Retired actress Kim Novak, the inspiration behind Colman Domingo’s upcoming biopic Scandalous!, recently voiced her reservations about the movie. The film stars Sydney Sweeney as Novak. Domingo is helming the movie from a script by Matthew Fantaci.
Kim Novak concerned about Sydney Sweeney’s Scandalous! biopic
Kim Novak, 92, told The Guardian in a new interview that she has concerns over the title of Scandalous!, a movie about her relationship with Sammy Davis Jr. “I don’t think the relationship was scandalous,” Novak said, referring to the biopic’s title. “He’s [Davis Jr.] somebody I really cared about. We had so much in common, including that need to be accepted for who we are and what we do, rather than how we look. But I’m concerned they’re going to make it all sexual reasons.”
According to the above-mentioned article, Novak’s relationship with Davis Jr. was a secret. It reportedly came to an end after Harry Cohn, the co-founder and former president of Columbia Pictures Corporation, sent threats of mob violence to Davis Jr., claiming that Novak’s involvement with a Black man was “bad for business.” Actor David Jonsson will play Davis Jr. in Scandalous!.
Columbia signed Novak in the early ’50s. Cohn subsequently had her change her name and certain aspects of her physical appearance. “They hired you because they thought you have something special, and then the first thing they’d do is try to give you a new face,” Novak explained. “They’d want the mouth of Joan Crawford, the hair of Jean Harlow. So by the time you left the makeup chair, it wasn’t even you any more. I needed to fight to keep my own sense of who I was.”
It’s unclear whether an iteration of Cohn is part of the Scandalous! plotline.
Novak is known for her roles in Picnic (1955), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), Vertigo (1958), and Kiss Me, Stupid (1964). Novak eventually stepped away from acting and the world of glamor for a relatively quieter life of painting and raising horses.
Scandalous! currently doesn’t have an official release date.
Originally reported by Tamal Kundu on ComingSoon.
