Gia Carangi

Her closed-casket funeral (recommended by the funeral director due to the ravages of AIDS, which was not properly understood at the time) was held on November 21 at a small funeral home in Philadelphia. Nobody from the fashion world attended, mainly because no one knew about her death until months after she had died. However, weeks later, Francesco Scavullo, Carangi's friend and confidant, sent a Mass card when he heard the news.

A biography of Carangi by Stephen Fried called Thing of Beauty (the title of John Keats' famous poem) was published in 1993. A biographical film, Gia, debuted on HBO in 1998. Angelina Jolie starred in the title role, garnering a Golden Globe award for the role.

In 1996, actress-screenwriter Zoë Tamerlis, herself a heroin addict who died of drug-related causes in 1999, was commissioned to write a screenplay based upon Carangi's life. This version of Gia was not produced, but after Tamerlis' death, footage of Carangi, Tamerlis, photographers, Carangi's family, and Sandy Linter discussing her life was incorporated into a 2003 documentary entitled The Self-Destruction of Gia. Read Less