Kim Novak’s time at the top of Hollywood was brief. Only four years passed between her breakthrough in Pushover (1954) and her career peak in Vertigo (1958) , and while she’d still have excellent performances ahead of her after that, by the mid-1960s her films had become sporadic and their quality erratic. Still, she squeezed a lot into her short stay at the top. Arriving as one of many starlets in mid-1950s Hollywood primed to be the next Marilyn Monroe-esque blonde bombshell, like Monroe she soon proved there was much more to her than her dazzling beauty by delivering deft, captivating work in a string of comedies and dramas.
