Docuseries in the works about former beauty queen
Howey-in-the-Hills resident Eva Kovacs has an impressive resume: Beauty queen, model, actress, Pilates instructor to the stars, publisher of Emporium Magazine in Naples, writer and more.
The 75-year-old’s story caught the attention of producer Elizabeth Tobin Kurtz, who is currently working on a docuseries about Kovacs’ life that has garshe nered attention from HBO and Lifetime — though any decisions about where the series will air have been put on hold amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“With what we are facing today, we need her story more than ever. Eva faced communism, starvation, xenophobia, and sexism only to win every time,” said Tobin Kurtz in an email.
“I want to lift up people’s minds and their spirits and not sell something that is a sex thing,” said of the new docuseries. (A previous docuseries about Kovacs called “Eva Kovacs Story” was optioned for film by Interscope Communications, with General Foods as a sponsor.)
Kovacs was born in Balatonkenese, Hungary, and escaped the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 with her family at the age of 11. They settled in Florida.
“It was like heaven. We came
from a dungeon into beauty in Florida,” she said. “The sunshine, the people, the life. We didn’t have post office boxes with a postman leaving your mail. We didn’t have school buses, we walked to school. We didn’t have any of these glorious things that America had.”
She became a U.S. citizen five years later and attended school in Fort Pierce. After graduating, she got a job at Palm Beach Bank & Trust, where she met a woman who entered her in the 1963 Miss Flame beauty contest. Kovacs won and went on to win several other beauty pageants, including Miss Florida.
She left Florida in 1964 to pursue an acting and modeling career, where she worked for the likes of Gucci, Dior, Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta and Valentino.
“I’m down to earth. I’m real,” Kovacs said. “I’d never put the show on. … and I think that’s why I became one of the first supermodels.”
In 1972, she starred in the movie “Apache Blood,” and afterward made a few appearances on the “New Dick Van Dyke Show.”
“I came to America, and I captured the American dream,” Kovacs said.
Moving back to the Sunshine State, a place her mother and grandfather loved, was an easy choice.
“This is my home and I could hardly wait to come back. … My roots may be Hungarian, but I’m a Florida girl,” she said. “I’d been wanting to come back to Florida for the longest time to write because I was so drained in California. I believe that I was guided here to do what my purpose in life is and that’s to write.”
She moved to Howey-in-theHills about two and a half years ago to focus on her writing.
“I love writing and I’m in love with words,” she said. “I think I’m more in love with words than I am with man. I just love words. They’re so expressive. … It’s almost like a movie because I create those words. I don’t know where they come from. I think the angels come and help me.”
Howey-in-the-Hills resident Eva Kovacs modeled for Gucci.
Kovacs has completed a threepart historical romance novel that touches on Joseph Stalin’s brutality in Hungary and the rest of Europe as well as spirituality. She’s currently in the process of publishing it.
Not only is she pursuing her own writing, but she’s helping others do so as well. About two years ago, she founded the Writers Forum in America for those interested in writing but in need of editing and publishing help. It started off with 10 people on her lanai and then meetings moved to a local library as the group expanded to about 24 participants.
“There’s a lot of talent here,” said Kovacs. “Everyone has a story.”
The Writers Forum of America meets monthly at the Marianne Beck Memorial Library in Howey-in-the-Hills. Those interested in attending the forum must register at writersforumofamerica.com.