Paulina Porizkova Biography

Paulina Porizkova (born April 9, 1965) is an actress and former supermodel. She was born as Pavlína Pořízková in Prostějov, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic). Measurements: 35B-23 1/2-35 1/2 Height: 5' 10 1/2" 1.79m

When Paulina Porizkova was very young, her father and mother left Czechoslovakia after the Soviet invasion in 1968 and moved to Lund in the south of Sweden. They left Paulina and her younger brother Joachym (nicknamed "Kym") under the care of her grandmother, believing the children could be brought out later. However, the Czech authorities would not allow it, and the ensuing battle for Paulina made headlines in Sweden. The young couple pleaded with the media using pictures of young Paulina clutching a teddy bear to make her a cause célèbre.

After a failed rescue attempt where her mother ended up detained by Czech police, political pressure caused the government to finally allow the Porizkova family to reunited after seven years. The joy was soon ended when Paulina's parents divorced when her father left the family. Father and daughter have been estranged since then, even after Paulina's rise to celebrity. This left Paulina's mother busy supporting her children and funding her own medical school education, leaving a ten year old Paulina to fend for herself and her brother. Paulina hated living in Sweden, as she was harassed as a political refugee. She associated her self with other outcast and had no luck attracting members of the opposite sex making her identify with Dumbo.

A photographer friend took pictures of Paulina and sent them to Elite modeling agency in 1980. Elite head John Casablancas saw Paulina's potential and offered her a ticket to Paris. It was an extremely tempting offer for a teenage Paulina who was eager to get out of Sweden and support herself. She quickly rose up to become a top model in Paris during the early '80s.

Her stardom exploded across the pond with winning the coveted spot on the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 1984 and then again in 1985. (Her first appearance was in 1983.) A third consecutive run as covergirl was dashed when she appeared on the cover Life in a swimsuit.

Paulina appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine in August 1987 to preview her new (non-nude) swimsuit calendar. Paulina a few years earlier had a controversial nude spread in GQ magazine which left her feeling deceived and exploited.

Her two calendars in 1988 and 1989 each sold in large numbers, setting a standard and paving the way for other models like Cindy Crawford for their own pin-up calendars.

Paulina Porizkova was considered the most beautiful model of her era. She was chosen twice by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world, in 1990 and 1992. Harper's Bazaar magazine named her one of the ten most beautiful women in 1992. American Photo magazine in its premiere issue declared her to be the model of the '80s. She appeared on the covers of countless magazines around the world during the '80s and '90s, including numerous appearances on Vogue, ELLE, Harper's Bazaar, Self, and Glamour. One estimate determined that she has appeared on 350 magazine covers. Paulina was also the model featured in advertising for Diet Sprite.

In 1988, Paulina won what was the highest-paying modeling contract at the time, a $6 million-a-year contract as the face of Estee Lauder. The Estee Lauder makeover turned her public image from a sexpot to the epitome of European sophistication. The classy black-and-white ad campaign won plaudits from critics. Estee Lauder replaced Paulina with Elizabeth Hurley in 1995.

After having her first child, Paulina devoted less and less time to modeling and concentrated on acting in independent films. She quickly got a new gig as lead model for Escada. In early 2001, she hosted a show on E!'s Style Channel. In 2005, she made her first appearance in Victoria's Secret advertising.

Although she had an illustrious career, Paulina was never one to fall into the glamour associated with being a model. Despite the perks that modeling provided, she was not proud or happy about her job, mostly because of the connotations that are associated with modeling; consequently she sought other outlets in which she could express herself more creatively.

During her early modelling career, Porizkova had a very noticeable gap between her two front teeth. For this reason, she usually appeared with a closed mouth smile during the period. One writer noted that it was an eccentricity in an other wise perfect face. The smile however became something of a trademark for her during that period of her career. The gap was corrected before her major film debut in Anna.

She was a family friend of Liv Tyler and took notice of Liv's beauty, encouraging her to try modeling.

Paulina's film debut was in the 1983 modeling pseudo-documentary Portfolio. Still only 17, she managed to look more mature and intelligent than the other more established models and became the literal "covergirl" for the film. Porizkova appeared in the 1987 movie Anna, receiving glowing reviews from her patrons at Vogue magazine. It was in 1989 that she would land her biggest, and most known role to date, co-starring with Tom Selleck (hot off the trails of his Three Men and a Baby success) in the movie Her Alibi. However she was nominated for a Golden Raspberry for worst actress for her appearance in that movie. Paulina starred in the bizarre cult film, Arizona Dream with Johnny Depp and Jerry Lewis, in a minor role as the stunning young Polish fiancee of Lewis. She appeared nude in Thursday.

Most recently, she wrote and directed the 2001 movie Roommates. In 2004, she starred in the indepedent film romantic comedy, Knots. She turned down an opportunity to be a Bond Girl in the 1995 movie GoldenEye because of better salaries in modeling and it would take time away from her family.

Porizkova Seems to have a preference for extremely thin men—she once stated in an interview that she would like to ravage Mr. Spock. On August 23, 1989, she married Ric Ocasek, the lead musician with the group The Cars. They had met in 1984, when she was 19, on the video shoot for The Cars' music video "Drive", directed by Timothy Hutton. They managed to hide their romance until their marriage.

The couple has two sons, Jonathan Raven Ocasek, born November 1993, and Oliver Orion Ocasek, born May 23 1998.