Kim Novak was born in 1933 in Chicago, Illinois as Marilyn Pauline Novak.   Marilyn Novak "modelling" and trying to get her big break.  (Left) Age 16.  (Right) Age 18 - with her blond "Kim" look now developing. Kim won a beauty contest at just fifteen and started to work as a model before being discovered by the movie studios.  She changed her name to "Kim Novak" when she joined Columbia Pictures as a buxom blonde glamour girl replacement for Rita Hayworth.  Kim was best known for her impressive run of popular movies in the late 1950's, including Picnic, Pal Joey, and Hitchcock's masterful Vertigo in '58 which made her a top star.  After some further hits such as Kiss Me, Stupid in the early 1960's, Kim Novak was voted most the favourite film star in a 1964 poll.  However her star then faded and she became semi-retired, baring some occasional and rather feeble films and TV movies through to the late 1980's. Kim was always very popular with men and she was engaged twice before she even left for Hollywood at the age of twenty.  Once in Tinsel Town her contract stipulated that she had to date certain "pretty boys"!  She was romantically linked (among others) with Cary Grant, playboy Aly Khan, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Peter Lawford.  Playboy magazine in its January '99 issue named her number 18 on its "100 Sexiest Stars of the Century" list, between no. 17 Betty Grable and no. 19 Ursula Andress. She married British actor Richard Johnson in 1965 but this only lasted for one year.  She married again in 1976, to Dr. Robert Malloy, happily this marriage has lasted and they live in Oregon.  With extreme bad luck, Kim has had two of her homes destroyed by natural disasters, the second in July of 2000. It's alleged that Kim suffers from a rare feminisation disorder known as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS).  If this is true, then although otherwise female in almost every way, she is actually genetically XY "male" and at puberty she would not have started to menstruate and sadly could never have children.  The main evidence for this condition seems to be her lack of children despite a very active sexual life. In 2014 she appeared at the Oscar film awards, where her excessive facial plastic surgery gained considerable attention.

Last updated: 11 March, 2014