Kim Novak, Guest of Honor

The last great glam­orous star of Hollywood’s gold­en age, a free-spir­it­ed pio­neer and mul­ti­fac­eted artist, Kim Novak stands as a leg­endary fig­ure in the his­to­ry of cinema.

An actress with a sin­gu­lar path, she defied con­ven­tions to become one of the most fas­ci­nat­ing icons of Amer­i­can film. The Fes­ti­val is hon­ored to wel­come her this year as Guest of Hon­or for its 51^st edition.

In 1954, while study­ing art in Chica­go, Kim Novak was offered a con­tract with Colum­bia Pic­tures dur­ing a mod­el­ing tour in Cal­i­for­nia. Her rise was imme­di­ate, and she went on to star in a string of endur­ing clas­sics: Pic­nic by Joshua Logan (1955), The Man with the Gold­en Arm by Otto Pre­minger (1955), Pal Joey by George Sid­ney (1957), Bell, Book and Can­dle by Richard Quine (1958), Kiss Me, Stu­pid by Bil­ly Wilder (1964) and The Leg­end of Lylah Clare by Robert Aldrich (1968), among others.

In 1958, she made film his­to­ry with Ver­ti­go, direct­ed by Alfred Hitch­cock. Her unfor­get­table per­for­mance along­side James Stew­art remains one of the most ana­lyzed and cel­e­brat­ed in cin­e­ma. That same year, she became the world’s top box-office draw. A trail­blaz­er for women’s rights, she was also the first actress to launch her own pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny, refus­ing to bow to stu­dio pres­sures in order to pre­serve her artis­tic freedom.

Far from the female stereo­types shaped by the indus­try, she assert­ed her indi­vid­u­al­i­ty through a raw, instinc­tive per­for­mance style. Long mis­un­der­stood by crit­ics, her body of work is now rec­og­nized as that of a bold and for­ward-think­ing actress.

At the height of her fame, she chose to leave Hol­ly­wood behind and embrace a qui­eter life away from the spot­light. She set­tled near Carmel, Cal­i­for­nia, and lat­er in Ore­gon. A ded­i­cat­ed painter and poet, she has devot­ed her­self to cre­ative expres­sion, with her visu­al art hon­ored by sev­er­al pres­ti­gious institutions.

Kim Novak holds a unique place in the pan­theon of the sev­enth art. To cel­e­brate the depth and influ­ence of her jour­ney, the Deauville Amer­i­can Film Fes­ti­val will present her with an Icon Award on Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 6. The trib­ute will be fol­lowed by the pre­miere screen­ing of Kim Novak’s Ver­ti­go, a doc­u­men­tary direct­ed by Alexan­dre O. Philippe that offers an inti­mate por­trait of this fierce­ly inde­pen­dent Hol­ly­wood legend.

Sev­er­al land­mark films from her fil­mog­ra­phy will also be screened through­out the Festival:

• L’HOMME AU BRAS D’OR
  de Otto Preminger
• L’ADORABLE VOISINE
  de Richard Quine
• SUEURS FROIDES
  de Alfred Hitchcock