Gila Golan

Gila Golan was born in 1940 in Kraków

Golan was born in Kraków during the Holocaust, and her parents were murdered. A Polish Catholic family took her in and hid her. After the war she was handed to a Jewish organization that gathered orphans.

She studied for 2 years at a Youth Aliyah boarding school in France and reached Israel in 1948. She was adopted by the Goldenberg family of Haifa and took the name Miriam Goldenberg. She was not drafted into the IDF because her age was unknown.

In 1960 she was runner-up for Miss Israel and placed second at Miss World in London. She then took the name Gila Golan and raised funds for Youth Aliyah. In 1963 she began modeling in New York.

In 1964 she signed with Columbia Pictures and made her film debut in Ship of Fools. She appeared in Our Man Flint, Three on a Couch and The Valley of Gwangi. She ended her career in 1969.

In 1969 she married Matthew Bernard Rosenhaus, with whom she had 3 children, and became a US citizen. In the 1980s she helped organize the 2nd Israel Film Festival. She lives in Florida with her third husband.