Vertigo is apparently the only film Kim Novak will promote - which is why the new, restored version being screened in Berlin will mean a rare outing for the star
I guess it should come as no surprise that you don't actually get to interview Kim Novak the way you might interview, say, PJ and Duncan.
So I'm sorry to say there'll be none of your "Kim Novak answered the door herself with a cup of coffee in her hand. 'Make yourself comfortable,' she said. 'I just need to add a little parsley to the ratatouille and I'll be right with you.'"
Of course, this would have been a little hard, since I live on the rain-drenched south coast of England, while Miss Novak currently resides on a 240-acre ranch in the equally rain-drenched Cascades area of southern Oregon with her husband of 20 years, Bob Malloy, a vet. A recent photograph in People magazine showed Miss Novak standing in her Oregon kitchen with a llama, and you don't get many of those in Brighton.
Also, of course, Miss Novak was - is still - a movie star, from that last generation of Hollywood actresses for whom the term actually meant something. She was - let's not forget it - a contemporary of Marilyn Monroe, though some seven years her junior.
"Marilyn was more obvious in her sexuality," says Tony Curtis, who worked with them both. "With Kim, it was more hidden."
But not completely. Take Vertigo - which, of course, you will be able to in its restored print, the screening of which will bring Miss Novak to Berlin next week.
Getting to her before that outing - since Vertigo is the only film she will go back onto the celebrity circuit to promote - is less straightforward. Her number is not listed, her publicist (because, yes, she may be living in splendid isolation but some things remain essential) is distinctly unwilling to patch through calls. Perhaps I might like to fax through some questions...?
At this stage, I'm beginning to formulate one of those fall-back pieces where you write 750 barbed, heavily facetious words about not interviewing someone. Then a strange thing happens. The setting is en stranger: one of those hotels rooms Somewhere In Europe. The minibar hums cheerily, but the television has none of those extra channels that make the sterile comfort more palatable.
One channel is, however, playing Pal Joey, Miss Novak's third most famous films, after Vertigo and The Man With the Golden Arm. And miracle of miracles, it is subtitled rather than dubbed, presumably because of the songs.
I start to watch it for the first time in perhaps 20 years, and suddenly there is the scene when Frank Sinatra first really comes on to Miss Novak. The whole premise of the film is that Joey (Sinatra) is irresistible to women, which was hard enough to take 20 years ago and impossible today. And Miss Novak's performance conveys just that.
I am, however, watching the scene knowing something I didn't know 20 years ago: that Miss Novak had a brief affair with Sinatra and that Pal Joey was made after its acrimonious end. Sinatra was apparently at his most arrogant, missing rehearsals and generally behaving as though he were a more successful version of Joey. Watch the scene knowing all that and Miss Novak's performance - her body language - is quite extraordinary. It is almost modernist: the wishy-washy screenplay says one thing - "Gee, Frankie, you're so cute" - while Miss Novak herself effortlessly conveys the opposite. The tension is fascinating.
All your notions of a facetious piece evaporate and, as if by some kind of divine reward, so do the obstacles.
Since she officially retired in the late 60s - "I left Hollywood to keep from stagnating," she says now; "I needed to explore and expand my own interests and get to know who I was and what I wanted" - Miss Novak has returned to the screen a mere five times, most recently in Liebestraum, the film Mike Figgis made before he got hot with Leaving Las Vegas.
"I never wanted to lose contact with acting and the public," she explains, "so on occasions I accepted a cameo in film and even television to keep up with the times and so as not to be forgotten. I wanted to show that I was still alive and well and available for the right project."
But Vertigo remains the peak of her career and the single most glowing memory she has of Hollywood. "Working with Mr Hitchcock was an incredible opportunity for me to learn discipline and good judgement from a great director," she says. "He taught me how to depend on myself and get in touch with my deepest feelings to create my own reality of Madeleine and Judy."
And her answer to the next question - whether she thinks it was harder for a woman in Hollywood under the all-embracing, all-smothering studio system than it is today, in the age of actress/ producers and $12-million paychecks - makes it clear that the experience of Vertigo was close to unique, at any rate in an industry that whisked her away from suburban Chicago when she won the Miss Deepfreeze competition sponsored by Thor refrigerators, and turned her into one of the very last of Tinseltown's glamour-girl commodities.
"In some ways," she says, "I do believe it was harder for a woman in those days. Very few people really listened or cared about what you thought or had to say, so the interpretation of a female role was usually seen from a man's perspective.
"Today, women are allowed to express their female and male sides, allowed their own voice and to contribute a more honest point of view in portrayals as well as decision-making."
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