Thing of Beauty

Stephen Fried

Dec 2011 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

The inspiration behind the Emmy Award–winning HBO film Gia with Angelina Jolie, this “vivid…exhaustive” (The New York Times Book Review) account of the iconic and tragic life, career, and legacy of supermodel Gia Carangi features a new afterword by the author.

At seventeen, Gia Carangi was working the counter at her father’s Philadelphia luncheonette. Within a year, she was one of the world’s top models, gracing the covers of Cosmopolitan and Vogue, partying at Studio 54, and redefining the fashion industry’s standard of beauty.

But behind the glitz and fame, Gia was a young woman in pain, desperate for her mother’s approval and facing a drug addiction that quickly spun out of control. With dizzying speed, she went from $10,000-a-day fashion shoots to using drugs on the streets of New York and Atlantic City before finally being blackballed from modeling. At twenty-six, Gia once again made history as one of the first famous women to die of AIDS.

This “chilling tale” (The Boston Globe), based on hundreds of interviews with friends, family, lovers, and fashionistas (the term author Stephen Fried coined for her industry colleagues), is comprehensively explored in this unputdownable biography that will introduce Gia to a new generation. It is also a powerful exploration of our society’s views of beauty and sexuality, fame and objectification, mothers and daughters, love and death.

Ratings and reviews

Revealing and riveting; the true story of Gia, especially the desertion of Sandy Linter, so called industry friends, shallow and superficial, bar Francesco Scullvillo. The selfishness of the mother, her nightmare life as a vagrant. The rapist, pimp and adulterer Rochelle - Evelyn Golden, with the clinic wondering if the friendship was genuine on her part. Another user. A testimonial to serious depression and how heroin resolves it, but is impossible to keep up, regardless of careers kept on track.

Thing of Beauty, is a great read. if you are a interested in the model Gia Carangi then you should definitely read this book. Also I just ordered another book about Gia Carangi and the name is Born This Way: Friends, Colleagues, and Coworkers Recall Gia Carangi, the Supermodel Who Defined An Era by Sacha Lanvin Baumann is another good read to get a better picture of who this beautiful young woman was. So I hope you enjoy reading these books.

Just after reading the sample there just seems to be too much irrelevant information. So a bit boring which is a shame because i was expecting so much more substance .

About the author

Stephen Fried is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author who teaches at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Rush, Appetite for America, Thing of Beauty, Bitter Pills, and The New Rabbi, and coauthor of A Common Struggle and Profiles in Mental Health Courage. A two-time winner of the National Magazine Award, Fried has written frequently for Vanity Fair, GQ, Glamour, and Philadelphia. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, author Diane Ayres. Find out more at StephenFried.com.