Katia Vitale-Davis
PAPER DIAMONDS, How I learned that (sometimes) they’re the best
Katia’s story of a life that spans experiences from living in a trailer in Idaho to a home in Malibu is fascinating: “I love the juxtaposition of my Idaho childhood home in the cow pasture next to my Malibu house on the beach. As a teenager I sunbathed on my mother’s plastic lawn chair in that cow pasture and fantasized about living in a house on the beach in a world where I didn’t worry about my parents’ ability to pay rent or buy food. A world where I wouldn’t be told, ‘It’s time to move.'”
Katia has launched a beautiful website while she’s at work writing her 2nd book!
About Paper Diamonds
Kristine June Leach grew up deep in the Idaho mountains at the edge of the Nez Pierce reservation, where she felt the annual powwow drums vibrating beneath her feet.
In her twenties, she fled her crazy, co-dependent family and her hard-scrabble roots via a dysfunctional marriage, leaving America—and her husband–behind.
Obsessed with reinventing herself from Kristine, the self-loathing misfit from Idaho to a glamorous and adored “star”, she studied in California, Hawaii and Egypt to master the art of Middle Eastern dance, performing on Santorini as the “half-Greek Katia Vitale,” a name partially inspired by sign over a used-car lot.
Her fame grew as she performed with her own production company in Los Angeles. She was painted by artists, graced album covers, had legion fans, but everywhere she went, Idaho (and often her eccentric and loving but co-dependent parents) came along for the ride. And just when she met and fell in love with the man of her dreams—the legendary Hollywood producer of the HIGHLANDER film and TV franchise—she teetered off the edge of her alcohol dependency, going straight from a Malibu beach house into serving time in Lynwood Women’s jail, an experience that left her with unexpected gifts.
Her dark and outrageous and often humorous adventures, both before and after Lynwood, taught her that although her childhood wounds had left an indelible imprint on her spirit, they did not define her. Through hard-won wisdom, she took a trip Greece, where she could sit peacefully, in solitude, on a terrace on Santorini, watching the famed sunset—finally embracing both Kristine June Leach and Katia Vitale.