Why Kim Novak Has No Regrets About Leaving Hollywood

Kim Novak is reflecting on her career in Hollywood — and her decision to leave it all behind.

On Sept. 1, Novak, 92, will receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival. That same day, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, a documentary about her life, will also have its world premiere at the event.

Novak, best known for her role opposite Jimmy Stewart in 1958’s Vertigo, signed a contract with Columbia Pictures at age 21 and quickly became a screen star. But she eventually left the industry to focus on her work as a visual artist and to rescue animals.

“When I left Hollywood, it isn’t like I just wrapped up my life,” she told The New York Times in an interview published on Monday, Aug. 25. “Suddenly I was free to express everything on canvas and not have to be the canvas.”

“I’m a very independent person who needs to express myself in my way, in my time,” she said. “I’m willing to compromise, but I’m not willing to be someone I’m not.”

Novak made her film debut in 1953’s The French Line as a model before she was discovered by a talent scout and signed to a contract with Columbia Pictures. Harry Cohn, the head of the studio, tried to control her image, but she fought for better parts, including her role alongside Frank Sinatra in 1957’s Pal Joey and the female lead in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

After Cohn died in 1958, the studio offered her mediocre scripts, and though she fought for some more quality films, she felt limited. “When he passed away, nobody knew how to control the studio, so nobody ever went out to buy scripts,” Novak told the Times. “Harry Cohn did all of that.”

She slowly backed away from her career. In 1966, she moved to Big Sur along California’s central coast and then Carmel before relocating to an Oregon ranch in the 2000s. She married Robert Malloy, a veterinarian, in 1976, and they were together to until his death in 2020.

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As for why the private actress agreed to talk about her life in Kim Novak’s Vertigo, she told the Times, “With this documentary, I was able to let out a lot of feelings, and there were things that needed to get out and needed to be said. I felt it was an opportunity to document my life, and I was expressing a lot of ghosts in my past.”

Back in 2021, Novak opened up to PEOPLE about why she stepped back from Hollywood, saying, “I had to leave to survive. It was a survival issue.” She added, “I lost a sense of who I truly was and what I stood for,” explaining she “fought all the time” during her career to keep her “identity.”

In 2023, as she turned 90, the star told PEOPLE that she was grateful her movies — including Vertigo — have only become more beloved over the decades since their release. “What’s wonderful is sometimes movies get less appreciated later and people get less appreciated,” she said. “But with me, it’s worked the opposite. I’m so grateful because I’ve become more respected as an actress.”

The Bell, Book and Candle star continued, “I think my style of acting is understood now, where it wasn’t then, because at that time in the ’50s, I think there was some overacting, making it too broad — too obvious. I just was expressing myself as I always do, honestly and truthfully. I think that the style is more appreciated, and so my life has grown richer the longer I’ve been around on this earth.”

“I mean, in so many of my performances, I think they were expecting to see the sex symbol, and instead I gave them just the raw me,” she said. 

Novak added that she hopes her paintings will tell her story in the future. “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,” she said.