Vertigo Star Kim Novak’s Mom Tried to Abort Her with Knitting Needles

She never received an Oscar nomination for her onscreen work. She never enjoyed the sort of second- and third-act career resurgence achieved by her contemporaries like Shirley MacLaine and Julie Andrews. And despite her stylishness and timeless beauty, she never became a cross-generational icon like Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren.

Still, in her mid- to late-1950s heyday, Kim Novak was one of Hollywood’s most glamorous and prestigious stars.

At her peak popularity in the latter half of the decade, she racked up a string of classic credits, including 1955’s Picnic and The Man with the Golden Arm, 1957’s Pal Joey, and 1958’s Vertigo and Bell, Book and Candle. Her leading men included Golden Era A-listers like William Holden, Frank Sinatra, James Stewart and Kirk Douglas, and she was one of Vertigo director Alfred Hitchcock’s most memorable blonde leading ladies.

Her star shined brightly but briefly. She left Hollywood in the late ’60s, and her screen appearances from the ’70s on were sporadic. Following her departure from the spotlight, she had a 19-episode guest arc on the ’80s primetime soap Falcon Crest and made her final screen appearance in 1991’s Liebestraum.

The remarkable life of the Hollywood legend born Marilyn Novak in Chicago is explored in the new documentary Kim Novak’s Vertigo, directed by Alexandre O. Philippe and currently screening at the Venice Film Festival. It’s basically a two-hander, featuring the screen icon sharing her recollections one-on-one with the director, and assorted clips from both her major and minor films.

The documentary begins gorgeously, with a blur slowly coming into focus. Then, as the camera slowly pans the grounds of a sprawling estate, the story starts at the end — or rather, near the end… perhaps — with Novak, via a voiceover recorded in November 2024, talking about getting older and her own mortality. She’s had a bad fall, and she’s struggling to breathe, struggling to talk.

Then she goes back to the beginning. As we enter the home, Novak talks about a life-shaping incident from her childhood. She and her sister went down to her father’s workshop in the basement, where her sister noticed a jar that her father said contained the fetus of her little brother.

Then she shares her own origin story. “The Depression caused so much hardship,” she says. “My mom got pregnant, and she just couldn’t afford to have a child. She tried to abort me with knitting needles. But she wasn’t able to do it in this case, so I was born, but I know that she tried to suffocate me with a pillow, and I always had breathing issues.”

Then the picture begins to blur before coming back into clear focus to reveal Novak, still enchanting at 92, standing in a room filled with her paintings. “I do remember fighting to breathe, to stay alive, and I won. I stayed alive. I made it through.”

“I so often think of my childhood as not being a good healthy childhood, but it was, you know,” she continues, now speaking directly to Philippe. “There were beautiful things. My father was a very strict man and difficult.”

“He had so much passion, but it was, like, locked up,” she continues, adding, “If a person doesn’t ever get it out, I think that sometimes they feel like they’ve failed. When I took him to Czechoslovakia (Novak is of Czech descent), he got these intense migraines. He couldn’t take that I was successful. I mean, I think, I have to assume that he was proud of me, but he never showed it.”

Her connection with her mother would apparently improve.

“My father was like, no one can succeed, but my mom was very confident, and her eyes sparkled and twinkled and she was so full of wanting to express the joy of life,” she says. “I can still hear her telling me, or really making me tell me by looking in the mirror that I am the captain of my own ship, that I can be in charge of myself and what I do and how I create my image to the world.”

Later in the film, Philippe presents Novak with a memo he found in her attic. It’s dated “4/24/53” and labelled “For Kim First Days in Movies,” and it lists 14 points from her dad “about his wishes for you,” Philippe explains. No. 14: “Keep you feet warm, your head cool, you mouth closed, and your bowels open.”

“Wow,” Novak says, pausing for what feels like an eternity. “He cared. And he understood. See I, sometimes, maybe I’ve given you the wrong impression about my dad because this is all such caring, loving advice, and it makes sense. I mean, to me that’s showing he loved me.”

Kim Novak’s Vertigo is now screening at the Venice Film Festival.