[4] Golan attended a Youth Aliyah boarding school in Aix-les-Bains, France for two years before moving to Israel on January 14, 1948.

[7] Golan was spotted by an American photographer and appeared in the Israeli women's magazine LaIsha.

[9] She placed second in the Miss World 1960 competition[10] and changed her name to Gila Golan to prevent the religiously conservative family she lived with in Tel Aviv from learning about it.

Her first role was as Elsa Lutz in Ship of Fools[1] as a replacement for Sabin Singen, who dropped out due to illness.

[26] The city of Seattle ceremonially adopted Golan on April 29, 1966, with Mayor James d'Orma Braman as her godfather.