Paulina Porizkova

The Bookshop Podcast

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In this episode, I chat with Paulina Porizkova about her book No Filter, The Good, The Bad, And The Beautiful, living in an all-male household, crazy weather, and receiving a call from Maria Shriver.
Paulina Porizkova is a Czechoslovak-born writer. A former model, she was the first Central European woman to appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 1984. In 1988 she became one of the highest-paid models in the world as the face of Estee Lauder. She has starred in 16 movies and a slew of TV shows as an actress, and she has served as part of the judging panel on Cycle 10 of America’s Next Top Model.

Paulina Porizkova was born in Olomouc in 1965 and grew up in the Moravian town of Prostějov, a city dating back to 1141 in what was, at the time, Czechoslovakia. In 1968, during the wake of the Soviet-led invasion, Paulina’s parents escaped Czechoslovakia and settled in Sweden, leaving her behind with her grandmother. Her mother went back to Czechoslovakia to get her daughter, only to be captured and taken to prison, where, because she was pregnant, was put under house arrest with Paulina and her grandmother and soon-to-be-born brother for three years.

Amid media coverage, Paulina, her brother, and her mother were later allowed to enter Sweden. However, the rest of her family remained in Czechoslovakia. Her debut novel, A Model Summer, was published in 2007, and her memoir, No Filter, The Good, The Bad, And The Beautiful, was published by The Open Field in 2022.
No Filter: The Good, The Bad, And The Beautiful, Paulina Porizkova
I've Been Thinking, Maria Shriver

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