COVERSTORY  06.26

Carol Alt

High-Octane Life Tapestry

Photography by Fadil Berisha
Story by Diana Addison Lyle
Photographic Location: Albania

Carol Alt has enjoyed a megawatt life in which priceless memories have been made. She’s one of those rare people who doesn’t dream about the future because idiomatically, her ‘cup has runneth over’ her whole life. She recalls with a twinkle in her eye the day in 1990 that the Italian riot police had to be summoned in Milan when she was trapped in the Duomo (cathedral) with a frenzied crowd singing and shouting ‘Carol, Carol, Carol’ as they crushed against the shaking glass windows of Pollini – the shop in which she was hiding. Much to the relief of Pollini’s store manager, the Giorgio Armani-clad Italian Carabinieri gallantly came in to remove Carol away from the bouncing crowd’s attention. They bundled her into the back seat of their official vehicle, and after a short drive four blocks away from the mayhem, they released her away from the madding crowd.

That was one of many pulsating moments in Carol Alt’s life footage. Another was just before the tragic death of the love of her life. It was 1993, and the famous couple walked into a basketball stadium in the USA to watch the NBA in action. Everything came to a standstill and Carol explains: “The players stopped playing and everyone stood up as we walked in. Then, the manager of the stadium took us right onto the basketball court, and we sat down on the bench next to the basketball players. It turns out that the team players sitting next to us were multi-national players. Then, when we stood up to leave, the same stadium freeze-mode occurred again. Play stopped. The spectators all stood up. It was surreal. We were taken through a tunnel with all the fans following behind us. We signed some autographs and then my boyfriend said to the fans politely, ‘Ms. Alt and I are going to leave now.’ The amazing thing is that the crowd were so mesmerized by him that they had enough respect to not move an inch further while we left.”

“It was so different from my other experiences with ice hockey players,” Carol continues. Many people know that Carol’s long-time partner is Russian NHL hockey player Alexei Yashin. “When I started to date Alexei, I went to a hockey game in Toronto, and they put me on the ice next to a penalty box. So, the guy in the box, who’s bloodied and sweating, looked at me, and I looked at him, and said, ‘Alexei says hi’ and he pulled out his mouthpiece and replied, ‘I love Alexei. Say ‘hi’ to him too!’”

These are just some of the eclectic, electrifying moments that have lit up Carol’s life and she says with genuine vitality, “I’ve had the most amazing experiences in my life and I’m grateful for every one of them. I often think that nothing could top what I’ve already had. I’ve dined with kings and princes. I’ve shut down streets, and I’ve had the Italian Carabinieri rescue me. It’s been a dream life.”

It certainly has been for Carol. She’s loved intensely – and she’s lost deeply too. That’s the reciprocal inevitability of loving. With it comes heavy loss, and she understands that equation all too well, having lost the love of her life in 1994.

Our Albanian cover shoot with Carol evolved organically when she happened to be attending photographer Fadil Berisha’s birthday party in New York. He mentioned to her that he was traveling to Albania for the MUZA Awards (Fashion Art competition). Although Carol had lived for a time in next-door Italy during her prolific modeling and acting career, she’d never visited Albania, so Fadil invited her to join him there.

I’ve had the most amazing experiences in my life and I’m grateful for every one of them. I often think that nothing could top what I’ve already had. I’ve dined with kings and princes. I’ve shut down streets, and I’ve had the Italian Carabinieri rescue me. It’s been a dream life

“What a treat that turned out to be,” Carol enthuses. “Italian architecture features prominently in Albania, and the mountainous scenery is breathtaking. It reminded me of Italy in the 1970s or Canada in the 1990s. There’s a wonderful innocence about the place with its warm, welcoming feel and life is uncomplicated and easy. There’s a relaxed ambience without a hundred ‘do not’ signs which you have in New York City. The food was delicious and I found the people so kind, accommodating and generous-hearted. We stayed in a hotel that opened that day, and I found it utterly charming with the staff so eager to please us.”

2022 was the last time Carol and I chatted, so I’m eager to find out how many irons she has in the fire, and what she’s accomplished in the last four years. Not surprisingly, she supplies me with an action-packed account.

“I did a film completely in Italian; actually, I did two films completely in Italian, which was good because I like to challenge myself. The last time I did an Italian film was a comedy with Christian De Sica. This time, our Italian film was a comedy called Un figlio di nome Erasmus, and the other one was Christmas in August and At Christmas. There was a surprise, and the surprise was me! It was a real character part, and it was so much fun to do something entirely different. I had always wanted to do a Christmas movie, and after we finished filming, I watched it just outside of Cortina in Italy. It was made into an American movie called A Sudden Case of Christmas starring Danny DeVito who plays a hotel owner in Italy attempting to orchestrate a last-minute Christmas in August for his granddaughter.”

Carol’s repertoire is vast because she embraces the opportunity to take on diversely different characters. “I was in two movies where I played the part of nuns. One was a missionary, and one was a cloistered nun. If I had stayed only in America, I would have been relegated to the girl on the arm of the main character. I’ve done those roles, and they are boring. On the other hand, I absolutely loved playing Anna Karenina.”

We look back on Anna Karenina where Carol had to know all the history surrounding the film. “Not just that but all her medical issues,” she adds. “The writers don’t always research all that information, even though I think it’s critical to do so if you are going to understand the character in any depth.”

“For instance, I played a doctor in the film, Under the African Sun. If someone is having a heart attack, the doctor attending to that patient sees things quite differently from you or me. So, I went to my cardiologist and learned that the first sign of someone having a heart attack is that they start to breathe differently. Learning that was key to my role in the film because that’s something you hear – not see. So, as the attending physician, I would turn my head to hear the labored breathing – rather than look at the patient. Details like that give credibility to the character. I’ve studied and understood the nuances that a physician innately knows. If you watch Tom Cruise in a Mission Impossible movie, the audience is absorbed in his attention to detail. He makes us believe that he is actually Ethan Hunt – not Tom Cruise. That is because of all the work he’s done on the script.

Carol’s passion for her craft is evident in the details of her preparation, and she expands her explanation.

“Oftentimes, people don’t understand me when I explain that my chosen work (acting) is extremely solitary. I’m in my room working on my script; I’m breaking down each scene. On Anna Karenina I had up to ten scenes a day on an eight-part serial, so we could be shooting any scene that day from eight different parts. I would be playing the innocent Anna Karenina at the beginning, and then the femme fatal at the end – all in one day’s shooting. If I’m going into a rape scene or a fight scene, I have my acting coach with me who keeps people away. I can’t be out there in the public signing autographs because it robs me of the energy that I need to channel exclusively into my character. That solitary zone I often go into has probably hurt me career-wise in the sense that I haven’t socialized enough with the people that could probably enhance my career. I’m not a solicitor, and at the end of the day, I believe that my work should speak for itself.”

My chosen work (acting) is extremely solitary. I’m in my room working on my script; I’m breaking down each scene. On Anna Karenina I had up to ten scenes a day on an eight-part serial, so we could be shooting any scene that day from eight different parts

“I just finished a film called Lady America,” she continues. “It was written by Giorgi Rtskhiladze and he wrote a part for me, and when I saw the script I said, ‘in actuality, the part that I think is better for me, and I think you are going to see it, is this other part.’ He agreed with giving me that other part, and when he saw my performance, he went back to my manager and said, ‘holy mackerel. I thought Carol was a good actress, but I didn’t realize she was THIS good.’ His words made my day. When someone hires me, I view that as a profound responsibility, and I’m not just going to do a mediocre job. I’m going to do everything in my power to give a great performance. My cat died while I was doing the movie in Connecticut, and despite my grief, I never let it show. I don’t ever bring my personal problems to a set. I’ve lived by that my entire career. If I’m not feeling well while doing a scene, I still give of my best and leave the set afterwards to recoup, and then I go back when they call me. Nobody would ever know that I had the flu while I was doing a film.”

I ask Carol if her sense of responsibility is embedded in her DNA. Her father was a firefighter in the Bronx, New York. She immediately corrects me:

“He was in the South Bronx. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the movie Fort Apache,The Bronx, but that pretty much sums up how rough it was back then. Now it’s been regentrified because the land is so valuable. Back in dad’s day, he would get twelve calls a night it was so bad, but my dad loved to be ultra busy, and I’m exactly the same. He was also massively organized, and I’m able to be the same, and I get a lot done. It’s one thing having the DNA, but I think that seeing my parents’ work ethic was even more valuable to me. I’m very grateful to them for setting such a great example to me and my siblings. Seeing them in action laid down strong principles in all of us.”

Carol reached super-elite-model status in her extensive career. She supplies the details on the extensive changes in the modeling industry since the 1980s and 1990s.

“Social media influencers are getting all the attention. The most famous people are those with a ton of followers. You can be anywhere in the world, Siberia or Liberia, and you don’t have to be 5 foot 10. So long as you find a hook that the public can relate to, the chances are you’ll become very famous.”

Carol has videos on social media called Teatime (IG: @ModelCarolAlt; Facebook: Carol Alt). She’s authentically relatable as she discusses interesting topics that affect all of us. The feedback in her comments section illustrates the value of that inter-personal connectedness – whether it’s in person or almost in-person via video. I highlight a recent topic in which she opens up about the profound effect the recent death of her cat had on her, and I ask her what advice she has for people suffering loss. She sighs:

“If I had that secret, I would share it. It’s the hardest thing, and there’s no easy way out of it. What I know for sure is that you have to go through the grieving process. Despite my cat having died a few months ago, I still go over to her urn every morning and I cry as I kiss it. That’s how much I miss her. I don’t care if people find that crazy or ridiculous; the point is that everyone’s grieving process is different and holding it in isn’t healthy. You’ve got to let the grief out. The act of loving is a beautiful thing, and the grieving process goes in tandem with that.”

Carol continues, “Look, at some point, we know we are going to lose our animals. We also know that one day we are going to lose our parents, or maybe even a sibling or a loved one. I don’t think we should be prepared and scared every day about that inevitability. What I find to be very helpful is to accept that death is a part of life. Nobody escapes it, and when it comes to grieving, being able to speak to someone about it is important. While working on Lady America, a fellow actress on set had just lost her dog at the same time that I had to put my cat down. She was super supportive of my experience and together we found comfort in each other because we understood the sense of loss. We were both raw and we were able to talk through it together. It was really cathartic.”

Carol suffered an unimaginably profound human loss in 1994.

“32 years ago, I lost the love of my life. I don’t need to mention his name to further my career. Suffice to say that his death was sudden and tragic. He was a world-famous champion, and I was rather famous at the time. A lot of my followers are European and from around the world, so they know my loss well, and they connect to it because they loved him too. It was a massive loss for all of us.”

Carol has been in a long-time relationship with NHL player Alexei Yashin. I ask her about him.

“He lives in Dubai and he’s a great guy who is generous and gives me anything I need. He’s a very special person whose kindness and thoughtfulness knows no bounds. He’s the kind of cool person that would go to the ends of the earth for me, and I would do anything for him.”

Carol has a doctorate in Alternative Health Studies. She has exquisite skin, and she shares some of her secrets with us.

32 years ago, I lost the love of my life. His death was sudden and tragic. He was a world-famous champion, and I was rather famous at the time. A lot of my followers are European and from around the world, so they know my loss well, and they connect to it because they loved him too. It was a massive loss for all of us

“You put on your skin the same foods you eat because they have the same beneficial effect,” she explains rationally. “Take a piece of garlic in a towel and rub it on your foot. 10 minutes later you’ll taste it in your mouth. It gets absorbed through your skin and is transported through your blood system. Before I started my skincare line, I looked at the harmful products that are put into some skincare lines: petroleum, parabens and glycols. I’ve never understood why people would want to put petroleum jelly onto their bodies. I don’t want that garbage on my skin, so I did a raw products skincare line, and when I sold the company, I bought my warehouse so that I’d have all the products for a long time. When I’m on location, I’ll slap olive oil all over myself. The same goes for coconut oil. We regenerate and rejuvenate with two things: essential fatty acids and amino acids. They are loaded with basic goodness and the only way to get the most out of food is to consume it raw. That’s why I’ve always been a raw food advocate. If you are going to eat a truckload of fats, you want to get a truckload of fat benefits. Remember that your hair, skin and nails are the last parts of the body to benefit from the absorption because your body works in a hierarchy. First priority is the rejuvenation of your muscles and the ligaments that are holding your organs in place. They help with elasticity and making enzymes, and by the time all that goodness is hungrily used up, there’s nothing left for your skin, hair and nails. I make it a point to get the good fats – the cold-pressed fats into my body any way I can. I loaded olive oil and grape seed oil along with other essential oils into my skincare products. Katherine Heigl now puts out raw foods for our dogs and cats. I make muffins and crackers, and I use raw cream from LA to make a banana crème.

Carol has mostly led a very healthy lifestyle.

“I still have tons of energy and I’m grateful that I have always had an abundance of it.”

We briefly touch on people who abuse their bodies with drugs, and she explains why addiction is more prevalent in the creative industries:

“Artists and creative people are dangerously told that if they take drugs, their minds will expand and they’ll be more creative. The problem is that the human body cannot physically sustain the drugs. I’ve always been scared of them. They are so addictive and you can get hooked on that one taste. However, I also know that everybody needs to live their lives and make their own mistakes. They won’t learn otherwise.”

“I have battled to reach optimum health,” she continues, “because I spent years starving myself. Actually, the truth was that I was so busy working that by the time I had finished, the food had all been eaten by the assistants on set. Then, I‘d go to another job and find that everyone had already eaten, so that was it! I remember one time arriving in a place off the coast of Spain on a late-night flight. By the time I got to my hotel, all the kitchens had closed and there was nothing in my room’s refrigerator. Eating regularly became a real challenge because of my schedule.”

We discuss the uplifting topic of the beauty in the world and Carol’s positivity, and her love of life is so clearly evident as she speaks:

“Recently, I was in San Vito di Cadore outside Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy. The sheer rock – shooting straight up into the sky – reminded me of the scene in Superman where he goes to his ice-crystal palace. We had this giant moon right over the rocks and it was spectacular.”

“Another spectacular moment I experienced was driving on Mulholland Drive, Los Angeles where I saw the full moon rising. It’s a feeling like you are in a spaceship. I pulled over onto the side of the road so I could fully appreciate the moment like a breath-taking sci-fi experience.”

I’m interested if Carol has always had this capacity to truly appreciate how precious every moment is in life, and I ask how her value system developed. She responds thoughtfully.

“I’ve always understood in life that every minute equals a dollar. I learned it growing up. Our family was lower middle class. My dad worked two jobs. I started working as a babysitter when I was ten years old. At age thirteen, I worked in a bakery and when I got to college, I started waitressing. That’s when I met the photographer who told me to get into modeling. If I frivolously throw away that dollar or minute, then shame on me. I’ve never had excess around me. I don’t care to fill up my world with things I don’t need. I carry my grandmother’s handbag with me because it’s meaningful, beautifully made, and it has lasted since 1919. I feel the same way about long-term friendships. They are shared lifetimes together and it’s really important to fight for those relationships and keep them alive. Social media has put the emphasis on the wrong things and caused many people to become disconnected and insulated. I’ve seen that some classrooms have turned into individual cubicles where students are isolated and cordoned off to study AI. I hope we can rectify the ill effects of that.”

Carol is a self-made frontier-woman who is a master at adaptation. She is a multi-award-winning actress with Three European Telegattos (Emmy awards), one European “Oscar” Moda, The Mont Blanc Award, The Best Award, The Golden Ticket Box-Office Award (for the most box office sales for a film in one year), The Certificate del Arte from The European Film Commission and The Umbra Award.

Prince Albert apparently still holds a small grudge that Carol did not come to the Monaco Film Festival to pick up her award for the portrayal of the life story of Rosanna Benzi, a woman with genetic polio living in an iron lung, in the film Vice for Life.

I’ve always had Plan B, and I’ve found that having widespread interests enriches the characterization in acting. For me, being able to diversify is important and necessity is truly the mother of invention. Being creative has served me well

It’s impossible to list all her accomplishments: she’s a USA Today Best-Selling Author for her books on Raw food, the face of her own cosmetic line; she produced a number one hit in Europe in the music industry, provided voiceovers for the hit King of the Hill, hosted various TV and radio morning shows and newscasts. She’s graced the covers of over 700 magazines, was called ‘The Most Beautiful Woman in the World’ by Playboy Magazine, and ‘The Next Million Dollar Face’ by Life Magazine.

A survival instinct that has served this beauty well is her ability to pivot.

“Oh yes, I’m an expert at pivoting,” she confirms. “I’ve always had Plan B, which makes me the Babe Ruth of the modeling industry. People remember your hits; they don’t remember your misses. When I did Celebrity Apprentice on TV, Nadia Comăneci was my partner. She didn’t have a Plan B, but it worked for her in gymnastics. Despite being very focused, I always had Plan B, and I’ve found that having widespread interests enriches the characterization in acting. For me, being able to diversify is important and necessity is truly the mother of invention. Being creative has served me well.”

“I did poster and calendars alongside modeling. I did a play and an exercise video. By 1987 I realized that diversification was boosting my career and the different avenues I tried were fun. There was a smorgasbord of things I could do. You keep rolling on. Like Babe Ruth, I’m happy to swing at everything. Some are strikeouts but lots are hits. It’s a pretty good idea all-round.”

With so much success and experience in life, Carol offers this wise gold nugget:

“Fear and courage are two vital components in life,” she says unequivocably, “because they keep you rolling and moving forward and giving of your best. Fear and courage raise our game. Adrenalin makes us perform better. You have to have the courage to face the fear that elicits the adrenalin. I’ve always known that they go hand-in-hand. To be a model requires courage. By the way, when I was growing up, I watched a documentary about Mel Brooks. He was talking about fear, and I instantly connected to that. I recognized that the reason I work so hard is the fear of being confronted by someone telling me that I hadn’t done a good job. That’s the subtitle in my life. Even when I think about my show on Fox News; it may not have been the right place to do it, but it allowed me to talk about the power of raw food. It takes courage. Mel Brookes did so many things that took fear and courage.”

Carol’s love of animals is reflected in her generosity:

“I donate to Shelter Chic which is a charity for dogs, and Washington Heights is a sanctuary for cats. I love animals. I always champion the little things that can’t fight or speak for themselves. That’s where my extra pennies go. I don’t need designer bags, and I can borrow what I need, or live with what I’ve got. That’s where I get my happiness.”

We close with this final pearl of wisdom:

“Always bring something to the party,” Carol says simply. “People show up to an event or to work, or to a friend’s house, and they expect to be entertained and taken care of. That’s not the way life works. You always need to arrive and contribute something important. Make people smile. Make them happy. I learned that simple truth in New York. I walked into a gym and saw a girl doing something dangerous on a piece of equipment. I asked her if anybody had told her how to use the machine, and when she said no, I explained that she was going to hurt herself. 13 years later I was shooting at Walt Disney World, Florida when I had a problem with accommodation and getting a room at the resort was difficult. When I thanked the staff for finding me a safe place, they said, ‘don’t thank us; thank that lady over there.’ She said to me, ‘you don’t remember me, do you? You are the lady who prevented me from injuring myself at the Vertical Club in New York.’ Wherever you go, contribute something by lifting people up and spreading thoughtfulness and goodness wherever you go. Bring something to the table, even if it’s just your smile.”

Wise words from a woman whose quality of life has surpassed even her own dreams.