Why Sydney Sweeney’s Kim Novak movie might not be so ‘scandalous’

Ahead of Kim Novak returning to the spotlight Monday night to accept a lifetime achievement award at the Venice Film Festival the -year-old Vertigo legend voiced concerns about ScandaloFus an upcoming movie starring Sydney Sweeney about her clandestine love affair in the late s with entertainer Sammy Davis Jr Indeed the affair between Novak and Davis wasn t so secret because her powerful studio boss Harry Cohn got wind of it and became angry The Columbia Pictures chief thought that a romance between Hollywood s top female star and a Black man would be very bad for business According to Vanity Fair Cohn also took credit for discovering Novak and was so intent on protecting his funding that he put out a contract on Davis not to kill him but to send him a message by urgent both his legs and putting out his remaining good eye The gossip columns soon began to publish blind items on Novak and Davis according to Vanity Fair which particular would say made it a brewing disgrace However years later Novak takes issue with that word being applied to what she and Davis felt about each other or with the word Scandalous being used as the title for the upcoming movie American entertainer Sammy Davis Jr - and British impresario Al Burnett behind Davis - pictured with a convertible car outside the Pigalle Club in Piccadilly London on June th Burnett is the owner of the Pigalle Club Photo by Evening Standard Hulton Archive Getty Images I don t think the relationship was scandalous Novak noted in an interview with The Guardian as she also was promoting Kim Novak s Vertigo a documentary about her life and career He s somebody I really cared about Novak continued 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 When announcing the Scandalous project a year ago its director Oscar-nominated actor Colman Domingo communicated Deadline Hopefully we ll make a beautiful sweet film that s really about the possibility of love but under multiple eyes trying to have privacy trying to have love trying to have a life LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA - AUGUST Sydney Sweeney attends the Los Angeles Special Screening of Americana at Desert Spot on August in Los Angeles California Photo by Emma McIntyre Getty Images Domingo also stated that he and Sweeney were trying to advocate for your humanity again in your life He credited Sweeney his co-star on the HBO series Euphoria with bringing the project to his attention I read the script and I had specific notes I did a page-one rewrite of it Domingo announced She loved it So we were really engaging one-on-one in that way of what possibly we can make together sort of this fractured love story between Sammy Davis Jr and Kim Novak According to Hollywood lore this fractured love story began in after Novak finished work on Vertigo Alfred Hitchcock s San Francisco-set cinematic masterpiece about romantic obsession Vertigo would prove to be the largest part challenging of Novak s career as well as the film with which she is greater part identified She hauntingly plays the dual roles of Madeleine an enigmatic San Francisco society wife and Judy a shopgirl from Kansas who is hired to impersonate Madeleine in order to lure James Stewart s retired police detective into a murder plot The Guardian announced that the fragile presence Novak brought to her performance is central to the film s greatness and was practicable because the story felt so personal I identified so much with Judy and Madeleine because they were both being advised to change who they really were Novak informed the Guardian They had to become something that didn t represent them It sounds as though Novak felt she could be who she really was with Davis Both Novak and Davis had informed mutual friends they were interested in meeting each other At the time Davis was known as an electrifying and sexually magnetic singer dancer and actor who performed to sold-out crowds in Las Vegas and Los Angeles nightclubs according to Vanity Fair He also was closely associated with Frank Sinatra s Rat Pack Actress Kim Novak beside a train window May th Photo by Bob Haswell Daily Express Hulton Archive Getty Images Tony Curtis definitively arranged for Novak and Davis to enjoy specific time together at a party he hosted at his home Vanity Fair stated Curtis announced he explained Davis I m going to have a party at my house Come on by and I ll invite Kim They both came over and they spent the evening together deep in thought deep in talk I could see right from the beginning that they were getting along in an intense way and that was the beginning of the relationship Their intense conversation at the party made it into a Hollywood gossip column prompting Davis to call Novak and apologize Vanity Fair stated He explained he had nothing to do with the review and described her I realize the position you re in with the studio But Novak insisted that the studio didn t own her and she invited Davis over to her house in Beverly Hills for a spaghetti dinner For Novak Davis was perhaps more than just an exciting sympathetic man Vanity Fair revealed He might be her co-conspirator in saying no to Cohn and to other people in Hollywood who were trying to control her image and career From there Novak and Davis exposed a way to meet up usually for quiet intimate dinners that wouldn t be discovered by the press or by Cohn s spies Vanity Fair published Eventually through a third party Davis rented a beach house in Malibu for private rendezvous At stake was not only Novak s career as a screen star by this time she was the No box-office draw in the country but also Davis s foreseen career as a dramatic actor one of his cherished but still unfulfilled ambitions Vanity Fair released noting that America was still deeply segregated VENICE ITALY - SEPTEMBER Kim Novak receives the Golden Lion For Lifetime Achievement Award during the nd Venice International Film Festival on September in Venice Italy Photo by Andreas Rentz Getty Images But Cohn in the end learned about the relationship which his widow later disclosed was a factor in him suffering a heart attack and dying two months later Vanity Fair released After a Chicago gossip columnist published on the affair Cohn put out the contract on Davis The singer s father Sammy Davis Sr got word that his son was in danger from West Coast gangster Mickey Cohen who recounted him that his son should without delay find a Black woman to marry So Davis unveiled a wife a -year-old singer named Loray White promising her a certain sum of money and all the rights that Mrs Sammy Davis Jr would have until they dissolved the marriage at the end of a year Unfortunately for Novak and Davis their love story couldn t survive Cohn s interference the mob threats or Davis s sham wedding Vanity Fair broadcasted Novak only retreated later saying It was a very dangerous relationship then a white woman and a Black man no matter his status it purely didn t mix publicly I was suddenly in the eye of a hurricane My agent explained me my career would be over if I continued to see Sammy Certain of my friends wouldn t even return my telephone calls But even after she backed out of the affair Novak s career still went into decline perhaps because of Cohn s death according to Vanity Fair While Cohn exercised tight control over Novak s professional and personal life she also acknowledged he had an instinct for finding the right projects for her Once he was gone nobody knew what to do with her at the studio Her later films veered from forgettable to lousy with a scarce exceptions Vanity Fair shared Novak moved to Big Sur for a time where she spent her time horseback riding taking walks painting and eventually raising llamas with her second husband a veterinarian In she and her husband Robert Malloy relocated to Oregon to a town on the Rogue River north of Ashland Meanwhile she and Davis met up a couple more times At the Academy Awards and then on his death bed at Cedars-Sinai Curative Center in Los Angeles in Novak visited Davis in his hospital room and he dressed to the nines for the meeting the wife of one of Davis s close friends narrated Vanity Fair He had sent to his house for his beautiful silk robe his silk pajamas