Actress Kim Novak is opening up about her childhood, growing up during the Great Depression to a mother that, she says, nearly killed her twice.

“The Depression caused so much hardship,” Novak, 92, said in the new documentary, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, per People. “My mom got pregnant, and she just couldn’t afford to have a child. She tried to abort me with knitting needles. But she wasn’t able to do it in this case, so I was born, but I know that she tried to suffocate me with a pillow, and I always had breathing issues.”

Novak said she remembers “fighting to breathe, to stay alive, and I won,” she continued. “I stayed alive. I made it through.”

The film, directed by Alexandre O. Philippe and now screening at the Venice Film Festival, chronicles the Vertigo actress’ early life and on-screen

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