Kim Novak, the 92-year-old screen star, accepted the Icon Award on Saturday evening at the Deauville American Film Festival in France in recognition of a career that has spanned decades.
Novak attended the star-studded ceremony in a white gown paired with a flowing, embellished sheer shawl. She wore her hair in a blonde bob and kept accessories to a minimum as she received the honor.
The Deauville award follows Novak's appearance at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month, where she received a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement. Both festival honors come amid the release of a new documentary, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, which examines her life and career and includes reflections on her poverty-stricken childhood.
The documentary revisits Novak's body of work and the cultural impact of her performance in Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film Vertigo, a role that remains central to assessments of her career. Festival organizers and attendees framed the Deauville Icon Award as recognition of her contributions to American cinema across multiple decades.
Novak first rose to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s and has been intermittently active in public life in recent years. Her recent appearances at Venice and Deauville drew attention both for the honors conferred and for the renewed public focus on her personal history and artistic legacy prompted by the documentary.
Festival programming at Deauville this year included tributes and screenings related to American cinema, with organizers highlighting figures whose work influenced film history. Novak's awards at Venice and Deauville underscore a pattern among international festivals to revisit and celebrate the careers of midcentury screen figures as contemporary audiences and scholars reassess their work.
Representatives for Novak did not immediately provide additional comment after the Deauville ceremony. The documentary Kim Novak’s Vertigo has prompted renewed discussion of her early life and the circumstances that shaped her career, while the festival recognitions offered a formal acknowledgment of her long-standing influence on film.