{"id":107652,"date":"2025-09-01T20:36:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T20:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/107652\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T20:36:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T20:36:11","slug":"kim-novak-92-looks-almost-unrecognisable-as-she-receives-the-golden-lion-for-lifetime-achievement-at-the-venice-international-film-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/107652\/","title":{"rendered":"Kim Novak, 92, looks almost unrecognisable as she receives the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice International Film Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kim Novak<\/a>\u00a0looked unrecognisable as she collected the Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement after releasing a documentary about her poverty-stricken upbringing.<\/p>\n

The actress, 92, whose documentary is called Kim Novak’s Vertigo, channelled old Hollywood glamour in an emerald and black gown to accept the award.<\/p>\n

Gone were her brunette locks, as she styled her blonde hair into a blonde bob and accessorised her look with a diamond brooch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The documentary explores her life, highlighting her role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, and her journey from stardom to a reclusive life as an artist in Oregon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kim stepped away from the limelight but during her occasional public appearances, fans have noted that her face looked very different from her screen years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kim’s\u00a0appearance famously caused a stir back in 2014<\/a> when she attended the Oscars<\/a> with a noticeably puffier face, which drew widespread criticism from viewers.<\/p>\n

Even Donald Trump<\/a> weighed in on her look, tweeting at the time, ‘Kim should sue her plastic surgeon!’<\/p>\n

\"Kim <\/p>\n

Kim Novak looked almost unrecognisable as she received the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement after releasing a documentary detailing her poverty-stricken upbringing\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The actress, 92, channelled old Hollywood glamour as she stepped out in an emerald and black gown to accept the award<\/p>\n

\"Kim <\/p>\n

Kim pictured in 1956 during the height of her Hollywood career\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kim herself addressed this, saying she regretted getting fat injections in her face, which didn’t turn out as she’d hoped.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She also spoke openly about the cruelty of Hollywood’s beauty standards and the harshness of ageism in the industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Addressing the backlash in an open letter on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>, Kim wrote: ‘After my appearance on the Oscars this year, I read all the jabs. I know what Donald Trump and others said, and I’m not going to deny that I had fat injections in my face.’<\/p>\n

She continued: ‘They seemed far less invasive than a facelift. It was done in 2012 for the TCM interview special. In my opinion, a person has a right to look as good as they can, and I feel better when I look better.’<\/p>\n

Her\u00a0tell-all documentary about her extraordinary life\u00a0tells of her upbringing in Depression-era Chicago<\/a>, followed by ten years of Hollywood superstardom, and then a retreat from the movie business.<\/p>\n

She says of the revelations: ‘I have been feeling the need to free the memories that have been hiding in the closet of my mind.’<\/p>\n

Among them are her mother Blanche, who, twice tried to kill her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First she tried to abort her with knitting needles and then, having failed, attempted to smother her as an infant with a pillow.<\/p>\n

\"Gone <\/p>\n

Gone were her brunette locks, as she styled her blonde hair into a blonde bob and accessorised her look with a diamond brooch<\/p>\n

She also said that her father Joseph, who she said had mental health issues, kept the body of her dead infant brother in the basement of the family home, in a jar.<\/p>\n

In the film she says: ‘The Depression<\/a>\u00a0caused so much hardship. My mother got pregnant and she could not afford a child.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘She tried to abort me with knitting needles and it failed. So she tried to suffocate me with a pillow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘I remember fighting to stay alive. I won, I stayed alive, and made it through.’<\/p>\n

She added that it was her sister who found her brother’s foetus in the basement, amid her father’s collection of animals and insects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘The foetus, his only son, in the basement. He kept him,’ she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Catholic Joseph Novak had been a teacher in Czechoslovakia but worked as a railroad dispatcher in America.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Her <\/p>\n

Her tell-all documentary about her life tells of her upbringing in Depression-era Chicago , followed by ten years of Hollywood superstardom, and then a retreat from the movie business<\/p>\n

\"In <\/p>\n

In the flick she revealed that her mother Blanche tried to abort her pregnancy with knitting needles as she detailed her poverty-stricken upbringing in an extraordinary new documentary<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The film premiered last night in advance of the actress getting a lifetime achievement Golden Lion on Monday (pictured)<\/p>\n

\"Kim <\/p>\n

Kim celebrated her achievement with an animated display<\/p>\n

‘He never approved of her stardom, never told her he was proud of her, and didn’t come to see most of her films.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Film maker Alexandre Phillippe said that he was astonished to have the voice mail from Novak outlining these stories. ‘I gasped, and said, is it too dark?’ he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added: ‘It is a privilege to share all these very powerful secrets and memories.’<\/p>\n

Novak journeyed from her 13 acre horse ranch in Oregon to accept the honour from the festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kim Novak\u00a0looked unrecognisable as she collected the Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement after releasing a documentary about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[802,97,96,59,50909,478,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-107652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-chicago","tag-dailymail","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-kim-novak","tag-tvshowbiz","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}