Gila Golan Profile

Gila Golan

	(Zoshia Zavatski)
c. 40	is born in Poland
?	is found by a Polish Catholic man in a village in Poland. He takes her home, where he and his wife raise her with their other children. They name her Zoshia Zavatski.
End World War II	the Zavatskis move to Krakow, Poland
c. 46	a year later, representatives of a Jewish organization travel to Poland looking for abandoned children, and Mr. Zavatski gives her up. Along with 400 war foundlings, she is taken first to a refugee center in Czechoslovakia and then to Aix-les-Bains, France.
?	goes to St. Pierre, France, where for two years she attends a Jewish boarding school and learns Yiddish. Unsuccessful attempts are made to trace her family.
14 January 48	sent by Youth Aliah, she arrives in Palestine, then under British mandate, where she's adopted by a resident Haifa couple named Goldenberg. They call her Mara Goldenberg.
?	works and attends school in a kibbutz, an Israeli community farm. There she is trained to become a teacher.
?	leaves the kibbutz and becomes a telephone operator with the Palestine Can Corporation in Tel Aviv
60	a chance encounter with an American photographer leads to her pictures being issued at Israel's leading woman's magazine, Laisha. Someone there asks her to enter the "Miss Israel" contest. She's 18, 19 or 20.
29 May 60	under the name of Miriam Goldenberg, she is first runner-up to ”Miss Israel,” Aliza Gur
8 November 60	places second at the "Miss World" contest held in London
?	stays in England for four months making appearances for Youth Aliah, the organization which sent her to Israel
?	returns to Israel, where she is sent to the United States to model Israeli fashions
61	is sent to the States along with other models for the World Trade Fair
63	goes to the States modeling Israeli fashions
?	becomes a high fashion model in New York and goes to drama school
?	changes her name to Gila Golan; Gila for joy and Golan for the Israeli mountain
?	studies English and acting with Herbert Berghof
c. 63	a Columbia Pictures talent scout screen-tests just her face, no full-length or voice shots. Finally she puts her voice on tape and sends it to Columbia to go with her face test.
June 64	producer-director Stanley Kramer hears her voice on tape and casts her for his Ship of Fools. He wants her because he likes the high pitch of her voice.
	is still single; she thinks her age is 21, 22, or 23
?	20th Century-Fox tests her with James Coburn. They have to do as scene out of Thomas Wolfe's The Web and the Rock.
?	applies for American citizenship
65	is crowned “Miss Golden Globe” and hosts the annual awards ceremony
January 65	is signed by Columbia at $150 a week
Early 65	is chosen "Miss Golden Globes" by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association
July 65	is the new interest of director Hal Bartlett, the estranged husband of actress Rhonda Fleming
August 65	her agent, Dick Clayton, takes her to the Academy Awards ceremony and, afterwards, to the ball, where she refuses to accept a present from singer Eddie Fisher
	her screen test is part of TV's "Hollywood Talent Scouts"
11 December 65	attends the world premiere of Our Man Flint at the Seville Theater in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica. 20th Century-Fox executives head the contingent, which arrives from New Orleans aboard Delta Airlines. She and Lee J. Cobb represent the cast. James Coburn is unable to attend because of "pressure of work."
January 66	receives dozens of letters claiming kinship from a variety of nuts and fortune hunters. Some of the more honest writers deny blood relationship, but kindly offer to adopt her. Still others would like to become related to her through marriage. "The terrible part of it is that most of the people who write me are sincere," she says.
66	on a national promotion tour, she comes to the attention of a Seattle columnist, who calls her "Nobody's Baby"
29 April 66	arriving in Seattle, she is met by a band and banners reading "Happy Birthday, Baby."
May 66	claims Seattle, Washington, as a proxy hometown. To make up for the gap in her past, the American city awards her an honorary birth certificate.
September 66	columnist Walter Winchell reports that there are rumors that she has been secretly wed to a copy editor at Woman's Wear Daily
January 67	producer Joe Levine gives her the big buildup. He signs her for three films as a starter.
29 April 67	due to her Seattle reception a year ago, she celebrates her first birthday. She receives hundreds of gifts and cards from Seattle and also from other Washington towns.
June 67	Vittorio Gassman, her co-star in Catch as Catch Can, falls for her
68	is off to Spain for the filming of The Valley - Where Time Stood Still
February 68	her escort at the Steak Casino is Bob Tapling. They are joined by Cary Grant.
	divorces Alex Urban
July 68	attends drama school in New York but will return to Hollywood to do some dubbing for The Valley - Where Time Stood Still
October 68	columnist Walter Winchell reports that her steady fella is NBC news man Howard Tuckner
September 69	marries 57-year-old Matthew Bernard Rosenhaus, pharmaceutical tycoon and big Columbia Pictures stockholder
c. September 70	her daughter Sarita Agnes is born
?	her daughter Hedy is born
July 75	her third daughter, Loretta, is born
26 August 80	becomes the widow of Rosenhaus, who dies at age 68 of a heart attack at his home at the Hotel Pierre in New York
Mid-80s	remarries and lives with her husband in Florida and New York

Sources: Film Fatales by Tom Lisanti and Louis Paul, The New York Times, Parade, Syracuse Herald-American, The News, News Journal-Mansfield, The Valley Independent, The Daily Gleaner, The Coshocton Tribune, Nevada State Journal, Bucks County Courier Times, The Film Encyclopedia by Ephraim Katz, Starlet by Kim Holston, Screen Stars, Who’s Who in Hollywood 1966, www.Ancestry.com
Recommended Books:
Links: Filmography !WOm!WAm!: Gila Golan