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Kim Novak: Columbia Pictures
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Harry Cohn, the boss at Columbia, had publicly announced that he was going to manufacture a replacement for Rita Hayworth, and apparently decided that Kim was the best candidate. The full weight of Columbia's expertise was placed behind Kim. She was given a new Christian name to avoid being seen as a rival to Marilyn Monroe. The publicity department persuaded numerous magazines to include articles about Kim and to feature her on their front covers. Hundreds of glamorous photographs were taken of her, and what is striking fifty years later is the high quality of so many of them. Care was taken in choosing roles for Kim which gave her prominence without stretching her acting too much.
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Born in Chicago on February 13, 1933 as Marilyn Pauline Novak, her first screen appearance was a small part in RKO's The French Line (1954). This got her a 6-month contract at Columbia Pictures. They wanted to change her name to "Kit Marlowe," but she insisted on keeping her last name, swapping "Marilyn" for "Kim," to avoid confusion with Monroe. Her appearances in Picnic (1955), The Man With the Golden Arm (1955) and Pal Joey (1957) were a hit with the public, and she became the top boxoffice actress of 1957.
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Although Kim had blond hair, she was noticeably different from other glamorous, blond actresses. Her figure was less extravagant, and she compensated for this by not wearing a bra - thereby demonstrating the firmness of her figure. The majority of her publicity photographs were fairly discreet: there are few pictures of Kim in revealing dresses. This restraint and modesty gave Kim a slightly remote image, which complemented an element of her screen persona that had been quickly noticed. On screen, there was a distant, almost dream-like aspect to Kim, which gave her an air of mystery. To this day, many of Kim's most ardent admirers refer to this quality when trying to explain their enthusiasm for her.
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Novak battled with Columbia Studios head Harry Cohn over her screen name; Cohn preferred 'Kit Marlowe' and the two compromised on Kim Novak. She later played a character named Kit Marlowe on the 1980s TV series Falcon Crest.
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In her later years, Novak would acknowledge the studio head's role in her stardom, but ... took plenty of credit for her own hard work. Though Novak had already made her screen debut with a tiny role in The French Line (1954), her first starring role for Columbia was playing opposite Fred MacMurray in Pushover (1954).
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After a job touring the country as a spokesman for a refrigerator manufacturer, "Miss Deepfreeze," Novak moved to Los Angeles, where she continued modeling. She then appeared as a model standing on a stairway in the RKO motion picture The French Line (1954) starring Jane Russell and Gilbert Roland. For that film, released in 3-D, Novak's bit received no screen credit.
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