Melanie Peres

Melanie Peres
Melanie Peres (2008)
Born	Melanie Mariam Thanee Frasch (1971-12-01) December 1, 1971 (age 45) Berlin, West Germany
Residence	Tel Aviv, Israel
Occupation	Model, Actress, Singer
Years active	1989–present
Spouse(s)	Itay Tiran (m. 2008)

Melanie Mariam Thanee Frasch (born December 1, 1971), better known as Melanie Peres (Hebrew: מלאני פרס‎‎) is an Israeli model and actress. She has been a model for over 20 years, and has acted on various television programs and movies; she played the title role in the 2010 Israeli feature film Naomi.

Peres was born in Berlin, West Germany to a Christian father Peter, and Jewish mother Nurith Frasch. She was named after American singer Melanie Safka. After her parents separated when she was 3 years old, she stayed with her father. At 15, under difficult relationship circumstances where her father remarried, she left and immigrated to Israel to join her mother; she stayed at an absorption center in Upper Nazareth. Peres mentioned in interviews that the move was a traumatic experience. Although her mother was born in Israel, Peres was not accustomed to the differences in mentality, and did not speak a word of Hebrew at the time of her immigration. She had also enrolled in an ulpan to learn Hebrew while attending the local high school, but considered that useless.

At 16, Peres quit school and moved from Nazareth to Tel Aviv, where she worked as a cleaner and a waitress until she began modeling in 1989. At 17, she appeared on the cover of the Israeli magazine La Ischa. She participated in the Israeli beauty contest "Face of the 80's." Although she did not win, she quickly became a rising star in the Israeli fashion world. The photographers loved her chameleon-like ability to change from assignment to assignment. Raz Yuvan of Haaretz remarked, "Over the years, she advanced from modeling bathing suits to the top of the industry." As a model, she traveled around the world, and worked in the industry for over 20 years. In a Haaretz interview, she said, "When I was young and people would ask me what I did, I used to answer: 'I work in the meat market.' I was embarrassed to make money from posing, and especially troubled by the fact that I lacked a proper education; but I had to work and couldn't support myself and study at the same time." Nevertheless, she, she acknowledged that modeling saved her life, since she had no financial support from her parents. She said, "I assume every profession has pluses and minuses. It enabled me to live and to live well - it gave me a good career, a lot of confidence in certain things, and it opened doors for me."