Kim Alexis cover by John Stember
Serge Martin hair ~ Margaret Avery makeup
This issue of Glamour magazine is home to the fashion and beauty photos by John Stember photographer, Gia Carangi and Bitten Knudsen models. This was Gia and Stember’s first trip together. (Stember had already done tests with Gia in his Carnegie Hall studio).
The location: An 85-foot yacht that was chartered out of St Vincent for a two-week sailing trip/fashion and beauty photo shoot in the Caribbean, with a stop at the private island of Mustique.
Stember “There’s eight of us: Gia and Bitten, the two models, a hairdresser, a makeup artist, fashion editor and her assistant, myself and my assistant.
Gia was being particularly bratty on this trip. Gia and Bitten wanted to kill each other at times. They both harassed John Stember playfully, although unprofessionally, at times. Like two obstinate teens who just wanted to vacation and not work.
The first morning of shoot was scheduled for seven am. Gia doesn’t feel like getting up.
Stember goes down and bangs on the door, ‘Gia, come on, we’ve got a lot of work to do, the sun is good,’
Finally, Gia comes up on deck about nine “Oh, I forgot to tell you, I meant to tell you last night, but I quit modeling”.
“One night we decided to play Monopoly. Gia had a knife to Bitten’s throat because she thought she was cheating and had taken one of her properties. She was prepared to kill her. It took me two days to get them to stop threatening to kill each other.” ~John Stember, Thing of Beauty.
Stember: “Gia was like swimming around the boat, saying”, ‘Woo, woo, what are you doing, baby? Are you working?’
They got to Mustique and went to a bar named Basil’s. Gia walks in and this young dude at the bar is freaked. He doesn’t know what just arrived. He says to Gia “You’re the most beautiful thing that I’ve ever experienced in my entire life, every pore of my body is alive with your beauty” … he went on speaking like this for about fifteen minutes, giving a poetic dissertation, every word and beautiful thing he could muster in his entire being was being presented to Gia because she was so beautiful.
He thought he totally swept her away with his great tirade.
Gia looks at him and says, ‘If I look so fucking good why don’t you get me a joint?’ He leaves and comes back with a huge pink joint for her.
Unpublished Outtakes
