Kim Novak's Home Destroyed by Fire

E A G L E  P O I N T, Ore., July 25 -- Kim Novak, the star of Vertigo andother film classics, sat in a small boat Monday and watched as theformer fishing lodge that had been her home and mementos of herlife in Hollywood went up in flames.

Though the flames destroyed her personally annotated scriptsfrom the Alfred Hitchcock classic Vertigo, and Picnic, aswell as the computer on which she had been writing herautobiography, Novak, 67, said her dogs, horses, llamas and afamily of orphaned Canada geese she had raised were spared.

“I take it personally as a sign my story should not be told,”Novak said of the book she has been working on for 10 years. “Iread signs. Unfortunately, they have to be pretty heavy duty signsfor me to recognize them.”

Fallen Tree Linked to Fire

The fire was apparently electrical, and probably linked to atree falling across a power line the night before, said Deputy FireMarshal Phil Cardinal. It moved quickly through the one-storywoodframe house, apparently reflected inward by the metal roof.

Novak’s husband of 23 years, large-animal veterinarian BobMurray, said a cottonwood had fallen across a power line the nightbefore, and power company crews restored electricity aboutmidnight.

The couple slept outside on a porch, and when they got up before7 a.m. Monday, the power was off in the bathroom. Malloy said heswitched a circuit breaker to restore power, and went into thekitchen to make coffee. Then a smoke alarm went off.

He went into the bedroom, where flames were coming from underthe bed. He called to his wife, who was in her studio, to get outof the house. Within minutes, the flames had spread across the backof the house.

“I heard the smoke alarm and thought, ‘Those silly things thatmean nothing,’” Novak said. “I looked out and saw all thoseflames.”

Back of House Wrecked

The fire sent up a column of smoke that was visible tofirefighters rushing to the house.