Kim Novak's Real Name: Marilyn Pauline Novak

Quick answer: The actor is known professionally as Kim Novak. An Encyclopaedia Britannica biography and an Oregon Encyclopedia entry both record the original name Marilyn Pauline Novak and a Chicago birth in 1933. Britannica gives the birth date February 13, 1933; the Oregon Encyclopedia gives the year 1933 without a day. That exact day appears in only one of the sources.

Real name and early life

The Britannica entry identifies her as Kim Novak, original name Marilyn Pauline Novak, born February 13, 1933, in Chicago, Illinois. The Oregon Encyclopedia independently says Marilyn Pauline Novak was born in Chicago in 1933, wrote poetry and studied art, worked as a teen fashion model, and later went to Los Angeles, where she was signed by Columbia Pictures. Britannica independently says that as a teenager she left Chicago, where she had been working as a model, for Hollywood, came to the attention of Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn, and adopted the given name Kim while refusing to change her surname. The Oregon account also notes that she later moved to southern Oregon in 1992.

Career highlights

Both accounts name Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) as her most famous film. Britannica describes her dual performance in that film as Madeleine Elster and Judy Barton, opposite Jimmy Stewart. Both also name Picnic and The Man with the Golden Arm among her mid-1950s films, and both record a Golden Globe as a newcomer in that period; Britannica dates the Golden Globe to 1955 and describes Picnic, with William Holden, as often considered her breakthrough. The Oregon Encyclopedia independently says she was a Golden Globe winner the following year after an earlier film, starring in Picnic and The Man with the Golden Arm, and that her acting debut was in the 1954 film Pushover. Britannica independently also names Pushover (1954), opposite Fred MacMurray, and later names Bell, Book and Candle (1958). The Oregon account also notes a 1957 salary protest, later television work on Falcon Crest in 1986 and 1987, and later periodic breaks from Hollywood; those later details are not independently developed in the Britannica capture used here.

Name notes for searchers

People looking up Kim Novak or Marilyn Pauline Novak are looking for the same actor known from Vertigo. Both sources used here record the longer original name.