- I was a teenager during this era, and it fascinates me. Who wrote the book Op?
- Gia Giudice's heroin habit makes Gia Carangi look like a girl scout.
http://www.vivekaterin.com/images/articles/1304295950.jpg
Milania
- The only complaint I have about the kindle version is that there are no fucking pictures.
http://www.amazon.com/Thing-Beauty-Stephen-Fried/dp/0671701053
- Stephen Fried wrote the book. He wrote at Philadelphia Magazine at the time. Originally Gia's story was in that mag and in Cosmo too - that is where I first read it. A couple of years later, it became a book. Gia grew up in a burb near Philly. I know some people who went to school around the same time that she did, and some LGBTers who hung out in the bars when she did - namely the DCA. She was by all accounts a nice girl with some serious mommy issues. I don't think Angelina's performance in that cable movie did her any justice.
- I agree, I thought Angelina was good in the movie until I read the book. Also Gia was a jillion times more attractive.
- Did Gia & Janice Dickinson get along? It seemed like Gia would have been a rival...
- once janice hit on gia b/c she "missed her boyfriend" but gia didn't bite
- She got hundreds of chances, it's a testament to her beauty. I can't think of any models past or present that are more beautiful. of course nowadays they'd tell her to lose 40lbs.
- I knew Gia in passing in 1980s Atlantic City. She was a mess, but certainly not the only one in that very troubled place and time. Gia would sometimes be very friendly and upbeat and other times very dragged out & exhausted...classic addict or bipolar type.
- She was a drug addict, not Madame Curie.
- Gorgeous
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_qkdu4uOwe4A/TULcH-CLJXI/AAAAAAAABr8/SJ4f3k_wB4M/s1600/Gia_Carangi8.jpg
- bump
- I read the book too, OP. I kept a copy of it, I read it twice.
- [quote]Gia Giudice's heroin habit makes Gia Carangi look like a girl scout.
I can just see Milania pulling up on a motorcycle and Gia hopping on while the Bravo cameras film. Teresa would be yelling, "Gia! Come back!!!" and Milania would wisk a despondent Gia to a crack alley in Patterson.
- Another observation...while still very pretty, Gia had a masculine edge and a lot of Philly/Jerseyy vibe, which Hollywood Angie did not convey at all.
R9
- [quote]Gia had a masculine edge and a lot of Philly/Jerseyy vibe, which Hollywood Angie did not convey at all.
I thought she did so (briefly) when opening the can with a switchblade and kicking in the window
- Yeah, Way Bandy was way ahead of his time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DhtcB3uHMOv4
- A friend of mine dated one of her enablers/hangers on, a makeup artist who fetched her drugs. He is homeless now and had never had anything interesting to say about her except to rhapsodize about how beautiful she was. She had a large circle of these types--shallow idiots who admired her tragic "edginess."
- And here's Gia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DY8OmBudzKXw%26feature%3Drelated
- And here's her girlfriend, Sandy Linter. She looks fucked up in every single picture. Was she into drugs too?
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DyxQHXH7BZig%26feature%3Drelated
- I liked the Angelina movie (it's actually the only thing I've ever seen her in) but it was clear to me watching it that it had to be an airbrushed fantasy.
Like all models, the real Gia looked pretty identical to every other model of her time and didn't project anything you could call an individual personality. By the nature of their work models have to fade into a sort of appealing anonymity so that the product they're selling is the focus of the image. Angelina is a star, so her personality stands out in a way that's the opposite of how a model works. Being a model is for people who do what they're told, and as the film pointed out Gia (like Kate Moss) partly got on because she was willing to get naked.
- Gia looking pretty dykey.
http://dhararacchan.livejournal.com/22485.html
- I read "Thing of Beauty." Amazingly it was very dull, despite the incredible story it told: trashy little lesbian street becomes a top model and then sytematically destroys her with drugs, eventually dying of AIDS. Fried's writing is uninspiring and his depictions of Gia and her family and lovers and acquaintances have no depth.
Her most important lover was a white trash druggie/criminal from a well-to-do family: Elyssa Golden. Fried was for some reason protective of Golden; in the book he gives her the name "[...] Rosen" and in the epilogue at the end says that she is HIV-negative but has liver cancer. In reality, Golden DID have AIDS (did Gia contract it from HER?) and went on to die of it.
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, “Lack of love. ”
- R21, Don't all models (Cindy Crawford) get naked? Why would that matter?
- Cindy Crawford was called "Baby Gia" when she started in the industry. They used to airbrush out that mole. But I think Gia was a million times prettier, except for that last tragic photoshoot.
- Bump
- I worked with aids patients in the mid eighties (pre-meds and all about Marianne Williamson/the healing circle) in NYC. A guy I helped out said he was a former model handler and his job was to get Gia, Patty Hansen and others to their shoots no matter what.
It didn't mean much to me but it was amusing and sad to listen to. It seemed from his story telling that all they did was do massive drugs and get pushed in front of a camera. For what?
- Bump! More about Patty Hansen please! I though she was just a party girl; didn't know she was into the hard stuff. I loved the Angelina movie, though I'm certain it glossed over some of the more unseemly details.
- Didn't Fried allude to some sexual abuse from her dad?
- [quote]I loved the Angelina movie
Why? It was horrible piece of shit. You have spectacularly bad taste.
- R27, Don't you think that it's extremely contradictory, heavy duty drug use and modelling (or acting, or singing)? It's as if you're playing Russian Roulette with your looks and talent.
- [quote] I thought Angelina was good in the movie until I read the book. Also Gia was a jillion times more attractive
What brought this thread back up? Anyway I don't agree at all. Angelina was way more beautiful than Gia. In fact, Cindy Crawford was more beautiful than Gia - before she ruined her eyes with surgery.
The movie wasn't that good but Angelina's performance was excellent which is why she won every award out there for it.
- "Angelina was way more beautiful than Gia"
Not in that movie. When AJ was young she wasn't outstandingly beautiful, something (weight loss and plastic surgery) happened in her late twenties and she blossomed into a real beauty. But when she made "Gia", she was babyfaced and snub-nosed and not supermodel material.
I saw that movie when it came out, and kept thinking "She's not beautiful enough for the role".
http://www.celebitchy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/angelina-jolie-gia.jpg
- Angie as Gia, all dolled up.
http://www.tailgate365.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/gia.jpg
- The real Gia.
http://i2.listal.com/image/1872521/936full-gia-carangi.jpg
I'll stop now
- Still think Angie was more beautiful. I'm not denying Gia's beauty but I've known a lot of Italian girls who looked that good. She was a bit coarse looking - maybe it's the make-up.
- I NEED YOU I NEED YOU I NEED YOU!!!!!!!
GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!!!!!!!!!
St.%20Angie%27s%20one-note%20Gia%20%22performance%22
- R[30] you have spectacularly low esteem. Your comment is completely useless unless your goal to to elevate yourself by trashing an anon poster.
- Hey R38 it was me R30 was trashing. I don't give a hoot what people think about my taste! I enjoyed the movie and whomever has a problem with that can take a hike! Thanks for sticking up for me though!
Meanwhile... who has more dirt on the modelling world of the '70s/'80s? Spill!
R28
- Her story is a cautionary tale.
- Young Janice DIckinson looked alot like Gia.
She's a mess now. But she's like a cockroach - she did a lot of shit too - but somehow survived.
http://blogue.us/2011/01/13/fashion-flashback-janice-dickinson/young-janice-dickinson/
- I never understood why Angelina wasn't required to wear brown contact lenses. She didn't look all that much like Gia to begin with, then add the fact that AJ has blue eyes, I guess the director wasn't going for an actress who looked like Gia?
I always thought Cindy Crawford resembled Gia.
A former work acquaintance worked with Gia, he describe Gia as "always stoned, she basically acted as if she didn't want to be there, as if she was annoyed."
A million young women would have killed to be in her shoes, but she was a white trash fuck up with a bad attitude and a bad drug habit.
A questioned a lot in the film, like the part where she gets clean, they starts doing heroin again. She goes to some loading dock where she tries to score, then some dealers who knew her, beat the crap out of her or IIRC, they beat her then raped her and also took her money. Really?
I doubt many drug addicted models were dealing with those types of street drug dealers. Most wealthy people aren't even dealing directly with the drug dealers, they have someone else do that.
Was her gay male friend a real person or was he created just for the film?
- Models did heroin so they could starve themselves.
- "Models did heroin so they could starve themselves."
Well then they're fulfilling the stereotype of the dumb model because heroin tends to make people fat, until they hit junkie-ville.
Coke is always a better choice for thinning out.
- Angelina Jolie would have never been so popular among the gay population if she hadn't be Gia Carangi in 'Gia'. She owes a lot to Gia's personal story. Actually it was 'Gia' that made the difference in Jolie's career. After 'Gia', she managed to play in some really good movies before she retired to the 'superwoman' movies she is for a long time now!
http://www.nypost.com/rw/nypost/2012/07/18/pulse/web_photos/gia_carangi--300x300.jpg
- Could you be married to Keith Richards and not partake a little bit?
Anita%20Pee
- R30 is Jen Aniston.
