Mira Furlan (7 September 1955 – 20 January 2021) was a Croatian-American actress and singer. Internationally, she was best known for her roles as the Minbari Ambassador Delenn in the science fiction television series Babylon 5 (1993–1998), and as Danielle Rousseau in Lost (2004–2010), and also appeared in multiple award-winning films such as When Father Was Away on Business (1985) and The Abandoned (2010).
Early life
Furlan was born on 7 September 1955 to an intellectual and academic family that included a large number of university professors in Zagreb, PR Croatia, which at the time was one of the six constituent republics of Yugoslavia. She was born to Branka Weil, a mother who was of Jewish-Serbian descent, and Ivan Furlan, a father of Slovene-Croat descent.
As a child, Furlan was obsessed with American rock and roll music. She played Ankica Vidmar in the film When Father Was Away on Business, which won the Palme d'Or at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Later that year, her theater contacts in the U.S. helped her get the necessary work permits to perform with the Indiana Repertory Theatre as the lead role in Yerma. She was also featured as a vocalist on two tracks on the 1983 album, "Nevino srce" ("Innocent Heart") by Slovenian rock band, Buldožer. In 1998, she released an album, Songs From Movies That Have Never Been Made.
Furlan also sang in the band, The Be Five, which produced a single album in 1998, Trying to Forget.
Writing
Furlan wrote the play Until Death Do Us Part (), which is set in 1970s Zagreb. A collection of her columns in the now-defunct Croatian magazine Feral Tribune was published as the book Totalna rasprodaja in 2010. Furlan chose to write her autobiography in English: Love Me More than Anything in the World: Stories about Belonging. The book is not only a self-portrait of the actress, but also a picture of the disintegration of the Yugoslavian country and its moral values.
Personal life
Furlan's husband was director Goran Gajić,
Furlan was active in the Yugoslav feminist movement in the 1980s. Furlan wrote a public letter expressing her deep disappointment over the behaviour of her fellow citizens and colleagues and the threats of the nationalists against her. The couple left in November 1991, in the early days of the breakup of Yugoslavia, emigrating to New York City.
Death
Furlan died at her home in Los Angeles on 20 January 2021, at the age of 65, having suffered from complications of West Nile fever in the time leading up to her death. Upon her death, theater director Ivica Buljan of the Croatian National Theater issued an apology on behalf of the theater for their treatment of Furlan in the early 1990s. A week later, Croatian weekly Globus issued another apology for publishing three feuilletons attacking the actress in 1992 that had an essential role in the public-smear campaign.
Awards
- 1982 Pula Film Festival Golden Arena award for Best Supporting Actress in the film Cyclops.
- 1986 Pula Film Festival Golden Arena award for Best Actress in The Beauty of Vice.
- 1990
Selected filmography
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+ Film
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! class="unsortable" | Notes
! class="unsortable" | Ref
|-
| 1985
|Horvatov izbor
|Eva Horvatek
|
|
|-
| 2010
|data-sort-value="Abandoned, The" | The Abandoned
|Cica
|
|
|-
| 2013
|Twice Born
|Velida
|
|
|-
| 2014
|With Mum
|Jasna
|
|
|-
| 2020
|Pred nama
|Jovana
| Short
|
|-
| 2021
|Burning at Both Ends
|Agnes
|Posthumous release
|
|-
| 2021
| SAVA
| Sava (voice)
|
|
|-
| 2024
| Space Command Redemption
| Vonn Odara
|
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+ TV
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! class="unsortable" | Notes
! class="unsortable" | Ref
|-
| 1990–1991
|Bolji život
|Finka Pašalić
|Guest: 8 episodes
|
|-
| 1993–1998
|Babylon 5
|Delenn
|Main role
|
|-
| 2004–2010
|Lost
|Danielle Rousseau
|Recurring Role (Season 1–4)<br>Guest (Season 6): 22 episodes
|
|-
| 2009
|NCIS
|Dina Risi
|"South by Southwest", Season 6, Episode 17
|
|-
|2016
|Vere i zavere
|Lizaveta Rudić
|Main role: 12 episodes
|
|-
| 2016-2017
|Just Add Magic
|The Traveller
|6 episodes
|
|Voice and likeness, also appeared in live action trailer
|-
| 2020
|Beyond Blue
|Irina
|
|-
| 2020
|Mafia: Definitive Edition
|Additional Voices
|
|}