Kim Novak, Noel Coward Found Painting Joy

(Coward photo shown from Jamaica.)  Kim Novak couldn’t stop the tears when she spoke last night on TCM about her paintings that she hopes to display at a public showing soon.  Novak, 80, found tremendous pleasure in painting in the solitude of rural Oregon life which she shares with her husband, a veterinarian.  She had kind thoughts about Columbia Pictures boss Harry Cohn and Alfred Hitchcock.  She regrets that she wasn’t more assertive when it came to choosing movie scripts.  Her father was a cold fish and also bipolar as is she.  Her told her he loved her on the day he died.  I found the interview disturbing but worthwhile.
It helped to have seen the restored “Vertigo” the night before the Novak interview.
Another celebrity who found joy in painting was writer, actor Noel Coward whose paintings can be seen at his home and burial place, Firefly, near Ocho Rios, Jamaica, where I visited with friends in late February.  The Coward home was a rich experience that apparently only British visitors favor.  I was lucky to have seen the BBC documentary, Noel Coward in Jamaica, before I went on this tour. Some of his fabulous life is on display at Firefly including his paintings and photos which such theater greats as Gertrude Lawrence, Lottie Lenya and Lionel Bart.