Critics have never been kind to Kim Novak. They often (and wrongly) have dismissed her as a typical star manufactured by the studio system, or as one of the many cinema's goddesses gifted with plenty of sex appeal but little acting talent. Directors have not been too kind either. Richard Quine, allegedly paying her a compliment, declared she had "the proverbial quality of the lady in the parlor and the whore in the bedroom." An embittered Henry Hathaway remembered resigning as director of Of Human Bondage (1964), which he had originally planned to film with Marilyn Monroe, because of Novak: "they made it with Stupid-what's her name-Kim Novak… I worked one day with her and quit." And yet, although briefly, audiences loved her passionately and were most receptive to her peculiar appeal as an actress, responding to it with 3,500 fan letters per week.

Kim Novak...