Liz Smith has an article on one of Hollywood’s most elusive and glittering stars and a real survivor, Kim Novak, in Quest’s Winter Quarterly, Q. Here we present the full story as Liz wrote it. It differs slightly from the magazine version and contains new material.

“Why did I leave? Survival. Identity. Discovery.”

That was Kim Novak in a rare interview, a few years ago, explaining why she opted out of Hollywood, choosing not to hang on to her place in the movie pantheon.

Although Novak stretches the truth a bit when she claims, “I left at the peak of my career” (that, in fact, was around 1958), she is not a deluded Norma Desmond. In the mid-’60s, when Novak put the brakes on, she was a big name, if not reliable box office. And that name still conjured up old-style glamour, which was in the midst of transition.

Click here to read Liz’s entire profile of Kim Novak.