Kim Novak is being slammed for the “ghastly” cosmetic procedures she received in an attempt to recapture the youthful beauty that made her one of Hollywood’s leading ladies in the ‘50s and ’60s
The 91-year-old star, best known for her role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, admits that as she grew older, she fell “into the trap” and says that filling her insecurities with injections was the “stupidest” thing.
Kim Novak, who was born February 13, 1933, is best known as the screen siren in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), a psychological thriller she starred alongside James Stewart.
Novak’s portrayal of Madeleine Elster and Judy Barton is considered one of her most iconic performances, while Vertigo is hailed as one of the greatest films in cinema history.
“I think there was a little edge in my performance that I was trying to suggest that I would not allow myself to be pushed beyond a certain point, that I was there, I was me, I insisted on myself,” the Golden Globe winner told Roger Ebert of her role. “I think you can see a little of me resisting that in some of the shots, kind of insisting on my own identity.”
Though the sex symbol carved a successful path as a big screen actor, the Picnic star became “disillusioned” with Hollywood and a career that made her be someone else.
“I think it is a struggle all our lives of trying to be what someone else wants us to be. And in the end saying, ‘But do you love who I am?’ They love you if you’ll be the way they want you to be,” the star of Just a Gigolo said in a 1996 interview.
‘I had enough’
Making the transition from film to TV, Novak next appeared as a series regular in Falcon Crest (1986 to 1987) and after working on the 1991 film Liebestraum, Novak retired.
“I was not understood. I felt I had nothing to contribute,” she said of her decision to retire from Hollywood. “It seemed as if people started thinking of me as a packaged commodity…And that really hurt a lot…Finally, I had enough; I just couldn’t do it.”
“I felt I’m going to have to become this blank canvas all the time – eventually when someone wants to stop painting on that canvas, what do you do? The canvas gets old, it rots away, and so much for that. It doesn’t even get recycled.”
Novak, who also has bipolar disorder, left Hollywood behind and focused her attention on painting, and on raising horses with her second husband Robert Molloy, whom she met when he was treating one of her sick animals. Novak was with the veterinarian, her “soul mate,” until his death in 2020.
‘Ghastly operations’
On March 2, 2014, Novak was invited to present the award for best animated short feature alongside Matthew McConaughey at the Oscars.
It was her first Hollywood appearance in more than two decades.
“I just have to take a minute to say that I’m really glad to be here. It’s been a long time, but I’m glad to be with the Academy here tonight,” she said onstage.
After seeing the rarely seen star at 81, the actor received plenty of harsh jabs about her appearance.
One netizen writes of her new cheekbones, “The surgeons should lose their licenses who perform this ghastly operations (sic),” while another says, “These horrible ‘surgeons’ should be exposed.”
A third offers, “Reminds me of Jack Nicholsons ‘Joker’ from Batman…Freaky!!”
Even Donald Trump weighed in.
He tweeted at the time, “I’m having a real hard time watching the Academy Awards (so far). The last song was terrible! Kim should sue her plastic surgeon!”
‘Caught me off guard’
The snide remarks hit her hard.
“For days, I didn’t leave the house, it got to me like it gets kids and teenagers,” she said of the critiques. “I thought, ‘Perhaps Hollywood is ready to receive me in a different way.’ I was just not prepared for such a negative reaction and it just caught me off guard.”
Responding to the hate, which motivated her refusal to leave her home, Novak became determined to speak out against the bullies who attacked her.
In a now deleted Facebook post, the star of The Man with the Golden Arm shared, “After my appearance on the Oscars this year, I read all the jabs. I know what Donald Trump and others said, and I’m not going to deny that I had fat injections in my face…In my opinion, a person has a right to look as good as they can, and I feel better when I look better.”
Novak also noted that she had taken a pill to help her relax and says she “regrets taking it.”
The actor calls the comments made about her Oscar-night performance “bullying,” and vowed to “no longer hold myself back from speaking out against bullies.”
Later speaking with The Guardian of her cosmetic procedures, she explained that she gets “insecure” and hoped that fillers would help.
“I didn’t want a facelift or anything like that, so I went to a doctor, and he put some fat injections in my face. That was the stupidest thing I could have done. First of all, I didn’t need it, because I think my face is too round anyway. But it filled out my cheeks, so I looked different.”
Novak’s legacy
Now the 91-year-old, the star of 1958’s Bell, Book and Candle, is a mental health activist an anti-bullying campaigner, a vet’s assistant, and wants to be known for her artwork. “People can remember me in movies but I want them to see me as an artist,” says Novak, whose paintings are frequently on exhibit at the Butler Museum in Youngstown, Ohio.
Speaking with People in 2023 about her legacy, she adds, “…with my art, I expressed so much, and when I’m gone it’s going to be fascinating for people to look at my art and figure out what I was saying about my experiences in Hollywood, in my childhood and all of my life.”
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