Elżbieta Czyżewska
Elżbieta Justyna Czyżewska (May 14, 1938– June 17, 2010) was a Polish actress active in both Poland and the United States.
Early life
Czyżewska was born in Warsaw in 1938. She attended the State Academy of Theatre in Warsaw and was advised by the Dean that in order to play leading roles in Romantic repertory she should undergo plastic surgery: to reduce the size of her breasts. Her answer, after she consulted her colleagues in the anti-establishment Student Satirical Theatre, was "No way".
Her first marriage was to the film director Jerzy Skolimowski. In 1965, she married the New York Times Warsaw correspondent, David Halberstam. She left Poland for the United States with him, but they divorced in 1977.
Career in Poland
At the peak of her film and theater career, and in trouble with the communist regime on account of her marriage to Halberstam - she was cast by the Polish director Andrzej Wajda in his film, Everything for Sale. The young directors of the Polish new wave in cinema recognized their peer in breaking the conventions of superficial romantic comedy. In A Bride for the Australian (1963), Where is the General (1963) and Giuseppe in Warsaw (1964), Czyżewska created a character who was almost the reverse of the Cinderella versus Prince Charming formula, as it was her charm and wit that turned her suitors into her equals. Not a "method" actor, she would never disappear into a character, nor would she, on the other hand, allow her striking persona to wholly define her succession of screen and theatre parts. Wojciech Has directed her performance in The Saragossa Manuscript (1964).
