Mira Furlan was called a traitor, expelled, her property was seized: All because she loved a Serb

Mira Furlan / Photo: Profimedia/Alamy

The well known actress Mira Furlan, who has been written and talked about a lot in the previous decades, never hid the fact that she saw leaving this region as the only solution during the unrest that gripped it. She was among the most beautiful women of the former Yugoslavia and was determined not to give up on the man who won her heart forever.

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Mira Furlan was born in Zagreb, Croatia, and in 1986, sh met the Serbian director Goran Gajic, with whom she soon began a relationship.

Goran Gajic / Photo: ATA Images

On one occasion, she recounted how Gajic won her over.

"He climbed onto the mast of the ship that took us from Hvar to Vis (islands in Croatia). Watching him hold on to that indescribably high mast with one hand, I realized that he was a man who was not afraid. Finally, I said to myself. My encounters with people of the opposite sex that far had mostly been encounters with completely terrified men. A panic fear of women is also a source of violence against women that is characteristic of these areas. That fear and the hatred that arises from it were also, in my opinion, the reason for 'lynching' me in the early 1990s," said Furlan.

Because she lived between Belgrade and Zagreb for the sake of her relationship, Croatian media accused her of choosing Serbia in the early 1990s and started publishing articles referring to her as a traitor. She often saw her psychiatrist, which was another reason she was also exposed to public condemnation. After she was fired from the Croatian National Theater, the apartment she inherited from her grandmother was confiscated, and at the time she was receiving about 50 death threats a day.

Because of everything they had to deal with, Mira and Goran were forced to move to Belgrade in 1991, from where they went to the United States. Serbia's late and legendary actress Milena Dravic helped them during this process, according to media reports.

When they arrived in the United States, they did whatever they could to survive. Goran worked as a delivery man, then as assistant editor and editor, while Mira was waitressing, working as a saleswoman and a translator. They swore to eternal love and had a son whom they named Marko Lav.

In the US, Mira soon started to rebuild her acting career, and was successful at that. Initially she starred in as many as 110 episodes of the sci-fi series "Babylon 5," from 1994 until 1998.

From 2004 until 2008, she starred in the series "Lost," which achieved worldwide success, and was also extremely popular in Serbia.

She soon had an exceptional reputation in America and in 2014 she was offer a teaching spot at the Los Angeles Film Academy, and after that at the New York Film Academy.

(Telegraf.rs)