This blonde beauty broke into films in 1954 and went on to display some talent when given the opportunity. Kim Novak had just embarked on a modeling career when she landed a walk-on in RKO's "The French Line" (1954) and was snapped up by Columbia talent director Max Arnow for a long-term contract. While studio head Harry Cohn attempted to fashion her into a clone of Marilyn Monroe, she proved to be more of a coolly elegant Grace Kelly type. Her first major roles, as a gun moll who seduces Fred MacMurray in "Pushover" and as Jack Lemmon's problematic girlfriend "Phffft!" (both 1954) didn't really require any extraordinary acting abilities; Novak merely had to look beautiful. While she never developed a full range of abilities, she was capable of projecting an honesty and shyness that worked in the roles she landed.
After a good turn as a nightclub singer in "Five Against the House", she was given her first real break as a wistful country girl seduced by drifter William Holden in "Picnic" (both 1955). It was a pared-down, subtle Novak who earned good notices as the caring neighbor who helps Frank Sinatra kick his drug addiction in Otto Preminger's "The Man with the Golden Arm" (1955). But the studio was still intent on exploiting her sex appeal and put her in vehicles like the ill-advised biopic "Jeanne Eagels" (1957) and she was overshadowed by co-stars Sinatra and Rita Hayworth in the musical "Pal Joey" (also 1957).
It took Alfred Hitchcock, with his well-known penchant for icy blondes, to elicit from Novak what is probably her most memorable screen performance in his superb "Vertigo" (1958). As the dead woman in James Stewart's past and her mysterious double, the actress projected an effective off-hand ambiguity. In the dual role, Novak seemingly was portraying herself: an attractive, untrained woman who willingly alters her looks and personality for seductive purposes; in short, an actress. It was a brilliant stroke by Hitchcock and Novak never seemed as comfortable on screen. In fact, the same year, she was teamed with Stewart in "Bell, Book and Candle" as a seductive witch, but her comedic abilities failed to impress most critics. Over the next few years, she was in material that failed to capitalize on her talents. By 1962, she had left Columbia and was hired by MGM for the remake of "Of Human Bondage" (1964), but she fared badly against Bette Davis' 1934 performance. While Novak held her own in the Billy Wilder comedy "Kiss Me, Stupid" (1964) and the British-made "The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders" (1965), both failed at the box office and Novak unofficially retired.
Novak has returned to films from time to time but in nothing that could really be considered a "come-back". Invoking her "Vertigo" role, Robert Aldrich cast her in the dual roles of a novice actress from Chicago and a look-alike dead movie star in the hilariously overwrought "The Legend of Lylah Clare" (1968). Novak turned to the small screen for role in the 70s, appearing in a handful of TV-movies like "The Third Girl from the Left" (ABC, 1973) and "Satan's Triangle" (ABC, 1975). Returning to features, she delivered what amounted to a cameo in the misfire "The White Buffalo" (1977) but won praise as a lustful widow in David Hemmings' "Just a Gigolo" (1979). The mature beauty poked fun at her Hollywood image as a diva actress and rival to Elizabeth Taylor in the enjoyable Agatha Christie mystery "The Mirror Crack'd" (1980). Novak even had a go at series TV spending the 1986-87 season as a regular on the CBS primetime soap "Falcon Crest", playing a woman of mystery on the run from criminals. Ironically, her character's name was Kit Marlowe, one of the screen names that Harry Cohn had suggested for the actress at the start of her career. Her last screen performance to date was as a dying matriarch in Mike Figgis' "Liebestraum" (1991).