Remembering Gia….
(Written by Jose Sanchez. This article is a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, re-printed or distributed without written consent from the author)

(To view photos of Gia, please click HERE )

 

 

On November 18th, 1986, a 26-year-old woman lay resting on her bed in an ‘isolation room’ in Philadelphia’s Hahnemann Hospital. The doctors and medical staff whom attended her often wore sterilized ‘space suits’ and rubber gloves. Her body was covered in tubes, and she breathed with the assistance of a respirator. The room had been decorated in yellow roses, her favorite. There was a stuffed monkey with a small amount of money pinned to it; This small sum represented the entirety of the woman’s worldly possessions. A yellow toy butterfly hung near her IV holder.

At the woman’s bedside sat her mother, Kathleen. Kathleen was reading from the Bible aloud, the Twenty-third Psalm. Just as she got to “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,”, she noticed some machines going “haywire” from the corner of her eye. The on duty nurse ran out of the room to get help, while Kathleen hugged her daughter tightly and sobbed, “Oh my baby! My baby!” It was 10am, and Gia Marie Carangi had just passed away. The physical appearance of her face and body, once considered the very epitome of human beauty, were so ravaged by disease that afterwards the funeral director would go on to recommend a closed casket burial. Years later, photographer and personal friend Francesco Scavullo was asked what he thought was the cause of Gia’s death. Taking a moment to think, Scavullo answered softly, “Lack of love. ”

Nine years earlier, a fun-loving seventeen-year-old Philly girl named Gia was working the counter of her father’s luncheonette “Hoagie City” and living the life of a normal, if somewhat rebellious teenager. Gia’s parents had divorced when she was eleven, and having had her mother move out and remarry had been especially troubling for Gia, whom had always been ‘mommy’s little girl’. Throughout her life, Gia would struggle with a deep sense of abandonment. In her teen years, Gia frequently broke curfews and experimented with alcohol, marijuana and pills. One night while at the DCA, a local nightclub, Gia caught the eye of hairdresser and aspiring photographer Maurice Tannenbaum. Maurice recalls, “I saw her one night at the DCA, which was a club, and was reluctant to walk over to her, I was just taken by her and she was fascinated by the idea that I wanted to photograph her and she wanted to be photographed. You could see this raw beauty.”

Maurice worked with Gia several times and sent the resulting photos to the Wilhelmina Modeling Agency in New York. Wilhelmina Cooper, head of the Wilhelmina Agency and a former top cover model herself, was so taken aback by the photos of Gia that she requested an in person interview. Maurice recalls, “She was very excited, very nervous, very, very nervous. She came with her mother but her mother stayed in a coffee shop while we went off to see Wilhelmina.” Upon first sight Wilhelmina was so impressed with Gia that she decided to waive her own height requirement and immediately offer the 5’-7” Gia a contract with the Wilhelmina Agency. Encouraged by her mother, whom had always dreamed of being a model herself, the now eighteen-year-old Gia decided to move to New York City in 1978. 

Gia was very unlike the other models of her time. She stood out as a dark-eyed, olive-skinned brunette in the sea of pale skinned blue-eyed blondes which dominated the fashion landscape at the time. Gia never wore make-up. She didn’t try to ‘glam-up’ her appearance at castings; often forgoing ‘glitter clothes ’ (designer clothes) in favor of jeans or Army fatigues with a tucked in shirt, a leather jacket, and some sneakers. Her hair was often a bit unruly. Photographer Bill Friedman recalls Gia at one of her early test photoshoots, “She didn’t really stand out for me as far as her appearance, but I could still tell she was different. The other girls typically came to the studio with someone, a friend for support, while Gia came alone. The girls tended to stick together and chat while getting their make-up done or waiting their turn to be photographed, while Gia just sort of kept to herself. In front of the camera she didn’t act insecure or nervous if her hair happened to fall out of place. She just sort of had this attitude where she shrugged her shoulders and said…..’hey this is me, take it or leave it.”

There was one other thing about Gia; she was openly gay. While the fashion industry has generally been accepting of gays, with numerous openly gay designers, hairdressers and stylists, models have always been the exception. Models typically do not have this luxury because they have to publicly represent companies and their products or services. Though fashion editorials or advertisements may at times flirt with same sex attraction, in general the advertising is designed to appeal to a broad audience. Rarely do advertisers want to be associated with something that is considered ‘taboo’ by the mainstream. Never-the-less, Gia had adopted a ‘take no shit’ attitude toward the dignitaries of the fashion world and made no attempt to hide her sexual orientation.

Photographers soon fell in love with Gia’s ‘no-BS’ personality and in seemingly no time she found herself on a meteoric rise to the very top of the fashion world, something which is considered exceedingly rare. Gia would go on to work with the likes of Arthur Elgort, Francesco Scavullo, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, and Chris Von Wangenheim (among others), a virtual ‘who’s who’ list of the top photographers in the world at the time. Photographer and friend Francesco Scavullo recalls the first time Gia stepped into his studio, "There’s only been maybe 3 girls in my whole career that have walked into my studio and I went 'wow'. Gia was the last who came in here and I said 'wow.'" 

Gia’s ‘James Dean – like’ melancholic and darkly defiant image was a perfect match for photographer Chris Von Wagenheim, whom was sometimes known as ‘the dark prince’ of fashion photography. Gia and Von Wagenheim became fast friends as they collaborated on a project for Vogue Magazine in October of 1978. After the shoot Von Wagenheim asked Gia if she would stay and let him take some nude photos of her; she consented. Von Wagenheim posed Gia nude behind a chain link fence and had his make-up artist Sandy Linter, also nude, pose with her back to the camera facing Gia. The resulting photos were brilliantly done, and Gia cemented her reputation as an exciting new ‘anti-heroine’, whom was never in any danger of being told she was playing it ‘too safe’. Von Wagenheim recalls of that nude shoot with Gia, “The Girl Behind the Fence was taken after an assignment for Vogue in the studio. Usually my mind has been so drained by an assignment that when I come around to doing personal stuff afterward the jump is too big. But I wanted to do a nude of Gia behind the fence, which is held up by an assistant on either side. Gia has a great figure, unbeatable, the best tits in the business."

The dynamic duo of Gia and Von Wagenheim once again teamed up to do a shoot for Citicorp. Gia recalls the shoot, “I was wearing this really great slinky black dress...it made me feel good....And I really got into a groove and kept moving all over with it. And then one shoulder slipped, and then the other. And before I realized it, the whole top was down. 'And I went to fix it, and the photographer said, 'No, that's great.' And I thought, 'Why not?' My tits looked good.'”  Soon every photographer in town wanted to book a shoot with the sassy and mysterious new ‘wild child’ who thought nothing of posing nude, who dressed in men’s clothing and wore no make-up; but who could routinely deliver images so jaw-dropping that they set the entire industry ablaze with equal levels of excitement and jealousy.

Nearing the end of her first year as a model in New York, Gia whom was still only 18 years old, had cleared over $100,000 and had been featured in several magazines, including the prestigious American Vogue. She was frequenting the hottest clubs in NYC such as Studio 54, and the Mudd Clubb, and was considered the new darling of the fashion industry. Gia soon found herself rubbing elbows with movie stars, rock stars and CEO’s. She once mused to a friend in Philly that Jack Nicholson had given her a key to his hotel room, but that she didn’t use it. Gia was such a sensation that the Wilhelmina Agency had to put in a phone line strictly for clients that wanted to book Gia. She was expected to reach the plateau of a $500,000-a-year income within two years, something that was only accessible to the very top models in the entire world.

Despite all her success, Gia was feeling very lonely in NYC. She had friends in the industry, but her busy schedule did not allow her much time for activities outside of work. More often then not, Gia would come home after a day’s shootings to greet an empty apartment. Model Julie Foster, a contemporary, remembers in her interview for the E! True Hollywood Story: “She was looking for anyone’s love, she would show up at my house sometimes in the middle of the night and I’d let her in and she just wanted someone to hug her. It was very sad.” Gia was looking for stability in her life. Because she did not look stereotypically lesbian with her perfect face and flawless figure, she often found it impossible to convince people that she was in fact gay and interested in a long-term relationship with a woman. Gia had no problem finding women who wanted to engage in brief romantic flings, but finding someone interested in establishing a meaningful long-term relationship was a different story. Gia recalled, "Money didn't interest me. I got to a point where I had all this money. I had everything I ever wanted in life - or thought I wanted - and I said "What the hell is this all for?" I mean, I need money to survive. But I think people value it too much. The world seems to be based on money and sex. And I'm looking for better things than that, like happiness and love and caring."

Several times Gia asked her brother Michael to move into her NYC apartment – rent-free - but he dismissed the idea thinking that he would be intruding on her busy private and professional life. He couldn’t have been more mistaken. By this time Gia was feeling so lonely that she often called her mother and asked her drive over to help with laundry or some other mundane task, and then began pleading with her not to leave, sometimes going to the extreme of physically grabbing her arm or leg and not wanting to let go. In an attempt to escape her feelings of loneliness, Gia soon began relying on drugs. Her brother Michael remembers in retrospect, “The biggest mistake we made was that nobody went up there with her. She could've used a friend. Instead she turned to the drugs that others in the fashion world used only at parties.”  The drug use at this stage was still little more then recreational, as model Kelly Lebrock recalls, "Gia, when I was working with her, was still sort of in the beginning, still very fresh and lovely, uhm, I think drowning a little bit in her own success, but not anymore screwed up than anybody else was in the set."
                                                                                                                                                                                     
Shortly after ‘The Girl Behind the Fence’ shoot, Gia began romantically pursuing make-up artist Sandy Linter, and they began a wild on and off affair which became the talk of the fashion world. Sandy remembers, "She sent flowers to me, and she really sort of courted me, which I thought was adorable. Eventually I did go out with her. She's the type of person at that time, and anyone who knew her at the time can tell you, if she showed up on your doorsteps and you opened the door and she got in your apartment she was there, that's it,” Gia hoped that her relationship with Sandy would blossom into something long-term, but Sandy was much more career conscious then Gia, and had no interest in becoming involved in an openly public lesbian relationship. Gia was heartbroken.

Around the time that her relationship with Sandy ended for good, Wilhelmina Cooper was diagnosed with lung cancer. Wilhelmina was more then just a friend and mentor to Gia, she was considered her ‘second mom’. She was the person whom Gia most depended on and confided with in NYC; she was her rock. Wilhelmina Cooper would die a few months later, on March 1st, 1980. To escape her sorrows, a devastated Gia began turning to her new drug of choice, heroin. It wasn’t long after that drugs started to affect Gia’s work. She began showing up late to photoshoots, and in some instances would walk out early before the photographer was done with her. Photographers started to suspect Gia of using drugs around this time. Scavullo remembers, “We all were aware that Gia was on drugs, it wasn't a secret, but nobody discussed it, I never discussed it with her,"

Gia was consuming 4 bags of heroin a day, an amount that is considered lethal, but at the same time she was still very much in demand and considered the ‘it’ girl of the fashion world. She graced numerous magazine covers and was featured in many big advertising campaigns as photographers seemed willing to put up with her antics as long as she continued to deliver those unforgettable images that she seemed to be able to pull off effortlessly. In a way, the photographers and her agents were very financially invested on Gia’s success. Despite her drug problems, she was able to deliver amazing images, so the tendency was to turn your head the other way so that you could continue to persuade clients to sign checks over to you. With no one around to keep her on track, Gia began to spend most of her earnings on heroin. In November 1980, Gia left the Wilhelmina Agency to sign with Ford, but she was quickly dropped. Eileen Ford, head of the Ford Agency, recalls, "The first thing she did was not show to a booking, so I told her not to come back. She told me that she was in a car giving her dogs a ride or something—I have no sense of humor about that sort of thing."

Gia finally realized that her life was spiraling out control in February of 1981 and completely left the NYC fashion scene to go back to Philadelphia and enroll in a detox program. Unfortunately it was around this time that she met Elyssa Golden, a young college girl from a wealthy family that was openly bisexual and even more addicted to drugs then Gia. Under the influence of Elyssa, Gia’s heroin habit became even worst. Gia, still only 21, was arrested for drunk driving and this setback convinced her to once again try rehab. Gia enrolled in a detox program just as news came in that her friend, photographer Chris Von Wagenheim,  had been killed in tragic a car accident. It was the perfect excuse that Gia needed to relapse. Friends would later say that Gia would lock herself in the bathroom to shoot heroin for hours at a time. Years of drug abuse were now starting to take their toll on Gia’s once flawless appearance. Her back was covered in cists, visible track marks dotted her arms, and she had a hideous looking abscess on the vein in her hand where she had shot heroin over and over. 

Gia, determined to beat her drug addiction, enrolled in yet another detox program and started to plan a comeback. She signed with the Elite Modeling Agency in New York, and continued her detox program in Philadelphia, only traveling to New York for assignments. By this point finding modeling jobs started to become difficult for Gia, as not many photographers were willing to risk using her. Desperate and low on cash, she called her old friend photographer Francesco Scavullo and asked if he had any work available for her. Scavullo agreed to do a cover shoot for Cosmo with her. By this time Gia had gained a bit of weight by eating the junk food and sweets that recovering addicts often crave. Scavullo shot Gia sitting down with her arms behind her back to hide the weight gain, but rumors persisted that he did so in order to hide track marks, which Scavullo denied. This was to be Gia’s last cover, and is remembered by some as ‘the gift’ from Scavullo.

With little work available for her in the States, Gia now turned to finding work abroad. Her look was still in demand, and her drug habit was not yet common knowledge outside of the States. Gia was offered $10,000 a week to do catalog work, but soon her bad habits became known and few photographers wanted to work with her. Finally the last straw came in North Africa where she was caught with drugs on the set of a shoot and sent home. Gia’s modeling career had seemingly come to an abrupt end.

She moved back to Atlantic City and shared an apartment with Elyssa Golden. Once again under Elyssa’s influence Gia relapsed into heavy heroin use. Thankfully by this time her family was well aware of Gia’s drug problem and they successfully convinced her to move out of Elyssa’s apartment to enter an inpatient detox program at Engleville Hospital in Montgomery County. The detox program at Engleville was tough and in many ways revolutionary. Substance abusers of every type were grouped together and encouraged to help each other overcome their addictions, a program which was among the first of its kind. Under the guidance of the Engleville staff, Gia slowly began the process of cleaning up. It took a grueling effort, but Gia stuck with it and completed the six month inpatient program, a milestone that only 30 percent of the patients were able to achieve before being discharged early or just dropping out.

Upon her release from Engleville, Gia moved to the suburbs of Philadelphia and began putting the pieces of her life together again. The program at Engleville had gotten her a job selling jeans at the mall, and working as a cashier in a supermarket. Gia took courses at the local community college and started to plan the next phase of her life. She dreamed of using the knowledge she had gained as a top fashion model to become an influential photographer or a cinematographer. She thought she could help young models and actresses avoid the mistakes that she had made early in her career as a young and naïve girl living alone in NYC. Gia also started to prepare herself for a possible comeback into modeling. The income and contacts would be beneficial to her down the road as she transitioned into her newly choosen career. 

Even at this point there were many in the fashion elite that would have welcomed Gia back and given her another chance if she could stay clean. Her ‘dark’ rebellious look was still very much in demand, as no other model had been quite able to fill the void she left behind. By this point most of the girls Gia had worked with as a young model had either retired, or moved on to achieve the newly coined supermodel – celebrity status. However, around this time Gia started to feel that something was medically wrong with her. In truth Gia had been feeling ill for quite some time, but it was something that she had always attributed to her ups and downs with heroin. Now clean, Gia began to suspect that something entirely different was the cause. She began to clip and put away all the newspaper and magazine articles she could find about a new mystery-killer disease called AIDS.

Suddenly Gia just disappeared. Rob Fey, whom was a patient alongside Gia at Engleville and whom had become a close friend, recalls, “She disappeared and nobody could find her, I hadn't seen her for three weeks and usually when somebody disappears, they've either gone back to their old addictions, which is real common, or committed suicide, it's usually a really horrible reason you don't see them anymore."

Gia sold her car, a red Fiat Spider for a bargain $1,700 along with the rest of her belongings, and gathered up all the cash she could, well over $2,000, for one last trip to Atlantic City. Convinced that she was suffering from AIDS, Gia had decided to take her own life. She bought all the heroin she could afford, checked herself into a cheap hotel room and tried her best to overdose, but was unsuccessful. Ironically with all her years of heroin abuse, Gia had built up a nearly superhuman resistance to the drug. When she regained consciousness she went to a restaurant but found that she couldn’t bear to eat, so she fed the food to a dog she found outside the hotel and stayed in the room for a few days to rest before sneaking into her old girlfriend Elyssa’s apartment. Elyssa initially wanted to throw her out, but Gia convinced her to let her spend the night. In the morning Gia got up early and said that she was going to get breakfast, but instead stole some money from Elyssa’s jeans and used it to go out to buy more heroin. Elyssa became aware of the theft and waited for Gia to return. Gia came back around 2pm and got into a physical altercation with Elyssa over the theft. Gia eventually managed to slip out of the apartment as Elyssa ripped off her shirt while struggling to hold on to her.

Gia ran out into the street topless, where a construction worker gave her his windbreaker to cover up. For hours she wandered aimlessly through the neighborhood and purchased even more heroin. Finally she laid down to sleep on a mattress beside a dumpster just as it started to rain. What happened next is unclear, as Gia told three different versions describing the events. She told a friend that she was raped by a man who found her sleeping on that mattress; She told a nurse that she was trying to sell her body to buy more drugs and was beaten up in the process; and finally she told her mother that the bruises on her body had been from the fight with Elyssa. What was clear is that something violent had happened to Gia. From there she was able to get to a payphone and call her father, who cleaned her up and put her on a train back to Philadelphia where her mother would take her to a hospital. 

Now suffering from pneumonia, Gia eventually made it to Warminster Hospital in Philadelphia where she registered herself as a welfare recipient. The hospital staff treated her very coldly as they considered junkies, especially female junkies, to be the scum of the earth. It was here that Gia was first tested for, and diagnosed with AIDS Related Complex or ARC, which she had probably contracted by using a ‘dirty’ needle while shooting heroin. At first the doctors and staff donned ‘space suits’ just to speak with her or take her temperature. Gia began to speak about buying a gun and using it to kill herself, and so she was transferred to the psyche ward and put on lithium to help battle her depression. From here Gia called her ‘Engleville friend’, Rob Fey. Rob was thrilled to hear that Gia was still alive and went to see her right away.

Rob Fey describes their meeting at the hospital, “I knew something was really wrong because Gia came over to hug me, but then at the last minute she sorta turned sideways. I said, ‘What the hell is this kinda cheese hug here? And we went off into a little side room where there were a few other nuts and their parents and a radio was playing kind of quiet. She told me she had ARC, and I kind of made a bad joke because I didn’t know what ARC was, y’know. And she told me, ‘No, listen to me, this is it!’ She told me about ARC, and we just sat there and cried. “

Gia was treated for her pneumonia and discharged from the hospital with a prescription for more lithium. Gia had precious few months left to live at this point. She planned to make a video with the help of friend Rob Fey, in which she would talk to children about the dangers of drug abuse, but her time was shorter then she realized and she was never able to do the video. Gia also planned to spend as much of her remaining time with her mother – whom she still called ‘mommy’ - as possible. In her mind Gia had never really stopped being that eleven year old ‘mommy’s girl’ whom so desperately craved her mother’s love and attention. In some ways, Gia’s entire modeling career had been a way to please and gain favor with her mother. Kathleen, whom had always fantasized about living the life of a glamorous fashion model, now had an entire wall in her home decorated with Gia’s modeling photos. Kathleen recalls a talk she had with Gia shortly after she was diagnosed with AIDS, "We sat in the park and talked. We both knew she wasn't long for this world. Gia suddenly blurted out, 'I overdosed three times - why did God save me then, only to have me go like this?' After that, with every breath you could see her slipping away."

On October 18, 1986, Gia went to Hahnemann University Hospital, a teaching hospital that treated many of the city’s AIDS cases. Gia was suffering from vaginal bleeding – a constant period – which left her, among other things, severely dehydrated. The doctor had no plans to admit her that day; she was just in for some tests just as she had been several times in the past. She had been given birth control pills to treat her bleeding, but when that didn’t work, an ultrasound was ordered. Gia was so dehydrated that the technicians could not get an image of her bladder, no matter how much water she drank. The doctor in charge decided that she would have to be admitted. Dr. Oaks recalls, “She was indigent, on medical assistance. The AIDS patients are so costly and the end result is so grim, but we don’t turn anyone away.”

Gia was out of time. During this final month Kathleen practically moved into the hospital and maintained a constant vigil over her daughter. She cared for Gia in nearly the same way that a mother cares for a newborn infant. Many of her friends and acquaintances would later say that Gia finally had what she had sought all her life, the undivided love and attention of her mother. Gia, however, did not want to spend the remainder of her days in a hospital. Often unable to speak, she would write little notes to her mother, “We can buy oxygen, we can get a tank at home, take me home, take me home!” And Kathleen would respond, “Gia, if I could get you to the elevator, I would take you home. But you’d be dead before we got to the door.”

Nearing the end of her life, Gia renewed her faith in God; she kept a portrait of Jesus pinned to her door. As Gia was being hooked on life support, she turned to her mother and spoke her last words, “I think I'm going to see HIM tonight”, to which her mother responded, “No, no, stay here for Mommy!”  

Gia died on November 18, 1986, and her funeral was held a few days later at Sunset Memorial Park in suburban Pennsylvania. No one from the fashion world attended the service or sent flowers, although several weeks later photographer Francesco Scavullo sent a Mass card. Scavullo recalls, “We were hysterical crying in the studio when we heard.”  No obituaries appeared in any major newspapers or magazines, just a small death notice in ‘The Philadelphia Inquirer’.

Roughly three years after Gia’s death, in October of 1989, ‘New York’ magazine did a cover story on an astonishingly successful 23-year-old model, whom they dubbed, “The Face”, and “a model for the nineties”. She was described as “an intelligent, olive-skinned, brown-eyed brunette with a full blown figure.” The model was Cindy Crawford. When asked what she thought contributed to her wild early success in the industry, Crawford - now a bonafide supermodel – decided that instead of the expected ‘strategic’ back-patting of some ‘higher up’ in the industry, that she would do the politically incorrect thing and tell the truth. She said that for years she had been ‘sold’ as a virtual carbon copy of another model who’s time had passed all too quickly, but who’s look was still very much in demand. That make-up artists sometimes even did her face in such a way as to mirror her ‘visual prototype’. Fashonistas whom had been around the block knew that this was in fact the truth, which is why Crawford had a nickname in her early days. She was known as, ‘Baby Gia’.

Gia’s legacy and her contributions to fashion and popular culture are broad and numerous. She has been credited with being the first model to move fluidly in front of the camera rather then adhering to the then standing convention of holding still posses for the photographer. Gia would often dance for the camera, in almost trance-like fashion, while photographers did their best to keep up with her. Scavullo recalls, "She is all nuance and suggestion, like a series of images by Bertolucci ... I never think of her as a model, though she's one of the best. She doesn't give you the Hot Look, the Cool Look, the Cute Look; she strikes sparks, not poses. Out of doors, especially, I have never known anyone so excitingly free and spontaneous, constantly changing, moving (which drove me crazy until I got smart and learnt to focus the camera faster) - she's like photographing a stream of consciousness."

His commentary was more then just idle flattery. Many feel that a disproportionately large number of Gia’s images transcend simple fashion photography, and cross over into realm of photographic art. Gia herself said, “A model has to create moods, You have to be careful not to get stuck in a mood - emotions have trends just like fashion ... I become what ever your eye wants to see. It's my job.”

Gia, along with Janice Dickinson, also helped to break the stranglehold that ‘the all-American blue-eye-blonde’ had on the industry at the time, and in the process helped to redefine beauty for an entire era. Gia’s success was a breakthrough for ‘ethnic’ looking models, and perhaps the first step that helped paved the way for the ‘Brazilian supermodel invasion’ that was to come in the new millennium. More then that, Gia epitomized the terms ‘lesbian-chic’ and ‘supermodel’ long before either had been burned into the collective imagination of the public.

After her death, Gia’s perfect face, which had once been used to move millions of dollars worth of beauty and fashion products, was now used for a much different purpose. Gia’s image would go on to ‘unofficially’ adorn many drug and AIDS awareness leaflets. She was one of the first famous women to have died from a virus that many at the time considered to be a ‘gay man’s disease’. In fact, just three years earlier, AIDS was widely known as GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency. To this day Gia's image endures as a cautionary tale warning against the horrors of drug abuse and AIDS.

In 1998 HBO released the biographical film, GIA, starring Angelina Jolie, who at the time was a fairly unknown up-and-coming actress. The film helped to elevate Jolie’s career to the next level, garnering her a Golden Globe Award for her performance, and introduced Gia’s story to a whole new generation of people.

Gia’s impossibly perfect face and figure will likely live forever in popular culture as a portrait of a doomed yet beautiful and fascinating human, which at the same time often seemed lonely and flawed and vulnerable. She will take her place alongside others such as James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Edie Sedgwick……..people we never quite got enough of while they were here on Earth, and who’s personal stories continue to intrigue and fascinate.

In contemplating her own death, Gia wrote, "I think God has a big plan for me, but I don't think it's in this life."

I think she was right.

 

(For more on Gia’s life and career, I recommend Stephen Fried’s excellent biography entitled, ‘Thing of Beauty’.)