Doña Karina Lombard's mother, Nupuree Lightfoot, was an immigrant of Lakota
SiouxSioux are a Native American and First Nations people. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many dialects...
ethnicity living in
TahitiTahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The island had a population of 178,133 inhabitants according to the August 2007 census. This makes it the most populous island of French Polynesia,...
. Her father, Henry Lombard, was a European aristocrat. Lombard is a naturalized U.S. citizen, but when she was one year old, her parents separated, and her father, who is of Russian,
ItalianThe Italian people are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common Italian culture, descent, and speaking the Italian language as a mother tongue...
and Swiss descent, took Karina and her four siblings, Helen, Inez, Charles, and Denise, to live at his estate in Barcelona, Spain.
Early life
Doña Karina Lombard's mother, Nupuree Lightfoot, was an immigrant of Lakota
SiouxSioux are a Native American and First Nations people. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many dialects...
ethnicity living in
TahitiTahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The island had a population of 178,133 inhabitants according to the August 2007 census. This makes it the most populous island of French Polynesia,...
. Her father, Henry Lombard, was a European aristocrat. Lombard is a naturalized U.S. citizen, but when she was one year old, her parents separated, and her father, who is of Russian,
ItalianThe Italian people are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common Italian culture, descent, and speaking the Italian language as a mother tongue...
and Swiss descent, took Karina and her four siblings, Helen, Inez, Charles, and Denise, to live at his estate in Barcelona, Spain. She went on to attend a number of
SwissSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
boarding schools, including in
LausanneLausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva , and facing Évian-les-Bains and with the Jura mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located some northeast of Geneva. It is the capital of the canton of Vaud and of the district of...
, where she has said that "being American Indian meant being treated like a savage". Over the years she gained proficiency in
SpanishSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
,
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
,
ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City...
,
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
, and
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
. She came to
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
when she was 18 and began
modelingthumb|200px|Alesya Nazarova modeling a dress by [[bebe stores|bebe]]A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed for the purpose of displaying and promoting fashion clothing or other products and for advertising or promotional purposes or who poses for works of art.Modeling...
and studying acting.
http://www.karinaworld.com/bio1.htm
Career
Lombard's major break in modeling came about due to a
Calvin KleinCalvin Richard Klein is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc. in 1968. In addition to clothing, Calvin Klein also gave his name to a range of perfumes, including CK One and CK Be , now owned by Coty Inc...
photo shoot with a
Native AmericanNative Americans in the United States is the phrase that describes indigenous peoples from North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of...
theme. One of her photographs was chosen to be a billboard ad.
As an actress, her first major film was
Wide Sargasso SeaWide Sargasso Sea is a 1993 film adaption of Jean Rhys's 1966 novel of the same name. This first adaptation was released in theaters on April 16, 1993 and was directed by John Duigan.-Plot summary:...
in 1993, followed by
The Firm. She then went on to appear in the 1994 film
Legends of the FallLegends of the Fall is a drama film based on the 1979 novella of the same title by Jim Harrison. It was directed by Edward Zwick and stars Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins and Aidan Quinn. The film won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography....
, and in the 2000s she moved into television, appearing on the first season of
The L WordThe L Word is an American and Canadian co-production television drama series originally shown on Showtime portraying the lives of a group of lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their friends, family and lovers in the trendy Los Angeles-area city of West Hollywood, California...
, and also in
The 4400The 4400 is a science fiction TV series produced by CBS Paramount Network Television in association with Sky Television, Renegade 83 and American Zoetrope for USA Network. The show was created and written by Scott Peters and René Echevarria, and it stars Joel Gretsch and Jacqueline McKenzie...
. She reprised her role as
Marina FerrerMarina Ferrer is a fictional character of the Showtime program The L Word, played by Native American actress Karina Lombard.She was introduced in the pilot episode as one of the main characters, but made fewer appearances during the following 12 episodes of season 1...
in the first episode of Season Four of
The L WordThe L Word is an American and Canadian co-production television drama series originally shown on Showtime portraying the lives of a group of lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their friends, family and lovers in the trendy Los Angeles-area city of West Hollywood, California...
and made one more brief appearance later that season (as an actress auditioning for Jenny's film, Lez Girls). Lombard as Marina would also make a cameo appearance in the 2008 series finale.
Lombard is currently portraying the recurring character Genevieve on FX's
Rescue MeRescue Me is an American television drama series which premiered on the FX Network on July 21, 2004. The series focuses on the professional and personal lives of a group of New York City firefighters in the fictional Ladder 62 / Engine 99 firehouse....
. Genevieve is writing a book about
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
firefighters' experiences during and after the terrorist attack there on 11 Sept 2001.
Her theatre training and stage experience primarily comes from
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
's Gallery Theatre, the
Neighborhood PlayhouseThe Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre is an actor training school in New York City, generally associated with the Meisner technique of Sanford Meisner.-History:...
, the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and the
Actors StudioThe Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded October 5, 1947 by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, Robert Lewis and Anna Sokolow who taught...
. Lombard was with controversial director
Damian ChapaDamian Robert Chapa is a Mexican-American actor.- Background :Chapa was born in Dayton, Ohio, USA. He was briefly married to Natasha Henstridge- Career :...
shortly after his divorce from
Natasha HenstridgeNatasha T. Henstridge is a Canadian fashion model turned actress. Her most notable on-screen roles include Species, The Whole Nine Yards, The Whole Ten Yards and the Canadian TV mini-series Would Be Kings for which she won the Gemini Award for best actress...
.
Personal life
Lombard has hinted at being bisexual. When asked about her love scenes in
The L Word she coyly said, "I grew up in Europe and you know - you love who you love, so I didn't have to prepare, you know what I mean?"
Later, in 2006, she did a six-page nude pictorial for
PlayboyPlayboy is an American men's magazine, founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with a presence in nearly every medium. Playboy is one of the world's best...
where she portrayed both feminine and masculine counterparts of a lesbian couple. The concept was her own idea. She told planetout.com: "one night I had this dream about these images, and it was all about the dichotomy of male and female within an individual, and the empowerment within a human being in embracing the female and the male inside of you -- the dichotomy of the wild self vs. the tamed self. I woke up and I was like, "Whoa -- what was that about?" And when I get those dreams, it's always very specific, and for a specific reason, it's not random."
Though these comments and the pictorial would seem to confirm her orientation as bisexual, she told the magazine: '"Before 'The L Word,' I thought I was bisexual, but I don't know anymore. Doing it with women on the show got so repetitive that it took the edge off doing it with women off the show... it got associated with work in my brain and kind of ruined it," she said.
However, in a
Planetout interview she was asked, "What type of women are you attracted to, butch or femme?" and answered, "I don't have categories, I just go with the person. You can be butch and really sexy, and you can be femme and really sexy."
External links