Born in Mexico City, Mexico, she grew up in
Narvarte, Mexico City. Pankowsky never married and did not have children. She was the daughter of Isabel and José Pankowsky, who divorced when Pankowsky was 6 years old. Her father died when she was 19, and her mother when she was 25. A lifelong smoker, she began smoking when she was 11 years, she was diagnosed with
COPD and faced with the likelihood that she would develop
pulmonary emphysema if she did not give up smoking. She could not imagine herself not smoking, and was having a difficult time giving it up and turned to an addiction psychiatrist. After she successfully quit smoking, during an interview she said the best thing she's done in her life was to give up smoking. == Career ==