Thing of beauty, p.46
Thing of Beauty, page 46
David Cohen is now a nationally known hat designer based in New York.
Denis Piel has his own film production company, Jupiter Films. He directs shorts and commercials around the world, and occasionally does still photography.
Harry King stopped doing hair for several years to take pictures, and later to write screenplays. He recently returned to doing some hairstyling.
Sara Foley Anderson was the head of the Wilhelmina agency’s W2 division, until recently accepting a position as senior bookings editor at Harper’s Bazaar.
Helen Murray is an independent fashionista agent based in LA. She represents photographer Sante D’Orazio and several others.
Lizzette Kattan married an Italian economist with whom she has two children. They split their time between Milan and a home in Switzerland; Lizzette started a children’s clothing company and was also recently named ambassador from Honduras.
Charla Carter is a freelance writer, fashion editor, and stylist based in Paris.
Kay Mitchell left the modeling business after an unhappy experience running her own agency, Legends. She repaired to Ohio, where she spent most of the eighties building a series of regional modeling competitions, and returned to New York in 1990 to put together a national scouting company to service the top agencies.
Robert Hilton, who had been separated from his wife, Karen, for years before her stroke, lives in North Jersey with their two children and does drug rehab work in New York City.
Grace Mirabella was fired as editor-in-chief of Vogue and replaced by former British Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Win-tour. Soon after, Mirabella was hired by Rupert Murdoch to create her own namesake fashion publication. Vogue fashion editor Jade Hobson went to Mirabella as well. Grace Coddington came to American Vogue from the British edition as a fashion editor.
Polly Mellen changed jobs at Vogue not long after Anna Wintour took over, accepting a freelance fashion editing contract with the magazine that allowed her, for the first time in more than three decades, to work outside of Vogue. A year later, after a flap about her appearing as a model in an ad, she shifted to a similar position with the new Condé Nast beauty magazine Allure.
Patrick Demarchelier recently made a high-profile contract shift from Vogue to Harper’s Bazaar.
William Weinberg and Fran Rothschild both left the Wilhelmina agency after it was bought out by German businessman Dieter Esch and his daughter Natasha.
Juli Foster lives in central Florida and still does some modeling.
Christie Brinkley married singer Billy Joel. They have one child, and Brinkley does some modeling work for Cover Girl and Sports Illustrated.
Esme Marshall lives in North Jersey with her daughter and is trying to get back into modeling.
Jerry Hall married Mick Jagger. They have three children. Hall has appeared in several recent films and on the London stage.
Janice Dickinson went through rehab and married Britishborn film producer Simon Fields. They have one child and live in Los Angeles. After several years away from the business, she has recently done some European runway modeling and is trying to make a second career in photography.
Patti Hansen did some acting and married Keith Richards. They have two children and live in Connecticut and England. After years away from the business, she appeared on the cover of Mirabella to announce a return to modeling.
Lisa Taylor lives in Los Angeles and recently began modeling again when Calvin Klein featured her in a campaign celebrating mature women.
After Taylor’s comeback, and a Barney’s ad by Steven Meisel featuring Lauren Hutton (and other stars of the generation just before Gia’s), many of the top girls from the 70s signed with agent Bryan Bantry, who mostly represents photographers and hair and makeup artists. They are going to try to create a new market for top models in their 40s—instead of just the occassional nostalgia shots—and convince America that beauty is truth, not youth. Among the models are Janice Dickinson, Patti Hansen, Bitten, Shaun Casey, Lise Ryall, Lois Chiles, and Marisa Berenson.
The following people in the fashion industry are basically in the same lines of work—still freelance or associated with the same companies—as they were during the late seventies and early eighties. They are, however, all much bigger deals now, have more “side projects,” command higher fees and, in some cases, have even moved on to emeritus status.
Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Arthur Elgort, Albert Watson, John Stember, Mike Reinhardt, Francesco Scavullo, Alex Chatelain, Victor Skrebneski, Jacques Malignon, Aldo Fallai, Jean Pagliuso, Francois Lamy and Andrea Blanche are all still top names in fashion and commercial photography.
Sandy Linter, John Sahag, Maury Hopson, Ariella and Rick Pipino are still top names in hair and makeup, doing salon and studio work. Sahag now also owns his own successful salon.
Eileen Ford, John Casablancas, Monique Pillard and Jo Zagami are still the top people at Ford and Elite, respectively.
Since the publication of Thing of Beauty, I have had many requests about where to find published photos of Gia. This is a completely arbitary list of pictures—most of which are mentioned in the book and should be accessible in libraries and used-magazine shops.
American Vogue
10/78:
Gia’s Vogve debut by Elgort, page 330
11/78:
Calvin Klein slip-dress w/sunglasses by Elgort, page 294 Blanche pooper scooper and “dead,” pages 348–51
1/79:
Gia at fence by von Wangenheim (clothed), pages 114, 119 (nude version in book Fashion: Theory, page 161, see below)
2/79:
Desert shots with helicopter by Von Wangenheim, pages 232, 234
5/79:
Mexico shots with Hansen and Dickinson by Reinhardt, pages 228, 230, 232, 236–37
9/79:
Studio 54 shots by Demarchelier, pages 512, 514, 516
10/79:
Paris collection shots by Piel, beginning page332
2/80:
Piel shot of Gia watering plant, page 277
3/80:
Avedon editorial precursors to Versace ads, pages 292–99
5/80:
Scavullo shots from St. Barts, pages 233–41
7/80:
Scavullo’s favorite shot of Gia, page 130
8/80:
Cover by Avedon, Perry Ellis feature, pages 241–44
11/80:
Last great Vogue shots of Gia by Piel, page 324, and Scavullo, pages 365–75
9/82:
Last Vogue shot by Blanche, pages 546, 548, 550
Glamour
6/79:
Gia by Stember, pages 228, 233
8/79:
Gia by Stember, page 140
British Vogue
4/79:
Cover by Chatelainplus many Chatelain shots beginning on page 116
French Vogue
3/79:
Women/men at George V by Newton
5/79:
Cover by Newton
9/79:
Christian Dior Boutiques ads by Piel
8/80:
Cover by Watson
Italian Vogue
3/79:
Lamy shots, pages 410–23, 654–59
1, 2, 3/80:
Back covers are Gia Armani ads by Fallai
4/80:
Gia in Armani groupage
5/80:
Best of Avedon Versace ads
2/81:
Cover by Grignachi
German Vogue
10/79:
Piel collections shots, outtakes from American Vogue
4/80:
Florida shots by John Stember, pages 96–97, 101–13
12/83:
Fur & leather supplement by Watson
American Harpers Bazaar
8/79:
Gia by Scavullo, page 139
9/79:
Gia by King, pages 236, 246
10/79:
Gia by Pullman, page 145
11/79:
Gia by Pullman, pages 190–92
American Cosmopolitan
Covers
4/79, 7/79, 1/80, 7/80, 4/82
Italian Bazaar
7–8/78:
(double issue) Citicorp Building by Von Wangenheim plus many others
9/78:
Rome and Paris collections by Von Wangenheim and Elgort, plus groupage by Demarchelier and others
Several photos of Gia are also available in books. There are three in the out-of-print book Fashion: Theory edited by Carol Di Grappa and published by Lustrum Press. The Helmut Newton shot used in poster form in the opening of Thing of Beauty is reprinted in both the Pantheon Photo Library paperback on Newton and the book Private Property. The book Scavullo Women has two photos of Gia and an interview with her; the Yves St. Laurent 1958–1988 book has Denis Piel’s 1979 collection photo of Gia with the harlequins. In terms of more disposable fashion-related books, photos of Gia are on the covers of Cheap Chic and Hot Tips: 1000 Fashion & Beauty Tricks and inside Disco Beauty. I am told that Arthur Elgort will soon be releasing a book of his fashion work that will include several unpublished shots of Gia.
For information on actual prints of photographs of Gia, which are likely to be quite expensive, contact the individual photographer’s agent. The easiest way to identify an agent is to look up the photographer in one of the photo annuals that you can find in many libraries—like Black Book, American Showcase, or Graphis.
Acknowledgments & Afterstuff
Kathleen Sperr was my first source for the Philadelphia magazine story that grew into this book. A difficult, but nonetheless, brave woman, Kathleen, for reasons I never completely understood, opened up her life and her relationship with her late daughter to an astonishing level of scrutiny. She believed that the story of Gia’s life was worth telling no matter how it reflected upon her. And it was often she, in the early years of this project, who led me to the people with the most damning things to say about her. Kathleen trusted the process of uncompromised journalism. She would have liked to make some money, she wanted to review my work before publication and she made me jump through an awful lot of hoops. In fact, at this writing, I have no idea if we’re still speaking. But she neither demanded nor received any compensation or other conditions for her on-and-off cooperation over the last four years—including my last interview with her, for the book, which lasted nearly five hours.
When the techniques of reporting and psychological profiling are used in family situations—a thorny, hybrid process I can only describe as “investigative psychotherapy”—sources like Kathleen Sperr are absolutely crucial and difficult to come by. They also, by their cooperation, open themselves up to charges of media-hounding by those family members and friends who don’t believe in the process.
For a journalist to suggest that someone’s motivation in granting an interview is somehow more ethically compromised than the interview request itself is the height of cynicism and self-delusion. I was extremely fortunate that hundreds of people allowed me access to their public and personal lives in researching Thing of Beauty. And many people also assisted me in the research and writing of the investigative stories on teenage suicide and child sexual abuse in Philadelphia magazine that laid the groundwork for this project. They taught me how to interview them and how to be worthy of the extreme levels of trust required of the process. But every such undertaking begins with one person and one open wound. And it was Kathleen’s pain and frankness while we sat drinking coffee in her kitchen that started this one.
I met Kathleen because of a phone call from AM Philadelphia host Wally Kennedy after her original appearance on his program. Wally knows lots of journalists, and he could have called any one of them. I’m grateful that he chose me.
I had inspirational research assistance on this project from Sean Sperry, David Borgenicht, Laura Loro, Erin Friar and Sally (Luongo) Hyman. Merv Keizer checked the facts. Helen Flaherty transcribed a lot of the interviews; XyWrite software allowed me easy access to the raw material.
Thanks to Cindy Cathcart at the Condé Nast library; Sherry Handlin at the Butterick archives; Anne Walker at the Philadelphia AIDS library; Don Monroe, keeper of the Warhol archives; the library folk at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, Philadelphia College of Textiles and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Xanthipi Joannides at Glamour arranged several crucial interviews for me; Sallie Dinkel and Greg Christianson, both formerly of GQ, did some of my homework; Reenie McDonnell, Michelle Nader, A. D. Amorosi and my old Jewish Y Men’s Health Club-mate Bob Bosco helped find unfindable sources and set scenes. New York sleeping accommodations courtesy of casas Rich/Fried and Green/Kaplan.
All my sources worked very hard through sometimes grueling interviews, but I’d like to especially thank Sharon Beverly,* Rob Fay, Karen Karuza, Rochelle Rosen,* Nancy Adams, Monique Pillard, Kay Mitchell, Lizzette Kattan (who also took care of us in Milan), Felicitas Oeltze von Lobenthal (who did the same in Munich), Francesco Scavullo and Sean Byrnes (the first fashion people to speak with me, triggering a chain reaction of cooperation among the fashionistas), Polly Mellen (whose cooperation also opened many doors, as did that of Marc Balet and Sara Foley), Michael Tighe, Robert Hilton, Giampiero Paoletti, Claude Brouet, Maurice Tannenbaum, David Uosikkinen, Fran Chalin, Margie Dameshek and Sue Lubin. Special thanks to all the sources I’m not allowed to thank by name.
Most of the quotes in this book are from interviews I conducted or are clearly attributed to the places where they originally appeared. There are a handful of quotes from public figures that I took the liberty of including without direct attribution. It’s only fair to acknowledge the appropriations: Maury Hopson would not speak with me, but Dick Polman of The Philadelphia Inquirer provided raw interviews with Hopson from his coverage of Way Bandy’s death; the out-of-print book Fashion: Theory was a wellspring of insight, especially since co-publisher John Flattau allowed me to use the interview he taped with Chris von Wangenheim for the book; Anthony Haden-Guest spent an afternoon walking me through his various New York modeling stories, from which I retrieved some of the more verifiable anecdotes, and he graciously loaned me some of his files; Lynn Snowden gave me an unpublished piece about her own modeling career, and I used several quotes from her Mademoiselle story on Esme Marshall; John Lombardi helped me out with several sources, and wrote both the Arthur Elgort profile for American Photographer and the piece for High Times from which I got ideas and factoids about “heroin as mass hip”; Brad Gooch’s Vanity Fair story on club culture was very helpful, and contained the Anita Sarko quote I used; Judy Klemesrud wrote the Esquire cover story on “The Year of the Lusty Woman”; Marie Winn wrote the Times Magazine profile of Alexander Liberman; Jennifer Allen wrote the five-part New York Daily News series on modeling I mentioned (which Joel Seigel kindly fetched from the about-to-strike News library); Peter Wilkinson spoke with me about his interview with Patti Hansen for New York Woman, from which I got a quote; some Avedon background and a quote came from a 1978 Newsweek cover story on him; a few Ann Simonton quotes came from Susan Faludi’s Mother Jones piece; Tony Shugaar’s Spy article on Terry Broome was of help; the Sports Illustrated twenty-fifth anniversary swimsuit issue was, of course, a compendium of facts I needed; Mark Stevens’s book Model noted the D’Arcy phenomenon; and Timothy White’s interview in Musician was the source of the Bowie quote; the Cindy Crawford interviews were with Bruce Buschel (GQ) and Michael Gross (New York).
Nora Magid was my writing teacher at the University of Pennsylvania, my mentor and my first professional colleague. She died while I was finishing the final draft of Thing of Beauty, and I hope she forgave me for paying more attention to the work she inspired me to do than I did to her during the last years of her life.
Nora passed me on to Ed McFall, who was the reporting teacher I never had and has remained a good friend. Ron Javers gave me the job at Philadelphia magazine in 1982 and the editing that led to most everything else. Both he and the magazine have given me a lot. Ron and publisher Herb Lipson—and later, Herb’s son David—also indulged me several professional courtesies that allowed this book to happen.
The music column I used to do for Art Cooper at GQ was my only contact with the printed world while writing Thing of Beauty. My editors there, especially Paul Scanlon, helped me piggyback book research onto their assignments. In a wonderful twist of fate, the person to whom I owed the most thanks at GQ, Eliot Kaplan—who also helped out with a draft of this book and has been a pal since childhood—is now editor-in-chief of Philadelphia, where I owe him other thanks.
I had written only one piece for Wayne Lawson, my editor at Vanity Fair, when he took it upon himself to filet this book down into a magazine excerpt and then sold the idea to Graydon Carter. When I tell other writer-friends about Wayne’s efforts, they are pleasantly stunned to hear that there are any editors like him left in the magazine business. So am I.
