Born: January 3, 1957, Tomaszow Lubelski, Poland
Early days. Pacuła was born to a pharmacist mother and an engineer father. She graduated from a local high school (Liceum Ogólnokształcącym im. Bartosza Głowackiego), In 1979, Pacuła graduated from the Aleksander Zelwerowicz State Theatre Academy and embarked on a successful film career. One of her two sisters,Ewa Pacuła, is a model and TV personality who has also worked in the United States.
Career. After graduation, she joined the Warsaw Dramatic Theatre where she acted until 1981. She started her career playing in productions of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Othello and As You Like It. She also found work in a handful of films, including Krzysztof Zanussi's Barwy ochronne/Camouflage (1977) and Sergiu Nicolaescu's Ultima noapte de dragoste (1979) in Romania. In 1981, Pacuła found herself in Paris when the communist authorities in Poland declared martial law. Thanks to Roman Polanski she found work as a model and her face appeared at the cover page of a fashion magazines Vogue (twice), Cosmopolitan and Harper’s Bazaar. She did not return to Poland and in 1982 immigrated to the United States where she stayed initially at the home of the Polish actress Elzbieta Czyzewska. Then she started specializing in playing European temptresses since her feature debut, obtained thanks to Polanski, opposite Lee Marvin in Gorky Park (1983). She was praised by Roman Polanski for that role. She played in numerous American TV series and movies, including the Holocaust drama Escape From Sobibor (CBS, 1987), The Kiss (1988), E.A.R.T.H. Force (CBS, 1990), and the TV series, The Colony (ABC, 1996). She also starred in Lewis Gilbert's Not Quite Jerusalem in 1984. She was featured in Marked for Death (1990) as an expert on Jamaican voodoo and gangs in the Italian erotic thriller Husband and Lovers (1992) as a free spirited adulteress; Tombstone (1993) as Doc Holliday's lover, Kate (also known as Big Nose Kate and Mary Catherine Horoney, born 7 November 1850); in The Haunted Sea (1997); and in the film Virus (1999), playing a Russian scientist. He appeared in the movies of Italian, French, Spanish, Israeli, Finnish and New Zealandese producyion. She currently resides in Southern California.
Personal. She has two sisters: jounger, Ewa Pacula, a model and TV personality who has also worked in the United States. Joanna Pacula was married to Hawk Koch, a film producer. They later divorced.
Distinctions. Chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world (1990). Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1984" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 36.
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This article uses mostly material from the Wikipedia article "Joanna Pacula." Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
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Wikipedia (in Polish), including extensive filmography
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