\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cVertigo\u201d star\u00a0Kim Novak was honored with a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement on Monday at the Venice Film Festival, where the reclusive Hollywood diva made her first public appearance in decades since leaving the limelight in the mid 1960s.<\/p>\n
\n\tShe was welcomed with a warm protracted ovation before Guillermo del Toro took the stage to deliver a glowing tribute.<\/p>\n
\n\tNovak, 92, became the world\u2019s top box office draw during the late \u201850s and early \u201860s thanks to films now considered classics such as Joshua Logan\u2019s \u201cPicnic\u201d (1955), Otto Preminger\u2019s \u201cThe Man with the Golden Arm\u201d (1955), George Sidney\u2019s Pal Joey (1957) and, of course, Alfred Hitchock\u2019s \u201cVertigo\u201d (1958), in which she plays dual characters in the role of her lifetime. <\/p>\n
\n\tAfter listing the top directors Novak worked with, del Toro singled out the single aspects of her career that struck him the most: \u201cMost impressive is the fact that she was capable of projecting frailty, power, mystery. To appear, endearing, dynamic, mythical and phenomenal. And with all those wonderful arresting performances, she always carried a little bit of warmth, a little bit of heartbreak and a little bit of mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDel Toro added: \u201cOver time, she made her performances her own. Remarkably, she also chose to slow down, to take a break at the peak of her powers and to seek personal fulfillment raising horses and as a lyricist and a painter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIn 1966, the\u00a0Hollywood star withdrew from acting and retired to her ranch in Oregon to dedicate herself to painting and to her horses,\u00a0only working sporadically in film since then.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOh my God! This is so beautiful,\u201d said the visibly moved Novak. \u201cI am receiving this. But it\u2019s the same as if you were,\u201d she said, gesturing towards the audience. Then she exclaimed: \u201cYou are me!\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cFirst of all, I\u2019d like to thanks the Gods up there. Not one in particular. Just all of them. It\u2019s such a gift that they waited until the end of my lifetime [for me] to get this,\u201d Novak added. <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI want to thank my dad for being my moral compass,\u201d she added. \u201cAnd my mom. I was very shy and she would make me look in the mirror and make me say, \u2018You are the captain of your own ship!\u2019 That is something I think we all need to say. We all need to make our voices heard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAs part of the tribute, Venice premiered the documentary biopic \u201cKim Novak\u2019s Vertigo,\u201d directed and written by Alexandre O. Philippe. The doc blends rare archival footage with personal reflections from Novak and glimpses into her reclusive life along Oregon\u2019s wild Rogue River, tracing \u201cher path from mid-century cinema icon to fiercely private artist,\u201d as the doc\u2019s synopsis puts it.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s really about the spirals in her life,\u201d said the director during a press conference prior to the awards ceremony. \u201cIn fact, if you really want to get into it, the movie has a spiral structure. At the end of each act we come back to this idea of why she left Hollywood; but at the end of each act it\u2019s a different reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSo why did Novak agree to be part of \u201cKim Novak\u2019s Vertigo\u201d? <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI wanted her to have one more pow in her life,\u201d said Sue Cameron, Novak\u2019s manager and close friend who also serves as the doc\u2019s executive producer. \u201cIt was not easy, really. But she felt secure with him [Philippe], so she said yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a challenge,\u201d added \u201cKim Novak\u2019s Vertigo\u201d producer Terri Pi\u00f1on about bringing Novak to Venice for the tribute and the doc\u2019s launch, which will be followed by an appearance at the Deauville American Film Festival in France. \u201cShe wants to be home with her horses and her dogs. But she\u2019s willing to help the film team and be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tCameron pointed out that Novak still exercises with weights every day. <\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cShe has a 13-acre ranch with three islands on it and horses. She rides the horses, she walks around the meadows. She does not give up. This is not someone who acts her age. And she is determined to not accept her age,\u201d Cameron went on. \u201cShe was working out with weights this morning!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cVertigo\u201d star\u00a0Kim Novak was honored with a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement on Monday at the Venice Film Festival, where the reclusive Hollywood diva made her first public appearance in decades since leaving the limelight in the mid 1960s. She was welcomed with a warm protracted ovation before Guillermo del Toro took the stage to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[2208,4977,4976,501,10666,5060,622,4978,7105,11347],"class_list":{"0":"post-18559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-award","9":"tag-del","10":"tag-guillermo","11":"tag-kim","12":"tag-novak","13":"tag-praises","14":"tag-star","15":"tag-toro","16":"tag-venice","17":"tag-vertigo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}