Kim Novak named Cannes 2013 guest of honour

Kim Novak is to attend a screening at the Cannes Film Festival of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece Vertigo, which will be shown in its newly restored form as part of Cannes Classics.

The 80-year-old actress will also take part in the closing ceremony on May 26 where she will award one of the prizes.

Novak first attended the festival in 1959 for the presentation of Middle of the Night by Delbert Mann, who had previously won the Palme d’or in 1955 for Marty.

Her most memorable roles included the prostitute with a big heart in Kiss Me, Stupid by Billy Wilder, the witch in Richard Quine’s Bell Book and Candle and the adulteress in another Quine film, Strangers When We Meet.

In Vertigo, Novak played heroine Madeleine Elster alongside leading man James Stewart.

Of her role, Novak said: “What was interesting was that the scene reflected what I was going through at the time: it was the story of a woman who was forced to be someone she wasn’t.”

Unwilling to accept the iron rule of the studios, she left Hollywood prematurely in order to devote herself to painting.