There are many angles to motivate reading this book, and mine is from a deep interest in HIV. The supermodel known simply as “Gia” was one of the first prominent women to die of AIDS-related complications, and she remains one of the best-explored IV drug users who died from AIDS. Of course, most of the world knows her as a model who quickly rose to the front pages of the world’s leading fashion magazines in the 1970s. Then, just as quickly, she disappeared from the public light and died an obscure, untimely death.
The biography explores her unstable relationship with her mother, her lesbian relationships, her vast drug use including heroin, and the ephemeral vacuity of a modeling career. Everyone was willing to photograph her for a photo spread, but no one was willing to get her help. That speaks as a moral indictment of the entire industry. The narrative also indicts President Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign that undercut any compassionate care for recovering drug addicts.
Gia was at once a superstar and a marginalized figure. She was both rich and tortured. The ever-present pain behind her eyes both tantalized the camera and drove an unstable life. The book reads like a journalist’s account of her life and does not enter into much philosophical exploration of her life’s meaning or of the inhumane treatment she gathered. But at least, it did memorialize her life so that obscurity and ignominy were not the last words.
Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia
By Stephen Fried
Copyright (c) 1993
Pocket Books
ISBN13 9780671701055
Page Count: 422
Genre: Biography
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