Old Hollywood
Cinema
1900-1979
Nostalgia is a seductive liar - George Wildman Ball
Kim Novak & Alfred Hitchcock on the set of Vertigo (1958) On Kim Novak’s performance: “You think you’re getting a lot. You’re not. It was very difficult to obtain what I wanted from [Kim Novak] because her head was full of her own ideas. But as long as I’m pleased with the result…In any case, the role was intended for another actress, Vera Miles. We were ready to begin filming…when, instead of seizing the opportunity of a lifetime, Vera Miles became pregnant. I ask you! I was offering Vera Miles a big part, the chance to become a beautiful, sophisticated blonde, a real actress. We’d have spent a heap of dollars on it, and she has the bad taste to get pregnant. I hate pregnant women, because then they have children.” -Alfred Hitchcock “I don’t know if he ever liked me. I never sat down with him for dinner or tea or anything, except one cast dinner, and I was late to that. It wasn’t my fault, but I think he thought I had delayed to make a star entrance, and he held that against me. During the shooting, he never really told me what he was thinking. I know that Hitchcock gave me a lot of freedom in creating the character, but he was very exact in telling me exactly what to do. How to move, where to stand. I think you can see a little of me resisting that in some of the shots, kind of insisting on my own identity.” -Kim Novak

Kim Novak & Alfred Hitchcock on the set of Vertigo (1958)

On Kim Novak’s performance: “You think you’re getting a lot. You’re not. It was very difficult to obtain what I wanted from [Kim Novak] because her head was full of her own ideas. But as long as I’m pleased with the result…In any case, the role was intended for another actress, Vera Miles. We were ready to begin filming…when, instead of seizing the opportunity of a lifetime, Vera Miles became pregnant. I ask you! I was offering Vera Miles a big part, the chance to become a beautiful, sophisticated blonde, a real actress. We’d have spent a heap of dollars on it, and she has the bad taste to get pregnant. I hate pregnant women, because then they have children.”

-Alfred Hitchcock

“I don’t know if he ever liked me. I never sat down with him for dinner or tea or anything, except one cast dinner, and I was late to that. It wasn’t my fault, but I think he thought I had delayed to make a star entrance, and he held that against me. During the shooting, he never really told me what he was thinking. I know that Hitchcock gave me a lot of freedom in creating the character, but he was very exact in telling me exactly what to do. How to move, where to stand. I think you can see a little of me resisting that in some of the shots, kind of insisting on my own identity.”

-Kim Novak

Kim Novak in Vertigo (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Kim Novak in Vertigo (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Vertigo, in spirals (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Vertigo, in spirals (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Kim Novak in Bell Book and Candle (1958, dir. Richard Quine) “I sit in the subway sometimes, on buses, or the movies, and I look at the people next to me and I think…’What would you say if I told you I was a witch?’ They’d never believe it. I just know they wouldn’t believe it. And I giggle and giggle to myself.”

Kim Novak in Bell Book and Candle (1958, dir. Richard Quine)

“I sit in the subway sometimes, on buses, or the movies, and I look at the people next to me and I think…’What would you say if I told you I was a witch?’ They’d never believe it. I just know they wouldn’t believe it. And I giggle and giggle to myself.”

Kim Novak in Vertigo (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Kim Novak in Vertigo (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

“[The mixed reviews and poor box office for Vertigo] lessened my self-confidence. I always have this feeling that I’m supposed to do something, to mean something. My sense of that started to weaken, as if, ‘Oh, I thought this was a medium that I was supposed to touch people in and I’m not having an impact.’ As time went by, I thought, ‘This is not the right medium.’ It’s a wonderful medium and I enjoyed working in it but I started to think that this must have been a detour. This must not be my medium for doing something important and to touch people.  I loved acting, which was never about money, the fame. It was about a search for meaning. It was painful.” -Kim Novak (excerpted from 2004 The MacGuffin interview, photo via) 

“[The mixed reviews and poor box office for Vertigo] lessened my self-confidence. I always have this feeling that I’m supposed to do something, to mean something. My sense of that started to weaken, as if, ‘Oh, I thought this was a medium that I was supposed to touch people in and I’m not having an impact.’ As time went by, I thought, ‘This is not the right medium.’ It’s a wonderful medium and I enjoyed working in it but I started to think that this must have been a detour. This must not be my medium for doing something important and to touch people. 

I loved acting, which was never about money, the fame. It was about a search for meaning. It was painful.”

-Kim Novak (excerpted from 2004 The MacGuffin interview, photo via)