Gia Carangi: A Lonly teens Model
By her mid teens, Gia Carangi had developed a beautiful face and an incredible figure.
Kathleen, certain that modeling could change her daughter, encouraged Gia Carangi to model. Gia Carangi was a natural: “I didn’t have to tell her what to do,” said a family friend and first photographer to work with Gia Carangi. “She already knew what to do in front of that camera and that’s a great model.”
At age seventeen Gia Carangi was discovered. Maurice Tannenbaum, who was at the time a hair-stylist and aspiring photographer remembers: “I saw her one night at the DCA, which was a club, and was reluctant to walk over to her, I was just taken by her and she was fascintated by the idea that I wanted to photograph her and she wanted to be photographed. You could see this raw beauty.” Not long after, he took her to New York to try her luck there as a model. “She was very excited, very nervous, very, very nervous. She came with her mother but her mother stayed in a coffee shop while we went off to see Wilhelmina.” Wilhelmina Cooper, a former model herself, ran a modeling agency in New York. She was so excited about Gia Carangi that she forgot to give her a contract.
In early 1978, 18-year-old Gia Carangi packed her bags and moved to New York City. One photographer remembers Gia Carangi in one of her first go-sees: (Click here to read Bill Friedman’s exclusive interview for The Gia Carangi Project). With Wilhelmina’s push, Gia Carangi managed to rise to the top instantly, something that almost never happens in the fashion world. Photographers loved Gia’s street-smart attitude wrapped in jeans and leather: “Gia Carangi reminded me of James Dean. She was very cool but she had a tremendous vulnerability,” said photographer Andrea Blanch. Franceso Scavullo also remembers the first day Gia Carangi walked into his studio: “There’s only been maybe 3 girls in my whole career that have walked into my studio and I went ‘wow’. Gia Carangi was the last who came in here and I said ‘wow.’”
Gia Carangi was said to have had the most beautiful breasts in the business and she needed no taping for the Cosmo covers. By the end of 1978, she had already appeared in several magazines (including American Vogue ) and was making something in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But still, Gia, who was still 18 at the time, was looking for stability in her life. Gia Carangi was looking for love and compassion at a time when people were looking for sex, money, and drugs. In her search for loving and stable relationships, Gia Carangi fell instantly in love with people she barely knew.
Gia Carangi felt incredibily lonely and even asked her brother Michael to go live with her in New York City. Model Julie Foster remembers in her interview for the E! True Hollywood Story: “Gia Carangi was looking for anyone’s love, she would show up at my house sometimes in the middle of the night and I’d let her in and she just wanted someone to hug her. It was very sad.”
January 25th, 2006 at 3:46 am
I think this girl is my role-model.I am only 14 years old and trying to get into modeling.I am poor just like she was and she makes it seem like anything can happen…
March 12th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
As most women would agree confidence is the biggest turn on a man could possess. I would take the direct approach and simply come straight to the point. I would preface it with one simple compliment as we girls never get tired of that. Good luck – let me know how it goes.
Love isn’t love
’til you give it away.
May 10th, 2006 at 1:45 am
well im a 18 year old male and im a modelas well.most peopl say thay know how she feel but i rilly do.ive allways had this emtyness inside and i look for enything to feel it.and times havent changd people are still just looking for sex and drugs.i wont love so bad that i will fall in love with people i don even know .then with the modeling career its not easy.people rilly dont rillize that this is rilly hard .it not all glamer and money.people are so crule to the models that you can be the most butiful person in the would thay will take your self asteem away from you rill fast.i was in dcfs from 7 on up int ill i was 18 then i got into modeling.i never had that love and stuff like every on els had.i need it because i cry every day because every time i get close to it .i dont get it.and i hkeep this all inside and it hurts.and theres so much more to the story.so i rilly do know how she feelt.truly.and if you wanna know moe about me and my story email me at armondth34@yahoo.com.thank you
May 17th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
well , i was a model and i know it is very hard job. I knew drugs , and night-life,it’s very strange, i don’t know.I taked the drugs and I know how she feelt. It was very hardly ,and thanks God that nov I normal girl without DRUGS!! I think gia was so lonley when she taked the heroin. Wherever drugs is so fuckin shit!! and remember don’t take that!!!!