Gia Carangi - session two

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Gia Carangi - session two

May 11th 2009 00:31

“Even the terriable pains that have burn me & scarred
my soul it was worth it for having been allowed to
walked where I've walked. Which was to hell on earth
Heaven on earth back again, into, under, far in between,
through it, in it over and above it.” --- Gia (in her own words)

At the height of her success Gia Carangi commanded a formidable portfolio. She was featured on the cover of many top fashion magazines, including American Vogue, April 1979; Vogue Paris, April 1979; American Vogue, August 1980; Vogue Paris, August 1980; Italian Vogue, January 1981; and several issues of Cosmopolitan between 1979 and 1982.

In the fall of 1981 Gia looked weathered by her heavy drug use. However she was still determined to make a comeback in the fashion industry. She contacted Monique Pillard (who was largely responsible for Janice Dickinson's career), but Monique was hesitant to sign her. In fact few agencies wanted to book her. Desperate Gia turned to Scavullo, one of her oldest and most loyal photographer friends. He managed to secure her a Cosmopolitan cover which was shot in the winter of 1982. It would be her last cover. In the Spring of 1983 she was caught with drugs whilst on a shoot in Africa. Her career was scuttled.

After pressure from her family she entered a drug-rehabilitation program. Six months later she was released from the program and moved back to Philadelphia where she started taking classes in photography and cinematography. But three months later she skipped town and headed to Atlantic City where she started shooting heroin again. She prostituted herself, sleeping with men for money, and was raped on several occasions. She soon became sick with pneumonia, and after her mother found her she was checked into a hospital in Norristown, Pennyslvania where she was diagnosed with AIDS (then a newly identified disease)

As Gia’s condition worsened, she was transferred to Philadelphia's Hahnemann University Hospital. Her mother stayed with her day and night, allowing virtually no visitors. On November 18, 1986 Gia Carangi died. Her funeral was held at a small funeral home in Philadelphia. Nobody from the fashion world attended; in fact few people in the industry even knew she had died as it wasn’t widely publicized.

In 1996, actress-screenwriter Zoë Tamerlis (Ms. 45, Bad Lieutenant), herself a heroin addict who died of drug-related causes in 1999, was commissioned to write a screenplay based upon Carangi's life. This version of Gia was not produced, but after Tamerlis' death, footage of Gia, her photographers, family, and ex-lover Sandy Linter discussing her life was incorporated into a documentary entitled The Self-Destruction of Gia.

A feature movie, Gia, produced and broadcast on HBO in 1998 starred a young Angelina Jolie as Gia, which is based partly on the book Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia by Stephen Fried published in 1993, which is a fascinating, but sad, read.

Hot damn, I'm such a fan of black and white fashion photography, with a little artistic nude license thrown in for good measure. The camera loved Gia. Gia loved the good life. The good life killed Gia. Favourite pictures here are the ones in the black leather jacket, the striped umbrella, standing in front of the blinds topless with a doll between her legs, and the striped fur robe. You may not have heard of Gia Carangi before. You've seen her now. You won't forget her.

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