Thing of Beauty

Hats off to author Stephen Fried, who has undertaken what may be the most exhaustive investigative reporting effort to produce a biography that essentially covered a little more than a decade. The story of the late supermodel Gia Carangi is known by many, but only on the surface. "Thing of Beauty" captures the essence of how a beautiful, but wayward persona can self-destruct when mixed with the capricious intensity of the fashion modeling industry. Sad as Gia's story may be, this book is a great read, and covers not just the storyline of modeling phenomenon, but also of a segment of modeling evolution from the 70's to the 80's. Given the wide range of choices in characterizing Gia's personality, Mr. Fried could easily have written her off as a hopeless, nut-case, junkie who just happened to be beautiful ... or as an impertinent teenager who never grew up ... or even as an overnight sensation who couldn't handle fame. He didn't. Instead of clinging to demeaning stereotypes, the author brings the reader closer to Gia through countless hours of interviews with friends, family, fellow artists and noteworthy modeling industry personnel. Along with the excellent documentation of Gia's life, how the modeling business took shape during the time when her life was unfolding adds a fantastic complement to this tragic story. For each marker that Mr. Fried plants during Gia's story, I couldn't help but think back to what I was doing at exactly those times from the mid-70's to Gia's death in 1986. Some say Gia would have self-destructed no matter what; others say that a BS job in a superficial industry wore her down. Far be it for me to judge, but you don't have to be a fashion/model fanatic to enjoy this book. It's simply a fascinating, moving biography.

I seen the movie with Angela Jolie and that's when prompted me to buy the book. At first the book was a little hard for me to get into, but after a while I couldn't put it down. First of all I had to keep in mind that this was a very tragic story about a very said young lady. My heart went out to her. Modeling didn't cause Gia's problems, her problems were already there long before she went to New York. The modeling afforded her the money to live such a wild and uncaring life and gave her plenty of money to buy plenty of drugs. Gia was in a lot of pain all of her life. Nothing would have made her happy, except the unconditional love and constant attention of her mother, something she "never" had. If you ever wanted a real insight into modeling in the 70's, this is the book to read. Although the book is about Gia and her tragic life, it also gave me a look into the "real" world of modeling. Modeling looks glamarous and it pays a lot of money, it is a very very difficult job. Gia was into drugs long before she started modeling. Her drug use escalated 85% while she was growing up in Philadelpha as a kid. So it was extremely easy for her to continue the escalation once she got to New York. In the book after finally throwing her works away at a time when she was very sick, she said that she "thought she got HIV through heroin". Too bad she and a lot of other people, including people in my family didn't know the real connection at that time. After finishing the book, you can't help but feeling terrible for this young lady, and hoping that the other Gia's of the modeling world and world in general know better.

This isn't the story of Gia's life whereas she never had much of a life...she was used as a doll to vicariously live through by her mother, she used others to fulfill the love she so desperately craved-and couldn't give herself-and was used by an industry that cared less if it's workers lived/died/whatever, as evidenced by the (non)reactions to her death. Gia deserved better than this, we all do, it's a pity that people (mentioned in the book, not the readers) are more interested in knowing the real person posthumously than they were when she was alive, breathing, and searching for love, a place to belong, and a way to achieve inner beauty. If anything, this is more a cautionary tale about dysfunctional family life and it's effect on young, growing children rather than a warning about the fashion industry, more of us probably fall into the former category rather than under the label "supermodel."

Stephen Fried wonderfuly captures the life and times of the girl who was responsible for the word Supermodel. Fried takes us on a fantastic journey which was Gia's life. His brand of tell it like it is journalism is refreshing. His portrayal of Gia's Joan Crawfordish mother Kathleen is extremely eye-opening. This is not the same Kathleen which was featured in the movie GIA. Instead we see Kathleen as she is self-centered, unloving, and cold-blooded. What kind of mother would not let her child come home to die? By the time I finished this book, I realized that GIA was a product of an unloving mother who greatly contributed to her tragic fate....

After I saw the HBO movie "Gia" I found myself yearning to know more about this woman's life. "Thing of Beauty" not only presents the real and compelling story of Gia from her troubled upper middle class adolescence in suburban Phillie to her rise as the "first supermodel" to her downfall to heroin, which led to her untimely death from AIDS, but is also a great historical/pop culture account of the late '70s and early '80s. Instead of giving a one dimensional look at Gia and getting caught up in the whole sapphic side of her personality like the movie, the book presents a full view of a complex and very tragic woman literally eaten alive by the world of fashion. Had I not picked up this book I never would have known that Cindy Crawford, refered to in the early stages of her career as "Baby Gia," literally owes her success to Gia. (The pictures show an uncanny resemblance.) This book was over 400 pages of tiny text and I devoured it in two days.