Novak began her career in 1954 after signing a contract with Columbia Pictures, and quickly became one of Hollywood's top box office stars, appearing in Picnic (1955), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and Pal Joey (1957).

[13]: 71–74 [14][15] During the summer break in her last semester of junior college, Novak went on a cross-country tour as a promotional model for Detroit Motor Products Corporation's Deepfreeze home freezer at trade shows.

[18][19] In San Francisco, after the refrigerator company tour ended, Novak and two other models decided to travel to Los Angeles, to check out the film industry.

[16] In Los Angeles, the three, with her as Marilyn Novak,[20] were extras in Son of Sinbad (filmed in 1953, released in 1955), and later, for The French Line (1953), starring Jane Russell at RKO.

Logan says Harry Cohn suggested Novak appear in the film but did not insist upon it: the director tested her for the role several times and was delighted with her performance, feeling she was close to her character.

Director Alfred Hitchcock was working on his next film, Vertigo (1958), when his leading actress, Vera Miles, became pregnant and had to withdraw from the complex role of Judy Barton.

[28] Before shooting began, she told the director she did not like the grey suit and black shoes she was slated to wear, thinking them too heavy and stiff for her character.

"[26] Indeed, Hitchcock explained to Novak that the visual aspect of the film was even more important to him than the story, and insisted on her wearing the suit and the shoes that he had been planning for several months.

Bosley Crowther, writing for The New York Times, described her as "really quite amazing",[32] and the Variety review noted that she was "interesting under Hitchcock's direction" and "nearer an actress than she was in either Pal Joey or Jeanne Eagels.

"[36] Novak again worked with Stewart in Richard Quine's Bell, Book and Candle (also 1958), a comedy tale of modern-day witchcraft also starring Jack Lemmon and Ernie Kovacs that proved to be a box-office success.

Novak starred opposite Kirk Douglas in the romantic drama Strangers When We Meet (1960), which drew mixed reviews but was a success financially.

Instead, during the last film that Quine and she made together, the British mystery/comedy The Notorious Landlady (1962) with Jack Lemmon and Fred Astaire, she discovered and purchased her future home by the sea near Big Sur in central California.

Novak made an independent five-picture deal, with producer Martin Ransohoff and Filmways Pictures to co-produce, but it proved to be a bad choice owing to clashes with personalities over scripts.

Actor Peter Sellers had originally been selected and begun filming, but he had suffered a heart attack, so Ray Walston substituted at the last minute.

[43] By the end of 1966, she was emotionally drained and no longer wanted to live the life of a Hollywood movie star, in the glare of the spotlight with the press scrutinizing her every move.

[14] Novak returned to the screen for The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968), starring Peter Finch and Ernest Borgnine, and directed by Robert Aldrich.

[22][45][46] The last film Novak made in the '60s was the Western comedy The Great Bank Robbery (1969), opposite Zero Mostel, Clint Walker, and Claude Akins.

[48] Novak had a small role in The White Buffalo (1977), a Western starring Charles Bronson, and she ended the decade by playing Helga in Just a Gigolo (1979), opposite David Bowie.

Producers of the successful primetime soap opera Falcon Crest offered Novak a role in their series similar to her character in Vertigo.

Asked in the press room about a possible comeback, Novak said that if someone sent her a script she really wanted to do, with a part she felt she could not turn down, she would be happy to go back to work on the big or little screen.

At the same time, Novak turned down plenty of offers for movies, as well as an opportunity to appear in a second season of Falcon Crest, to write her autobiography, tentatively titled Through My Eyes.

[53] Director Mike Figgis offered Novak the role of a terminally ill writer with a mysterious past in his thriller Liebestraum (1991) opposite Kevin Anderson and Bill Pullman.

Novak was supposed to do a comedy with the French director Claude Berri, also starring Peter Falk, and a remake of Bell, Book and Candle with Sharon Stone.

She made a rare personal appearance with a Q&A onstage between a showing of Pal Joey and Bell, Book and Candle, earning a two-minute-long standing ovation upon her entrance.

[71] In 2015, Novak attended the 22nd Febiofest international film festival, where she received the Kristián Award for her contribution to world cinema and also had an exhibition of her paintings at the Strahov Monastery.

[74] Also in 2016, Novak was invited by Turner Classic Movies to be a guest on their Caribbean Cruise where she sold five of her paintings and was able to raise nearly $7,000 for the prevention of teenage suicide with the auction of a framed giclée of her.

[79] Renée Zellweger said that Novak was "pure magic" and dressed up as her character from Vertigo for a photo shoot for the March 2008 issue of Vanity Fair.

Your cinematic body of work speaks for yourself, but so does the other side of Kim Novak – the free spirit who left Hollywood to live atop the hills of Big Sur.

"[82] In the mid-1950s, Novak had relationships with Ramfis Trujillo, son of Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, and with Sammy Davis Jr.[13] A BBC documentary claimed that to end her relationship with a black man, Columbia Pictures chief Harry Cohn had mobsters threaten Sammy Davis Jr., with blinding or having his legs broken if he did not marry a black woman within 48 hours.

[97] In 2014, after Novak's rare public appearance at the 86th Academy Awards, the media and social commentary indicated she was hardly recognized, which resulted in speculation that she had undertaken substantial cosmetic surgery;[94] Donald Trump tweeted "Kim should sue her plastic surgeon!