Editor’s Note: 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. To see the article as it appeared in Q, including photos of Novak, click here.

“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 see photos of Kim Novak and this article as it appeared in Q, the winter quarterly from Quest Magazine.  

Novak had not lost her money, her beauty or her mind. No scandals preceded her decision. In fact, it was the logical move to anybody who had paid attention to Novak’s life as an actress. She was always an independent, never comfortable with the system and extremely sensitive. Indeed, she was, in some ways, more vulnerable than Marilyn Monroe. She simply had a better handle on her emotions, and a more grounded outlook. Novak, in her best years, created something most American movie stars don’t have – mystery. Her hushed, hesitant voice and manner were at odds with a body made for 1950s exploitation.

If Elizabeth Taylor conjured spoilt privilege (and later, indulgence) and Marilyn Monroe was a singing/dancing Technicolor confection, a humorous (if increasingly bruised) fantasy – Kim Novak was a creature of twilight hours; breaking dawn or sunset. She was, for all her voluptuous invitation, elusive, a woman no man could really know, even if he “knew” her, in the biblical sense.

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Marilyn Pauline Novak was born in Chicago, a sturdy hazel-eyed girl of Czech ancestry (not Polish, as is commonly thought). She did not enjoy the discipline of schools. She turned to modeling as soon as high school was over. She had to have been dismayed to discover that modeling consisted of being told what to do, what to wear, how to move! Still, she must have enjoyed the attention. Modeling took her, as it did so many, to Los Angeles, and that led to a brief role in an RKO movie, “The French Line.” She was noticed. She got herself an agent – or an agent got her, as is always the more likely scenario. She was screen-tested by Columbia, deemed photogenic and signed the usual seven-year contract.    

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The year was 1954. Marilyn Monroe was the nation’s No. 1 star. Back in 1948, Monroe had her first starring role in a Columbia film, “Ladies of the Chorus.” She was charming. But Harry Cohn, Columbia’s studio chief, claimed not to recognize her charm, and dropped her. (Perhaps because Monroe refused his advances?) Now, Harry wanted to build his own Marilyn, and to replace his aging and errant Love Goddess, Rita Hayworth. (“That broad could be worth millions, instead, she married those guys,” Cohn said of Hayworth’s dubious choices and long periods off the screen. “Those guys” included Orson Welles, Prince Aly Khan and singer Dick Haymes.)  

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Cohn ordered Kim to lose weight. Other adjustments were required. Novak later said, “They bring you in, they tell how special you are, then they want to change everything about you!” Of course, she could not remain Marilyn Novak, in the era of Monroe. Kim wanted to go with Kit Marlowe, a name she chose – and quite a good one, too! The studio nixed that. She settled for Kim, and her own last name. (Many years later, with tongue in cheek, she would play a character named “Kit Marlowe” in the TV series “Falcon Crest.”)

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