Gia Carangi was born on January 29, 1960 in Philadelphia. In 1977, Gia traveled to New York to begin her modeling career. She became a model by mere accident. As Gia was letting lose at a local Disco, a photographer saw her, and asked to take her picture.

Gia began dancing wildly around the bar, arms out stretched, hair in her eyes, and squealing like a school girl. When the pictures reached the desk of Vogue magazine, there was no stopping her.

Her first major modeling job was with Gianni Versace when she was 18. She was quite a change from the typical blonde hair-blue eye model everyone saw as the most beautiful type of women. Gia changed all that. Within the next year Gia became one of the biggest models of the late 1970s.Gia was immediately swept into the fashion world. She never went through the tough rejections that other models faced; she was considered a “rare gem” in the modeling business. Partly due to supermodel Janice Dickinson’s success, a demand for more ethnic looking models was in. She was visibly striking, and was a hit with all the photographers.

“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.’”

-Francesco Scuvallo.

By the end of 1978, Gia had already rocked the fashion world at age 18. However, she was extremely lonely and still looking for stability in her life.

Gia was a regular at Studio 54, and Mudd Club, in which anyone who was anyone was seen.

“We loved it,” Janice Dickinson would later recall, “it was a place for us. A place where we could be with the beautiful, do drugs be out of our minds and it all seemed normal.”

Gia began to develop a serious cocaine addiction. Common for the time, but lethal to most everyone who took it up. Kelly LeBrock, a top model at the time, remembers the time she spent with Gia.

“Gia, when I was working with her, was still sort of in the beginning, still very fresh and lovely, I think drowning a little bit in her own success, but not anymore screwed up than anybody else was in the set.”

In October of 1978, Gia did her first major shoot with top fashion photographer Chris von Wangenheim. Wangenheim had Gia pose nude behind a chain link fence, with makeup assistant Sandy Linter. She automatically fell in love.

“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,”

By January of 1980, Gia’s surrogate mother and agent, Wilhelmina Cooper was diagnosed with lung cancer. Gia quickly turned to drugs to escape the harsh reality. Scuvallo remembers a distinct instance in which Gia was on a fashion shoot in the Caribbean.

“She was crying, she couldn’t find her drugs. I literally had to lay her down on her bed until she fell asleep.”

A month after she returned, Wilhelmina passed away at the age of 40. This was something Gia never quite got over. Combined with her confusing sexuality, her Mother’s persistence at her becoming successful, and her now newly formed heroin addiction, Gia’s life began to slowly crumble.

To the world, 1980 was a great year for Gia in fashion. She was seen on covers of Vogue and Cosmopolitan, but behind the scenes she was a very different person. She would have violent temper tantrums, walk-out of photo shoots and even fell asleep in front of the camera. In a 1980 November issue of Vogue, has since been the butt of many rumors about her drug use. It was said for many years that the nor famous cover, with Gia’s arms tucked stealthily behind her back, were posed that way in order to hide track marks when she was supposed to have been sober. This is not true; it was disputed most recently by Scavullo himself, who shot the cover. For three weeks, Gia was signed with Eileen Ford, but was dropped because she had little tolerance for Gia’s behavior.

1981, Gia dropped from the face of the fashion world. She had hopes of getting her life back together. She enrolled in a 21-day detox program. It is said at that time, Gia started dating a college student named Rochelle (her real name was Elyssa Golden - she used an alias when being interviewed by Stephen Fried for Thing of Beauty). The Carangi family and Gia’s mother had always suspected that Rochelle had an abusive heroin problem, and brother Michael Carangi even recalls being offered some by Rochelle. With Rochelle by her side, Gia’s recovery had failed. In 1981, she moved out of her mother’s house and in with some friends, once again entering into a detox program.

Her attempt to quit drugs was shattered when news that good friend and fashion photographer Chris Von Wangenheim had died in a car accident. It is said that Gia locked herself in a bathroom for hours, shooting heroin. In the fall of 1981, Gia looked far from the top model she once was. Drugs had ravaged her body, and in time, her face as well. However, she was still determined to make a comeback into the fashion industry. She contacted Monique Pillard (who was largely responsible for Janice Dickinson’s career), and who was hesitant to sign her.

“She was sitting in my chair and I said, ‘Gia, I want to represent you so badly and everything, but I hear a lot of negative stories about you.’ And I remember I asked her ‘well, why are you wearing such a long shirt? Can I see your arms?’ And she said ‘No!’ And she held on to her shirt and she said to me, ‘Do you want to represent me or not?’” For her second time, Gia received the harsh treatment she skipped last time. Nobody would book her. Desperate, she turned to good friend Francesco Scavullo. She landed a Cosmo cover, a gift from Scavullo.

In West Germany, a budding fashion industry was being created. Although seen as tacky by the designers from New York, Paris and Milan, the Germans were willing to pay 10,000 a week to shoot Gia abroad. However, no one in the states would book her. In the spring of 1983, Gia was caught with drugs in a shoot in Africa. Her career was over.

Gia moved back in with Rochelle, and after pressures from her family she entered a drug-rehabilitation program again at Eagleville Hospital. Another patient, Rob Fay became close to Gia. Although rumors among the other patients said that Fay was romantically interested with Gia, Fay claimed it was just a friendship.

After six months, Gia was released from the program. She moved back to Philadelphia, and it seemed as if she was getting her life back on track. She started taking classes in photography and cinematography. But, three months later, Gia had vanished once again, and had returned to Atlantic City, and started shooting heroin again. She sexually prostituted herself and was raped on several occasions. She soon became sick with pneumonia, and her mother came and checked her into a hospital.

She was diagnosed with AIDS, then a newly-known disease. As her condition worsened, she was transferred to Philadelphia’s Hahnemann Hospital. Her mother stayed with her day and night, allowing barely anyone see her. By this time, AIDS had taken a toll on her body; her once beautiful face was vanishing.

On November 18, 1986 at 10 in the morning, 26-year-old Gia Carangi died. Her funeral was held on November 23 at a small funeral home in Philadelphia. Gia’s mother and father did their best to contact people in Philadelphia and in New York.

In April of 1988, Gia’s mother, Kathleen, appeared on the morning show AM Philadelphia, after they aired a segment about AIDS. It was a move that shocked the family. Gia’s father called Rochelle to let her know about the show. “I had run into him in the casino before that,” she recalled. “He just gave me a big hug and a kiss and he started crying. He knew Kathleen. He knew she’d do anything to get on TV. She wanted to be the model, the superstar. Now she was doing it through Gia’s death.”

Although her death was tragic, it was surely not in vain. Gia was the first well known woman to die from AIDS. She brought AIDS into the forefront of the American conscience. She was a fighter. Although she eventually succumbed, no one could ever say she didn’t try. She searched her entire life for honesty and love, two things she cherished and rarely attained.

I remember when she died. I had the Cosmo cover hanging in my room at the time. I loved Gia. I loved her face and I loved her style. I probably also loved her sense of danger. I cried even though I never met her, and didn’t really know much about her. She was so beautiful and so alive, and this thing called AIDS was now attacking everyone. I remember thinking no one was safe. It was the beginning of a tidal wave of death I never in my life thought could be possible. I don’t think anyone really knew. How could we? Gia changed me. I remember walking around my house in High School and using the small hallway connecting my room with my brother’s as my runway. I would fling shawls and small blankets, anything I could find, over my shoulder and flip my hair, just the way Gia did. She was my princess, and I wanted to be her disciple. She had a fire and a passion that leapt off the page and headed right for me. I never forgot her. And when I was diagnosed myself, I knew I didn’t want to go like her. At the very end Gia made peace with some of her family and I think, with all I’ve read, with herself as well. She made it to the finish line and she knew she was part of something much bigger than she could ever have dreamed. Her memory would live forever, and her image would keep her struggle alive. Having practically lived the life she lived, I’ve survived as well. I’m sad she’s no longer on the earth flipping her hair and tossing her clothes around the stage, but I’m thankful for her memory. And for what she left behind.


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