Kim Novak as Gillian Holroyd
(with Pyewacket the Cat)
My three favourite witches are not the Wayward Sisters found in Shakespeare's Macbeth, dressed in filthy robes, performing weird rituals in the fog, prophesying doom, etc. Nor are they the cock-starved, devil-invoking trio of Alex, Jane and Sukie given us by John Updike in his 1984 novel, The Witches of Eastwick.
Rather, the three broomstick-riding women I find most spellbinding are Jennifer, Gillian and Samantha ...
The second of these, Gillian Holroyd, the free-spirited, Greenwich Village witch with a penchant for going barefoot, was played by Kim Novak in the 1958 romantic comedy Bell, Book and Candle (dir. Richard Quine). The male lead in the film was taken by James Stewart, playing Shep Henderson, the handsome (but much older) next door neighbour upon whom Gillian casts a love spell.
Unfortunately, things backfire and she eventually falls in love with Shep; problematic for a witch as this (apparently) means the loss of her magical powers. However, rather like Jennifer in I Married a Witch (1942), played by Veronica Lake, Gillian decides this is a price worth paying; that love is stronger than witchcraft - or, at any rate, more valuable, more vital. She chooses fulfilment as a married woman, over the lonely and frustrated life of a spinster-witch.
Interestingly however, her feline familiar, Pyewacket, is unimpressed with this caving in and conforming to a conventional mix of romantic idealism and sexism; when Gillian opts for love, he puts his nose in the air, turns tail, and leaves her to her new, all-too-human life.
Novak is an interesting woman: of Czech descent, she began as a model before establishing a career as an actress. Studio bosses initially hoped that she would be a new Rita Hayworth or Marilyn Monroe, but Novak had no interest in being typecast. Indeed, despite her success, by the mid-1960s she was fed-up with the Hollywood lifestyle. Rarely acting after 1966 (and preferring TV projects to cinematic ones), Novak chose to concentrate on her first love, the visual arts, often writing poetry to accompany her pictures.
Now in her eighties, she continues to create work as a photographer, poet and painter. But it's as a seductive (slightly scary) on-screen witch, humming that infernal tune and stroking her pussy, that I, like many wiccaphiles, most fondly think of her.
To read part 1 of this post on Jennifer (Vernonica Lake), click here.
To read part 3 of this post on Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery), click here.
To read part 1 of this post on Jennifer (Vernonica Lake), click here.
To read part 3 of this post on Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery), click here.
