Novak says Scandalous! misrepresents her romance with Sammy Davis Jr.

Kim Novak, the 92 year old star of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, has publicly criticized the forthcoming biopic Scandalous! that dramatizes her 1957 relationship with Rat Pack member Sammy Davis Jr., saying the title and likely sexualized treatment mischaracterize a private romance that unfolded under the constraints of Jim Crow America. Novak raised her objections while in Venice, where she is receiving a lifetime achievement award and a new documentary about her life is premiering.

"I do not think the relationship was scandalous," Novak said in a recent interview, adding that Davis "is somebody I really cared about" and that they shared a desire to be accepted for who they were rather than how they looked. She expressed concern that the film will reduce their relationship to "all sexual reasons." The film, which marks actor Colman Domingo's directorial debut and stars Sydney Sweeney as Novak and David Jonsson as Davis, has been described by Domingo as an exploration of love lived "under many eyes," and of people trying to preserve privacy and humanity amid public scrutiny.

The couple first met in 1956 and carried on a clandestine affair at a time when interracial relationships...