What do you think?
Rate this book
Kim Novak: Reluctant Goddess
Traces the life and career of the Hollywood actress, explains how she got her start in motion pictures, and looks at her major film roles
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
Hardcover
Published March 1, 1986
1 person is currently reading
46 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
Read
September 30, 2012Completely and utterly vacuous.
December 5, 2020
Not a bad book but now a really well-written book either. First of all, I have to say that I knew nothing about Kim Novack. I have never seen any of her films but I love biographies of actors/esses. With this COVID quarantine/lockdown, I needed something new to read. I didn't want to read my kindle books because my kindle isn't working so I have to read them on the desktop and sometimes I just want to lie in my bed and read with a physical book in my hands.
I was surprised at how thoroughly the author covered Kim's history as a young girl before she got into films. It was a bit strange hearing her called Marilyn (which was her real name before she became famous). Still, I thought the author did a good job writing the book. It was not stale or stuff like some biographies can be. It was not just a collection of facts set down for information only. Instead it was the story of a young girl who had a happy childhood and a good adolescent written in a way that was more like a fictional book based on facts.
Now let me say that Harry Cohn was something else but I'm too polite to say it. The way he treated his actresses and actors was shameful. I used to think Louis B. Meyer was the worse of the worse but after reading a biography about Ava Gardener and the hell Harry put her through and now reading about how he treated and tried to control Kim makes me livid just thinking about it.
I'm glad Kim had the courage and the fortitude to just walk away from fame, stardom, and Harry! I was cheering for her when she did that. And unlike many others, she never went back.
Now granted the author could turn his phrases better and some of the things he wrote were downright crass and made me think he and Harry Cohn would get along very well together. But on the whole, it wasn't that bad of a book and it kept me interested.
I was surprised at how thoroughly the author covered Kim's history as a young girl before she got into films. It was a bit strange hearing her called Marilyn (which was her real name before she became famous). Still, I thought the author did a good job writing the book. It was not stale or stuff like some biographies can be. It was not just a collection of facts set down for information only. Instead it was the story of a young girl who had a happy childhood and a good adolescent written in a way that was more like a fictional book based on facts.
Now let me say that Harry Cohn was something else but I'm too polite to say it. The way he treated his actresses and actors was shameful. I used to think Louis B. Meyer was the worse of the worse but after reading a biography about Ava Gardener and the hell Harry put her through and now reading about how he treated and tried to control Kim makes me livid just thinking about it.
I'm glad Kim had the courage and the fortitude to just walk away from fame, stardom, and Harry! I was cheering for her when she did that. And unlike many others, she never went back.
Now granted the author could turn his phrases better and some of the things he wrote were downright crass and made me think he and Harry Cohn would get along very well together. But on the whole, it wasn't that bad of a book and it kept me interested.
Read
December 27, 2021Kim Novak didn't abandon Hollywood,she moved to trendy Big Sur-Carmel for decades and continues to cultivate a cult of worship around her amazing self even at 88yo.The truth is her career was on a downward spiral,one B grade flop after another"Lylah Clare",Great Bank Robbery"etc.then came TV schlock"Satan's Triangle"Third Girl from The Left""Malibu",etc.She had her run and it ended.What is obvious no matter what one reads about Kim Novak,she is her favorite subject In a heroic way.She's not a bad person I'm sure,very artistic,loves nature.But the "Cohn called me a fat polack "stuff is really dumb.
September 4, 2019
I am a fan of Kim Novak, especially the movie classic she starred in called "Vertigo". This book highlights her childhood, and her years of work in Hollywood. It has little about her life after she left Hollywood.
February 13, 2020
A so so biography,first one I have read about the actress,nothing salacious in fact nothing much at all.gives the impression as it says on the book the reluctant star.
September 18, 2020
Not as god as the author's book on Marilyn Monroe, but somewhat interesting.
I was especially interested in the making of "Vertigo".
I was especially interested in the making of "Vertigo".
September 5, 2017
This is a decent, middle-of-the-road biography about one of the more enigmatic movie starlets from the 1950s--Kim Novak.
As I remember it, the book is breezy and fairly even-handed, if a little gossipy.
Novak became a model while in Los Angeles, and then made a cameo in the Jane Russell film The French Line. Very quickly, she was discovered and put into Columbia Pictures' starmaking system under the studio's svengali Harry Cohn.
After a few minor roles to cut her teeth, she was given a couple of major roles in 1955 that got her star rocketing off the ground: as the beauty queen Madge in Picnic, opposite William Holden; and as Molly, the girlfriend of Frank Sinatra's drug addict character in The Man with the Golden Arm. Both of these roles were well received by audiences and critics, and a year later she was the leading box office starlet in Hollywood.
Her quick rise to stardom came with the restrictions of Columbia's rigid system. Probably the book's highlight was describing Novak's relationship with her steady boyfriend Mac Krim--arguably the love of her (young) life--and the pressures brought to bear by the studio to break it off. Unhappily, she did, and I think it had a negative effect on her life and career.
Kim Novak was a platinum-haired beauty with a stunning figure, but she was also shy and pensive. She was an unnatural actress with a very limited range. She played many of her roles in her reserved, girl-next-door manner. She had a naturally husky, breathy voice, which was sexy, but she couldn't project well. Emotional scenes were a particular difficulty--it was all but impossible for her to cry on camera, much to the exasperation of numerous directors. She earned a reputation as buxom and photogenic but a shallow actress.
Novak also had an intimate friendship with singer Sammy Davis, Jr., which raised another alarm at Columbia, as many studios were intolerant of mixed-race relationships. Apparently, rumor had it that she was carrying Davis' child and had to undergo an abortion at the behest of the studio. The story may have been apocryphal, and it has never been confirmed or acknowledged by Novak, for what it's worth.
Her greatest role was as the romantic lead opposite James Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Novak saw (and still sees) the role as ideal for her--an ordinary woman masquerading as an iconic beauty. Even so, Novak had not been Hitchcock's first choice--the role had originally gone to Hitchcock's then-muse Vera Miles, but Miles was expecting a baby and couldn't proceed with the role. As the film's production got underway, Hitchcock delighted in playing tricks on Novak in his petulance at losing Miles, and some of that is covered here.
When Columbia's Harry Cohn died in 1958, Novak lost the man who had steered her career to stardom, and the post-Cohn studio began to move away from her. The plum roles began to fade away, and she was forced into character roles that challenged and ultimately enriched her acting experience.
After a couple of risque roles in the mid 1960s (Kiss Me, Stupid; The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders), she found her opportunities dwindling, and Novak went into semi-retirement. She met veterinarian Robert Malloy, and they married in the 1970s. Since then, they have kept their long relationship carefully away from the eyes and ears of Hollywood. Kim Novak became the ordinary woman she knew herself to be.
In the late 1970s, she vied for the leading role in An Unmarried Woman, but the role went to Jill Clayburgh, and Novak could only wonder what the film could have done to revive her career. After an incendiary performance opposite Elizabeth Taylor in the Agatha Christie-written The Mirror Crack'd, her appearances have been increasingly rare and selective.
Novak herself had been writing her autobiography, which would have superseded this one, but her manuscript was burned in a house fire and she abandoned the project. It's a shame, because there's more to her story and I wanted her to tell her side. So we'll have to lament her loss and make do with this and other, lesser biographies. It's a fairly good, light, unsensational portrait of an actress who has survived Hollywood on her own terms.
As I remember it, the book is breezy and fairly even-handed, if a little gossipy.
Novak became a model while in Los Angeles, and then made a cameo in the Jane Russell film The French Line. Very quickly, she was discovered and put into Columbia Pictures' starmaking system under the studio's svengali Harry Cohn.
After a few minor roles to cut her teeth, she was given a couple of major roles in 1955 that got her star rocketing off the ground: as the beauty queen Madge in Picnic, opposite William Holden; and as Molly, the girlfriend of Frank Sinatra's drug addict character in The Man with the Golden Arm. Both of these roles were well received by audiences and critics, and a year later she was the leading box office starlet in Hollywood.
Her quick rise to stardom came with the restrictions of Columbia's rigid system. Probably the book's highlight was describing Novak's relationship with her steady boyfriend Mac Krim--arguably the love of her (young) life--and the pressures brought to bear by the studio to break it off. Unhappily, she did, and I think it had a negative effect on her life and career.
Kim Novak was a platinum-haired beauty with a stunning figure, but she was also shy and pensive. She was an unnatural actress with a very limited range. She played many of her roles in her reserved, girl-next-door manner. She had a naturally husky, breathy voice, which was sexy, but she couldn't project well. Emotional scenes were a particular difficulty--it was all but impossible for her to cry on camera, much to the exasperation of numerous directors. She earned a reputation as buxom and photogenic but a shallow actress.
Novak also had an intimate friendship with singer Sammy Davis, Jr., which raised another alarm at Columbia, as many studios were intolerant of mixed-race relationships. Apparently, rumor had it that she was carrying Davis' child and had to undergo an abortion at the behest of the studio. The story may have been apocryphal, and it has never been confirmed or acknowledged by Novak, for what it's worth.
Her greatest role was as the romantic lead opposite James Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Novak saw (and still sees) the role as ideal for her--an ordinary woman masquerading as an iconic beauty. Even so, Novak had not been Hitchcock's first choice--the role had originally gone to Hitchcock's then-muse Vera Miles, but Miles was expecting a baby and couldn't proceed with the role. As the film's production got underway, Hitchcock delighted in playing tricks on Novak in his petulance at losing Miles, and some of that is covered here.
When Columbia's Harry Cohn died in 1958, Novak lost the man who had steered her career to stardom, and the post-Cohn studio began to move away from her. The plum roles began to fade away, and she was forced into character roles that challenged and ultimately enriched her acting experience.
After a couple of risque roles in the mid 1960s (Kiss Me, Stupid; The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders), she found her opportunities dwindling, and Novak went into semi-retirement. She met veterinarian Robert Malloy, and they married in the 1970s. Since then, they have kept their long relationship carefully away from the eyes and ears of Hollywood. Kim Novak became the ordinary woman she knew herself to be.
In the late 1970s, she vied for the leading role in An Unmarried Woman, but the role went to Jill Clayburgh, and Novak could only wonder what the film could have done to revive her career. After an incendiary performance opposite Elizabeth Taylor in the Agatha Christie-written The Mirror Crack'd, her appearances have been increasingly rare and selective.
Novak herself had been writing her autobiography, which would have superseded this one, but her manuscript was burned in a house fire and she abandoned the project. It's a shame, because there's more to her story and I wanted her to tell her side. So we'll have to lament her loss and make do with this and other, lesser biographies. It's a fairly good, light, unsensational portrait of an actress who has survived Hollywood on her own terms.
September 17, 2015
A decent, workmanlike biography with some good research, but also some noticeably large gaps. It's greatest value is as the only full-length biography of Novak to date, alongside Larry Kleno's pictorial book, Kim Novak on Camera. Interestingly, each chapter ends with quotes from Novak herself - which often contradict the official version of events.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews