Hollywood legend Kim Novak made a rare public appearance at the Venice Film Festival this week.
The Vertigo actress, 92, was there to accept a lifetime achievement award, but it was her age-defying appearance that had a lot of fans talking.
Novak, who has admitted to doing cosmetic work in the past, looked much younger than her 92 years.
Her skin was taught and smooth, and her cheeks were plump and youthful.
She looked every inch the glamorous movie star in a slinky black dress with a silk shawl wrapped around her shoulders to cover her decolletage.
Fans online were stunned by her timeless look, with one writing, ‘She was such a beautiful and talented actress back in the day.’
Another commented, ‘Why so much cosmetic surgery? She’d be better without it.’
‘For someone who complained about being beautiful in her youth, she’s clearly had a lot of surgery to avoid looking old,’ wrote another.
Hollywood legend Kim Novak made a rare public appearance at the Venice Film Festival this week
The actress, now 92, was there to accept a lifetime achievement award
A fourth commented, ‘She’s one of the best actresses to ever grace the screen.’
Novak’s appearance famously caused a stir back in 2014 when she attended the Oscars with a noticeably puffier face, which drew widespread criticism from viewers.
Even Donald Trump weighed in on her look, tweeting at the time, ‘Kim should sue her plastic surgeon!’
Addressing the backlash in an open letter on Facebook, Novak wrote, ‘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.’
She continued, ‘They seemed far less invasive than a facelift. It was done in 2012 for the TCM interview special. In my opinion, a person has a right to look as good as they can, and I feel better when I look better.’
Novak is currently promoting a documentary about her life called Kim Novak’s Vertigo.
She addresses the ageing process in the film, saying at one point, ‘It’s not easy getting old. I’m feeling it’s close to the end.’
Novak burst onto the scene in Hollywood in the early ’50s, in films such as 1954’s Phffft opposite Jack Lemmon, Picnic the following year with William Holden, and 1957’s Pal Joey with Frank Sinatra.
Novak, who has admitted to doing cosmetic work in the past, looked much younger than her 92 years
Fans online were stunned by her timeless look, with one writing, ‘She was such a beautiful and talented actress back in the day’
Another fan commented, ‘Why so much cosmetic surgery? She’d be better without it’
But it was two films with Hollywood megastar Jimmy Stewart in 1958 – Bell Book and Candle and especially Vertigo – that would make her a household name.
‘There was constant pressure to be seen and not heard, especially if you had a pretty face,’ she wrote in her 2021 book Kim Novak: Her Art and Life.
‘In Hollywood a lot of people assume who you are, because of the character you play, but also just because of who they expect you to be, how they expect you to dress,’ she said.
‘I kept feeling like I was going deeper and deeper, lost in almost like a quicksand, where it’s swallowing you up, your own personality, and I’d started to wonder who I am,’ Novak explained. ‘I realized needed to save myself.’
And that was why the actress famously left Tinseltown and drove north, eventually moving to the Pacific coast of Oregon.
‘I needed the Pacific Ocean to inspire me, the animals, the beauty,’ the Chicago native said. ‘I wanted to live a normal life and a life with animals.’
Novak married her second husband Robert Malloy, an equine veterinarian whom she referred to as her ‘soul mate’, in 1976, and the pair remained together until his death in 2020.
‘I don’t feel 87,’ she told People in 2021. ‘I don’t keep track of the time. If I did, I’d be an old lady and I’m not an old lady. I’m still riding my horse. I stay as healthy as I can.’
