Life and career

Pacuła was born in Tomaszów Lubelski, Poland, to a pharmacist mother and an engineer father. She has a sister, Ewa Pacuła, a model and TV personality who has also worked in the United States.

In 1979, Pacuła graduated from the Aleksander Zelwerowicz State Theatre Academy. After graduation, she joined the Warsaw Dramatic Theatre where she acted until 1981. She started her career playing in productions of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Othello and As You Like It. She also found work in a handful of films, including Krzysztof Zanussi's Barwy ochronne/Camouflage (1977) and Sergiu Nicolaescu's Ultima noapte de dragoste (1980) in Romania.

In 1981, Pacuła was in Paris when the communist authorities in Poland declared martial law. She did not return to her homeland and in 1982 emigrated to the United States, where she started specializing in playing European temptresses since her feature debut opposite William Hurt in Gorky Park (1983). She was praised by Roman Polanski for that role. She played in numerous American TV series and movies, including the Holocaust drama Escape From Sobibor (CBS, 1987), The Kiss (1988), E.A.R.T.H. Force (CBS, 1990), and the TV series, The Colony (ABC, 1996). She also starred in Lewis Gilbert's Not Quite Jerusalem in 1984.

She was featured in Marked for Death (1990) as an expert on Jamaican voodoo and gangs; in the Italian erotic thriller Husband and Lovers (1992) as a free-spirited adultress; Tombstone (1993) as Doc Holliday's lover, Kate (also known as Big Nose Kate and Mary Catherine Horoney, born 7 November 1850); in The Haunted Sea (1997); and in the film Virus (1999), playing a Russian scientist. She currently resides in Southern California, US.

Milestones

• Chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world (1990).
• Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1984" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 36.

Select filmography

• Ultima noapte de dragoste (1980)
• Gorky Park (1983)
• Not Quite Paradise (1985)
• Escape from Sobibor (1987)
• Death Before Dishonor (1987)
• The Kiss (1988)
• Sweet Lies (1988)
• Breaking Point (1989)
• Marked for Death (1990)
• Husband and Lovers (1991)
• Black Ice (1992)
• Body Puzzle (1993)
• Tombstone (1993)
• Warlock: The Armageddon (1993)
• Deep Red (1994)
• Heaven Before I Die (1997)
• En brazos de la mujer madura (1997)
• The White Raven (1998)
• Virus (1999)
• Dinocroc (2004)
• Moscow Heat (2004)
• The Cutter (2005)
• When Nietzsche Wept (2007)
• Monk (2008)
• Shannon's Rainbow (2009)
• Black Widow (2010)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]