New York City photographer Steve Prezant worked with the beautiful Gia only once, but that single experience made a significant impression on him.
The photo shoot was for a client called Christie Brothers. They wanted an ad for the New York Times and some other magazines, and Gia was one of the models.
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From the book “Born This Way” by Sacha Lanvin Baumann
Steve Prezant: It was an all day, on location shoot, and it was nice. Gia rode with Bob Menna (male model) in his great looking Mercedes convertible to location. I think that maybe someone else was in the car with them. The rest of us drove in the location van, the assistants, the clients, the rest of the crew, along with all the equipment.
So, when we got to the location, the models went into a house to do makeup and hair and clothing, and me and my crew were in an RV. I would go into and check up on makeup and hair to keep everyone on track with time. It was loose, no animosity at all, that’s how it sort of worked. Gia would get a little grin on her face, or mock in a way, but it was loose.
The people that I brought in were terrific, nice guys. The makeup artist was Harie von Wijnberrge, a really nice guy. Everybody had a really great sense of humor. Everybody was very relaxed, with the exception of the art director who was constantly on my back saying, ‘Come on, come on, come on’. (laughs). The models weren’t paying much attention to him because it was otherwise so relaxed and loose, so he would come to me and ask me to go to the models to hurry them along.
At the time, Gia was one of the stars in New York.
There was one funny moment that day. There was this one shot, and I think Bob Menna and Anna Anderson were there, as well as the creative director. The concept was to put Gia on a step. She was supposed to step down and jump into the male model’s arms. It was sort of corny because he sort of had his arms down, and she was supposed to leap into his arms, and he was supposed to grab her, but the shoot was intended to capture the execution of the leap.
It was weird because she was wearing a mink coat, and she was hard to catch. it took a while to get it done the way the director wanted it, and we shot lots and lots of leaps, laughs It was a very easy movement really, but the logistics of setting the shot up were not. Gia had to be at a certain distance where you wanted her to leap off the step, but then when she leaped, she went crashing into him. It was a sort of funny, establishing that shot until it worked.
Gia had a terrific look. She also had a reputation as what they would now call a supermodel. She was so nice, though she was also being kind of difficult in her way. She was very much in demand, and she knew that, but unlike other, well-known, in-demand models in my experience, she didn’t really like taking directions (he laughs).
It’s not like she did it on purpose, but it’s like a champion baseball player in America or a famous soccer player in Italy. She had an attitude like, ‘I didn’t get famous because I listened to you. I got famous because of what I do and the way I do it.’ And I don’t think that was really anything bad. You’ve got to remember, when I worked with her, she was maybe eighteen or nineteen. Looking back from the perspective of my age now, she was a baby, she was a kid. When I said to her: ‘Do this or do that’, she would sort of try to do it, but she did it in her own way.
Another model there, Anna Anderson. She was older than Gia. She did what was asked of her, and she did it like a commercial model: ‘I’m doing this for the money, and when I’m done, I’m done. I’ll take the money I earned by doing what you asked.’ She and Gia had two different approaches. If I asked Gia to do something … it’s not that she wouldn’t do it, but she wouldn’t do it exactly the way I wanted, and her attitude was that she wasn’t going to give me what I wanted but rather what she wanted.
She wasn’t rude. She was like young kids are, a little loose. It seemed she didn’t care about the client, but she wasn’t rude. She was a big child, she was there, making some money and having a good time, and that was that.
I think she was thrown into it. She was very pretty and very sexy, and there was a lot of demand for what she had, because she was different. She could make money quickly. Gia wasn’t blonde, and she had that difference. She had a sexy look, and I don’t think it was what she wanted but, like I said, she got thrown into it. She saw that people liked her look, and she found out that was a way she could make money, and people really wanted her because she was different from other models, and despite her behavior, she could get away with a lot. She knew that. At that time, you could get away with a lot more in general.
What I’m saying is that she was really nice, but her attitude wasn’t, ‘I need the money to further my career,’ It was closer to, ‘I’m Gia. I’m here to make money, and I happened to fall into this line of work. Later I want to go home and go to a club.’
She was different from all the other models I worked with at the time. She was the one who had a different mindset. The others were into their careers, but she gave the impression she wasn’t. That it was for the money. The client might be looking at her and thinking, ‘What is she bringing to the table?’ and then you shot her, and you’d see the photo, and if you got her in ‘the moment’ it was her. It was just her.
My impression of Gia is that she was just very nice, very sweet, and she seemed, in a way innocent, what is the word, simpatico.’ There was something vulnerable about her. She was young. If you looked in her eyes, you’d see a sort of vulnerability. But in terms of drugs, no one did anything out in the open in that shoot. We were all together with the client and it was tighter on the set.
From what I remember, Gia was a lovely sweet young girl. I mean, I didn’t know her that well, but in terms of what I saw working with her that day, she was very nice. Honestly, I saw her being her. I was a very busy commercial photographer at that time, and I was working a lot. I mean, if it weren’t for Gia or some of the other people, it would have been just another shoot for me. She was a sweetheart, and she might have had some issues, but who didn’t have them?
To me a big issue that is still prevalent in the industry, whether it’s film or photography or fashion, is that these young people get there, and it is very, very hard for them to be like normal kids, like normal people. The bottom line is that Gia was a normal person, but things happened to her so fast, too fast, and she’d had no education about how to handle success. ~
You can find the book “Born This Way” on Amazon