Gila Golan

Gila Golan was found as a toddler wandering the streets of a war-scarred Poland in World War II. She was adopted by a Catholic family and was sent to a boarding school in France. The name Miriam Goldberg was the name given to her when she enrolled at the school. In the early '50s, she and her family moved to Israel, where she finished high school and won the title of Miss Israel 1961. She never knew who her real parents were or what her real name and birthdate was.

It was a natural step for her to extend her fashion activities into the 1960 competition which led to her being crowned "Na'arat Israel" - Israel's Maiden of Beauty (IMB) - or using international usage, "Miss Israel. " For this competition she changed her name to Gila Golan. Such a change of names to one more typically Israeli was common at the time, but she may have done this to prevent any embarrassment to her religiously conservative family and friends. She went on to place second in the Miss World competition held later that year in London where she met the Columbia Pictures executive William Cohan and his wife.

Gila Golan's career started as an Israeli fashion model, which led to appearances as a film actress. She was apparently born in Krakow, Poland, for she was discovered there in a train station during the German occupation in 1940. She was adopted by a Roman Catholic couple and later sent to a boarding school in France before emigrating to Israel after World War II where she changed her name from Zusia Sobetzcki to Miriam Goldberg. She became interested in fashion and her being spotted by an American photographer led to appearing in the Israeli magazine La'isha.