Neither bulls, mosquitos, bone-chilling water nor shyness have kept Pua Millare from becoming a professional model. The 22-year-old former Kauian is one of the bikini-clad beauties in the latest Imaginasian calendar produced out of California (she graces the cover and
Neither bulls, mosquitos, bone-chilling water nor shyness have kept Pua Millare
from becoming a professional model.
The 22-year-old former Kauian is one of
the bikini-clad beauties in the latest Imaginasian calendar produced out of
California (she graces the cover and the months of April and November) that’s
sold in stores throughout Hawai’i and can be viewed on the Internet.
She’s
also the original Red Dirt Shirt girl (the ads have appeared in airlines’
inflight magazines) and has posed (clothed) for two sister publications of
Playboy magazine.
An aspiring actress, she’s had some non-speaking bit
roles on “Baywatch Hawai’i.”
But it’s modeling that has brought her
international attention and travel so far. “You get to do a lot of neat stuff.
I’ve gone to Japan and Tahiti. It’s fun. The money is good, too,” she
said.
But always glamorous? No way, Millare said.
“Everybody says
modeling looks so easy, but it can be really hard,” she said. “Sometimes you’re
posing in the water when it’s freezing, or maybe there are mosquitos
around.”
And once, while on a photo shoot in a pasture, Millare had to
scramble up a tree to escape a raging bull. She said she still bears scars of
scratches from the tree.
Those are some of the occupational hazards of
modeling. Millare also had to overcome an emotional hurdle growing up.
Even
though she was featured in a regional TV commercial for Sears at the age of 5
and entered beauty pageants, “I was very shy in high school and elementary
school,” she said.
But, she noted, becoming Miss Kaua’i World one year and
finishing second runnerup in a Miss Kaua’i Filipino contest “brought me out of
my shell.”
The pageats also “got me noticed” and led to modeling jobs, she
said.
Among her upcoming personal appearances will be a calendar sale and
autograph signing session Nov. 10 at Whalers Brewpub at Kaua’i Lagoons
Resort.
Pillare lives on Oahu, where she filmed five episodes last year of
“Baywatch Hawai’i.” In some, she said, she was “a bikini,” one of the
bathing-suited extras in scene backgrounds. She hopes someday to break into
acting with speaking roles.
Her other goals include someday having her own
calendar and being featured in Sports Illustrated’s infamous, annual swimsuit
issue.
Playboy put her in two of its lesser-known publications as a
lingerie model. She accepted the assignment because Playboy “is classy,” she
said. “I don’t want to pose nude.”
Millare said her boyfriend, a runway
model in Germany and Italy, isn’t jealous that other men see a lot of her as a
calendar girl.
“He’s really happy for me and my career,” she said.
So
is her mother, Milli Andrade, an executive producer for Stagetime Productions
in Lihu’e.
“She’s my only daughter, and I’m her biggest fan,” Andrade said.
“She has such a sweet and unassuming, easygoing nature. She loves the camera
and it shows.”
Editor Pat Jenkins can be reached at 245-3681 (ext.
227) and[pjenkins@pulitzer.net]
