wrote:Hello there. Actually the model Pola is mentioned in Stephen Fried's book, Thing of Beauty: The tragedy of supermodel Gia. In a passage about the early days of the Elite modeling agency, (I forget the page as I have misplaced my copy of the book)an agent described how a girl named Pola killed herself months after making the cover of Vogue. If I'm not mistaken, she had jumped out of a window.
In another book, Model: The ugly business of beautiful women by Michael Gross, a model by the name "Paula Brenken" killed herself by jumping out of a window. This may be either another model or Mr. Gross mispelling the name Pola. The passage described how Elite Models was marred by the death of 2 models at a time when the agency was starting to get on it's feet success-wise.
Another book; Bad and Beautiful: Inside the Dazzling and Deadly World of Supermodels By Ian Halperin, "Paula Brenken" was mentioned again with similar cause of death attributed to suicide by jumping out of a window.
In the old incarnation of the website, Minimadmod 60's, Pola had a section of her photos on display. In the menu, her name not only was textlinked to go to the pictures but also had a caption which mentioned Pola was considered a success in the early '70's but had died as a result of suicide.
In the years since becoming familiar with the names Pola and Paula, I suspect that they may be the same model. If that is the case, then her cause of death due to drug overdose might be heresay and not neccessarily true. How this came about I am not sure. But if you were to contact the owner of the website of minimadmod 60's, you might get your answer as she was a model at the same time that Pola was. Maybe she can be of help in answering questions about Pola up to what her real cause of death was.
The thing about Pola that I find most significant is that she was one of the first Brazillian models to make it big in the business 2 decades before the "Brazillian Invasion" of models the is credited to Gisele Bundchen and Adrianna Lima.
Unbeknownst to most model afficionados, after Pola and before Bundchen, there were 2 Brazillian models who also had success (in Europe mostly)in the business. They were Dalma Callado (from the mid '80's to the early '90's) and Gisele Zelauey (from the late '80's to the mid '90's). Sadly, just like with Pola, these 2 models are shrouded in mystery as any info about them appears as either a breif mention on a blog (especially Anna Bayle's own)or an occasional photo appearing in the fashion/modeling forums of online comminities.
Hope this helps and good luck on your quest as I am also doing one to better understand Pola, Dalma, and (THE original) Gisele.
Source: ebay.com
ola was a friend of mine from the High School of Performing Arts in NYC. Her real name and name at the time was Paula Klimak. She was a kid from Jackson Heights. We were best best friends. In ninth grade, she was tall: too tall for a ballet dancer, which is why we were both at that school. She was gawky, awkward, wore glasses, no make up and had no self confidence. I could see she was truly beautiful...you know...that ugly duckling thing. I kept telling her she could be a model...to forget ballet. It was 1967-1968. My father was a fairly well known advertising and fashion photographer, so I was used to beautiful tall models always around. After I left High School of Performing Arts to attend a private school, Paula and I lost touch. However, she reincarnated herself as "Pola", a stunning model. She would come back occasionally to the Ballet Arts studio in Carnegie Hall, but would never admit she was Paula Klimack, which was a little strange. Her mother was in the Metropolitan Opera Chorus. When I first saw Paula/Pola on the cover of a major fashion magazine, I felt so happy for her. Our family friend, Henry Wolf, who was a very famous art director, designer and photographer had known her as a model and thought she was beautiful. I don't remember how I found out she committed suicide. But I do remember a rumor, which must be false, that she drank a bottle of chamagne and then drowned in the bath. She was a really great friend. I really wish I knew what happened to her.
