Novak had taken the marital plunge again in 1976 with veterinarian Dr. Robert Malloy. This time, it stuck. The couple now live quietly in Oregon, where the Lavender Love Goddess accompanies her doctor on his rounds, tending to animals, including birthing babies – cow babies.

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And still, she is a woman divided, if not in torment, like so many of her screen characters. Although she no longer acts, she still looks remarkably like Kim Novak, movie queen. Her body remains strong and trim – she maintains a strict exercise routine. Her face has clearly benefited from more than just robust good health and genetic luck. She doesn’t wish to banish everything about “Kim Novak” from her existence – only that which strained her soul, threatened to rob her spirit of adventure, and stifle her fulfillment as a woman – on her own terms. (She never expressed a convincing interest in motherhood. And so did not attempt to fulfill herself with children.)

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The cult of Kim Novak – and yes, it is real and growing – exists almost entirely based on her screen work, all of which look so much better now than it did in her heyday. Her tentative underplaying strikes a modern-day chord. (Hitchcock said of her, “You think you’re getting a lot. You’re not.” Hitch was dead wrong.) Her life off-screen, despite that period of high-glamour and gossip – Cary Grant! Aly Kahn! – was also an underplayed performance. She knew how to step away from the fire of temptation. She never peered into the abyss. She controlled her insecurities without drugs or drink to muffle reality. She beat the system, with her money and her marbles intact. 

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The movie industry loves its own despair, its self-created tragedies, especially the female variety. So read it and weep, Hollywood: Kim Novak – The Blonde That Got Away.

Click here on this text to read my New York Post column.

Click here to see photos of Kim Novak.