Ruza Madarevic

Born in a small Croatian town on the river Danube, Ruza was raised by a neurologist mother and an attorney/farmer father. As a very young child, she spent hours listening to Boney M and Lepa Brena (croatian pop-folk) imagining herself as a shiny pop diva but kept her desire a secret and instead studied dance and joined the volleyball team. Her first ever movie memory was seeing 'Lassie Come Home' which was so traumatic that she kept telling her mother to call the TV people because she knew where Lassie was. Equally traumatic was the first ever book she read, 'Bambi'. Ruza saw herself as a mischievous cartoon character Maya the Bee. When her hometown suddenly turned into a civil war zone, Ruza left Croatia for London and became an au pair as well as waitressed on the side. Slowly her fashion career took off and she began living and working all over the world landing major beauty and clothing campaigns. A chance meeting with a film casting director and a subsequent audition sparked her desire to act. Her first acting job was playing a doctor to Amedeo Modigliani in Paris in early 1900s. Ruza is an American citizen and lives in New York City.