Category Archives: Iconic
i get so inspired and excited when…
Twenty Six between life & death: Gia Marie Carangi
Now back to Gia Marie Carangi..as she completely captured me with her “singularity in fashion” and her very very sad story. Everybody knew this uncommon girl as Gia when she breaked into the world of high-fashion as a hurricane at the age of 17. Looking like a tomboy with a knife in her pocket, she came to Wilhelmina Cooper model agency and become a number one model in the end of 70s. Everybody wanted her on the cover on their magazines. But fame wasn’t a number one goal for Gia, she was looking for more..she was looking for someone who’ll love her for who she is, she was looking for understanding. But even her beauty, talent and deep inner world never brought her happyness. Problems in family, perhaps, made her too sensitive for this cruel world. Loss of her close friend Wilhemina Cooper also was a big shock for Gia, that likely pulled her to the edge..and falling into the abyss was her affection to heroin, that ended up with her death at the age of 26. She was the first famous woman in U.S.A. to die of AIDS.
Knowing that she is to die soon, Gia wrote in her diary: “Life and death, energy and peace. If I stop today it was still worth it. Even the terrible mistakes that I made and would have unmade if I could. The pains that have burned me and scarred my soul, it was worth it, for having been allowed to walk where I’ve walked, which was to hell on earth, heaven on earth, back again, into, under, far in between, through it, in it, and above.”
And no doubt she was a very talented person who could have had much more brighter future. She wanted to learn photography and have kids, but in the end she said: “I think God has a plan for me, but I don`t think it`s in this life.”..
Facts about Gia:
*She was born in Philadelphia on 29 January, 1960.
*She had italian bloods in her veins from her father & irish and welsh from her mother.
*Gia was known to be a bisexual.
*Carangi was a regular at Studio 54 and the Mudd Club. She usually used cocaine in clubs, but later began to develop a heroin addiction.
* Gia was romanticly linked to her make-up assistant Sandy Linter.
*Carangi did her first major shoot with top fashion photographer Chris von Wangenheim.
*Gia’s body measurements were: (US) 34-24-35/(EU) 86.5-61-89; height 5’7″ (170 cm).
* Cindy Crawford, who also appeared on the covers of fashion publications during her time, was later referred to as “Baby Gia” due to her resemblance to Carangi.
Films about Gia:
*”Thing Of Beauty” 1993’s bio
*”The Self-Destruction of Gia” documentary
*”GIA” HBO movie staring Angelina Jolie as Gia.
Interesting Links:
www.gia-carangi.com
www.giacarangi.com
Beauty Through the Decades: 90’s
Winona Ryder is an american actress.
Christina Ricci is an American actress. Ricci received initial recognition and praise as a child star for her performance as Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993), and her role as Kat Harvey in Casper (1995). Ricci made a transition into more adult-oriented roles with The Ice Storm (1997), followed by an acclaimed performance in The Opposite of Sex (1998), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She continued her success with well-received performances in Sleepy Hollow (1999) and Monster (2003).
Supermodels of 90s: Cindy & Claudia
Juliet Lewis is an American actress and musician. Juliette gained international fame for her role in the 1991 thriller Cape Fear for which she received an Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. This followed with major roles in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Natural Born Killers, The Evening Star, and From Dusk Till Dawn. Her work in television has resulted in two Emmy nominations.
Kim Basinger is an American actress and former fashion model.
Madonna (one of her 90s looks)
Monica Belluci is an Italian actress and fashion model.
Sharon Stone is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for her performance in Casino.
Sophie Marceau is a French actress.
Vanessa Paradis is a French singer, model and actress. She became a child star at 14 with the worldwide success of her single “Joe le taxi“. Since then, she has accomplished a career in music, movies and modelling.
Liv Tyler (born July 1, 1977) is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith‘s lead singer, Steven Tyler, and Bebe Buell, model and singer. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14, but after less than a year she decided to focus on acting.
Tori Amos is an American pianist and singer-songwriter. She was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument.
Beauty Through the Decades: 80’s
Talking about music, the decade began with anti-disco backlash in US and 80s music would be characterized by the wide spread synthesizers and keyboards. The main tendencies in music were New Romantics, New Wave, Synth Pop Glam Metal, Heavy Metal, Hard Rock and Hip-Hop. Madonna was regarded as the most groundbreaking female artist of decade, she was noted for her many fashion incarcations (smells like Lady Gaga in the end of 00’s). The super-cool haircut was mullet and intentionally messed-up and off-colored hair. And 80s gave birth to such popular cloth items as leggings, headbands, skinny ripped jeans, leather pants, Ray Ban Glasses, open-shoulder shirts, bolero-jackets, leotards, sweatshirts, Dr. Martens…In make up there was different tendencies mixed up: from crazy and motley colours and heavy make-up to something more natural. However we can notice most of this on the Famous & Beautiful girls of 80’s:
P.S. Dear Earthling, if i’ve forgot somebody beautiful and important of this time period – please do not keep silence! Leave Comments, telling me who should also be in the list. Merci.
Beauty Through the Decades: 70’s
Grace Jones is a Jamaican-American singer, model and actress. Jones secured a record deal with Island Records in 1977, which resulted in a string of dance-club hits. In the late 1970s, she adapted the emerging New Wave music style and adopted a severe, androgynous look with square-cut hair and angular, padded clothes. Throughout the 1970s, she also became a muse to Andy Warhol, who photographed her extensively. During this era she regularly went to the New York City nightclub Studio 54.
P.S. Dear Earthling, if i’ve forgot somebody beautiful and important of this time period – please do not keep silence! Leave Comments, telling me who should also be in the list. Merci.
Beauty Through the Decades: 60’s
In the 1960s women were once again moving out of the domestic sphere and into the workplace, pursuing careers as well as an education. As a result, in the early to mid-1960s women reacted against the time-consuming, complex hairstyles of the ’50s and opted for more practical short styles (often variations of the 1920s bob), or long, straight hair. There was only one makeup look throughout the 1960s: dark eyes paired with pale lips (or, by the late ’60s, no makeup at all).
Nico was a German singer, composer, fashion model, actress, and Warhol Superstar. She is known for both her vocal collaboration on The Velvet Underground‘s debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, and her work as a solo artist from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. She also had roles in several films, including a cameo in Federico Fellini‘s La Dolce Vita (1960) and Andy Warhol‘s Chelsea Girls (1966), as herself. She was related to Hermann Päffgen, who founded the Päffgen brewery in 1883 in Cologne.
P.S. Dear Earthling, if i’ve forgot somebody beautiful and important of this time period – please do not keep silence! Leave Comments, telling me who should also be in the list. Merci.
Beauty Through the Decades: 50’s
Wilhelmina Cooper was a model who began with Ford Models and, at the peak of her success, founded her own agency, Wilhelmina Models, in New York City in 1967.
Gina Lollobrigida is an Italian actress and photojournalist. She was one of the most prominent actresses in Europe of the 1950s and early 1960s. Today, she remains an active supporter of Italian and Italian American causes, particularly the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF). In 2008, she received the NIAF Lifetime Achievement Award at the Foundation’s Anniversary Gala.
P.S. Dear Earthling, if i’ve forgot somebody beautiful and important of this time period – please do not keep silence! Leave Comments, telling me who should also be in the list. Merci.
Beauty Through the Decades: 40’s
Vivien Leigh was an English actress famous for playing Scarlett O’Hara in 1939’s film “Gone with the Wind”.
Deanna Durbin is a Canadian-born, Southern California-raised retired singer and actress, who appeared in a number of musical films in 1930s and 1940s singing standards as well as operatic arias.
P.S. Dear Earthling, if i’ve forgot somebody beautiful and important of this time period – please do not keep silence! Leave Comments, telling me who should also be in the list. Merci.
Beauty Through the Decades: 1920’s & 30’s
Marlene Dietric – Berlin 20s-(German actress and singer. In 1920s Berlin, she acted on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola-Lola in The Blue Angel, directed by Josef von Sternberg, brought her international fame and a contract with Paramount Pictures in the US.)
Lilian Gish was a prominent film star of the 1910s and 1920s, particularly associated with the films of director D.W. Griffith, including her leading role in Griffith’s seminal Birth of a Nation (1915). Her sound-era film appearances were sporadic, but included memorable roles in the controversial western Duel in the Sun (1946) and the offbeat thriller Night of the Hunter (1955). She did considerable television work from the early 1950s into the 1980s, and closed her career playing, for the first time, opposite Bette Davis in the 1987 film, The Whales of August.
Jeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier.
Franciska Gaal was a Hungarian cabaret artist who had a brief career in films.
Tamara Makarova was a Soviet actress. She appeared in 31 films between 1927 and 1984. She was married to the Soviet film director Sergei Gerasimov.
Lyubov Orlova was the first recognized star of Soviet cinema, famous theatre actress and a gifted singer. She was born to a middle class family in Zvenigorod near Moscow and grew up in Yaroslavl. When she was seven, Fyodor Shalyapin predicted her future as a famous actress.
Marina Ladynina was a famous soviet (Russian) stage and fild actress.
P.S. Dear Earthling, if i’ve forgot somebody beautiful and important of this time period – please do not keep silence! Leave Comments, telling me who should also be in the list. Merci.