by Alexandre O. Philippe. The doc blends rare archival footage with personal reflections from Novak and glimpses into her reclusive life along Oregon’s wild Rogue River, tracing “her path from mid-century cinema icon to fiercely private artist,” as the doc’s synopsis puts it.
“It’s really about the spirals in her life,” said the director during a press conference prior to the awards ceremony. “In fact, if you really want to get into it, the movie has a spiral structure. At the end of each act we come back to this idea of why she left Hollywood; but at the end of each act it’s a different reason.”
So why did Novak agree to be part of “Kim Novak’s Vertigo”?
“I wanted her to have one more pow in her life,” said Sue Cameron, Novak’s manager and close friend who also serves as the doc’s executive producer. “It was not easy, really. But she felt secure with him [Philippe], so she said yes.”
“It’s a challenge,” added “Kim Novak’s Vertigo” producer Terri Piñon about bringing Novak to Venice for the tribute and the doc’s launch, which will be followed by an appearance at the Deauville American Film Festival in France. “She wants to be home with her horses and her dogs. But she’s willing to help the film team and be here.”
Cameron pointed out that Novak still exercises with weights every day.
“She has a 13-acre ranch with three islands on it and horses. She rides the horses, she walks around the meadows. She does not give up. This is not someone who acts her age. And she is determined to not accept her age,” Cameron went on. “She was working out with weights this morning!”
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