Gia Carangi

Gia Marie Carangi (January 29, 1960 – November 18, 1986) was an American model, considered by many to be the first supermodel.

She was featured on the cover of numerous magazines, including multiple editions of Vogue and Cosmopolitan, and appeared in advertising campaigns for fashion houses such as Armani, Dior, Versace and Yves Saint Laurent.

Carangi was born on January 29, 1960, in Philadelphia, the third and youngest child of Joseph Carangi, a restaurant owner, and Kathleen Carangi (née Adams), a homemaker.

She had two older brothers.

Her father was Italian, and her mother was of Irish and Welsh ancestry.

Joseph and Kathleen had an unstable, violent marriage, ultimately leading Kathleen to abandon the family when Carangi was eleven years old.

Gia was described as "needy and manipulative" by relatives who recalled her as spoiled and shy as a child and a "mommy's girl" who did not receive the motherly attention that she desired.

Those who knew Gia blamed her "fractured childhood" for the instability and drug dependence that plagued her adult life.

In her adolescent years, Carangi found the attention she sought from other teenage girls, befriending them by sending flowers.

While attending Abraham Lincoln High School, Carangi bonded with "the Bowie kids", a group of obsessive David Bowie fans who emulated Bowie's "defiantly weird, high-glam" style.

Carangi was drawn to Bowie for his fashion preferences and his ambiguous gender play and outspoken bisexuality.

Her first major shoot, published in October 1978, was with top fashion photographer Chris von Wangenheim, who had her pose nude behind a chain-link fence with makeup artist Sandy Linter.

Carangi immediately became infatuated with Linter and pursued her, though the relationship never became stable.

By the end of 1978, her first year in New York, Carangi was already a well-established model.

Of her quick rise to prominence, described by Vogue as "meteoric", Carangi later said, "I started working with very good people, I mean all the time, very fast. I didn't build into a model, I just sort of became one."

Carangi was a favorite model of various fashion photographers, including Von Wangenheim, Francesco Scavullo, Arthur Elgort, Richard Avedon, and Denis Piel.

Well-integrated within the fashion world, she had the selection of several photographers, most notably Scavullo.

Carangi was featured on the cover of many fashion magazines, including the April 1979 issue of British Vogue, the April 1979 and August 1980 issues of Vogue Paris, the August 1980 issue of Vogue, the February 1981 issue of Vogue Italia, and multiple issues of Cosmopolitan between 1979 and 1982.

During these years, she also appeared in various advertising campaigns for high-profile fashion houses, including Armani, André Laug, Christian Dior, Versace, and Yves Saint Laurent.

At the height of her career, Carangi was most known in modeling circles by only her first name.

During this time, she also appeared in the Blondie music video for "Atomic".

A regular at Studio 54 and the Mudd Club, Carangi usually used cocaine in clubs.

After her agent, mentor, and friend Wilhelmina Cooper, died of lung cancer in March 1980, a devastated Carangi began using drugs and developed an addiction to heroin.

Carangi's addiction soon began to affect her work; she had violent temper tantrums, walked out of photo shoots to buy drugs, and fell asleep in front of the camera.

Scavullo recalled a fashion shoot with Carangi in the Caribbean when "she was crying, she couldn't find her drugs. I literally had to lay her down on her bed until she fell asleep."

During one of her final location shoots for American Vogue, Carangi had red bumps in the crooks of her elbows where she had injected heroin.

Despite airbrushing, some of the photos, as published in the November 1980 issue, reportedly still showed visible needle marks.

In November 1980, Carangi left Wilhelmina Models and signed with Ford Models, but she was dropped within weeks.

By then, her career was in a steep decline.

Modeling offers soon ceased and her fashion industry friends, including Sandy Linter, refused to speak to her, fearing their association with her would harm their careers.

In an attempt to quit using drugs, she moved back to Philadelphia with her mother and stepfather in February 1981.

Carangi underwent a 21-day detox program, but her sobriety was short-lived.

After Carangi became addicted to heroin, her career rapidly declined, which ultimately led her to quit modeling in 1983.

One of Carangi's friends later spoke of her "tomboy persona", describing her relaxed openness about her sexuality as reminiscent of the character Cay in the 1985 film Desert Hearts.

Carangi and her "bi-try Bowie-mad" friends hung out in Philadelphia's gay clubs and bars.

Though she's associated with the lesbian community, she did not want to take up "the accepted lesbian style."

After being featured in Philadelphia newspaper ads and being discovered by Sondra Scerca in Maurice Tannenbaum's hair salon, Carangi moved to New York City at the age of 17, where she signed with Wilhelmina Models.

In 1986, at age 26, she died of AIDS-related complications.

Believed to have contracted it from a contaminated needle, she became one of the early famous women to die of the virus.

Her life was dramatized in the 1998 television film Gia, directed by Michael Cristofer and starring Angelina Jolie as Carangi.