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Cher, Elizabeth Taylor recalled Versace fondly CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21
But both the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times book reviewers reported that Orth was wrong about Versace’s HIV status. In an April 11, 1999 review for the New York Times, then-Washington correspondent Frank Bruni writes that “the breadth and thoroughness of Orth’s research are often staggering,” but “Orth often loses her footing.” “When Cunanan was found on a houseboat there, dead from a gunshot to his head, just eight days after Versace’s murder, the case was pretty much closed. An autopsy showed that Cunanan had not contracted HIV, disproving some speculation about what triggered his spree,” Bruni writes. In her March 24, 1999 column, the L.A. Times senior fashion writer Valli HermanCohen notes that Orth is a fourthgeneration Californian married to ‘Meet the Press’ moderator Tim Russert. “Her book claims that Versace was HIV positive, which the Versace family has repeatedly denied. During the manhunt, police were testing a theory that Cunanan killed Versace in revenge for transmitting AIDS to him. … But as it turned out, according to the medical examiner, Cunanan was HIV negative. Apparently rumors had circulated in South Beach that Versace had AIDS when he appeared gaunt, weak and emaciated in 1995. A Versace associate told Orth that by the end of that year, the designer “could barely walk half a block.” But his health improved six months before his murder, Orth writes, because he was taking the miracle new AIDS medication. “My time with Gianni which was well over a year,” Michael Anketell tells the Los Angeles Blade. Anketell founded the California Fashion Industry Friends of People Living with AIDS benefit that honored Versace in 1991 at the Century Plaza Hotel. “I saw him with great stamina when in the throes of his work, but when I visited him in Milano he seemed quite tired and frail. Just my observation. We had great talks about L.A. and my coming of age in La La Land. He was fascinated by the famous people I had come to know and how serendipitous life can be.” Anketell and a steering committee launched the fashion show fundraisers in 1987 to benefit AIDS Project Los Angeles. Even though designer Perry Ellis had died of AIDS, it was hard to get people to turn out. With a few exceptions such as Elizabeth Taylor and Bette Midler, “Hollywood was as squeamish about the whole issue of AIDS as was the rest of the country,” Anketell writes in his book “Heavenly Bodies: Remembering Hollywood and Fashion’s Favorite AIDS Benefit.” “Finally, because fashion and entertainment are so integrally part of people’s lives, it can also be easy to forget that, first and foremost, they are
APLA CEO STEVE BENNETT, actress/model KELLY LeBROCK, actor STEVEN SEGAL, Versace Boutique owner CAROLYN MAHBOUBI and fashion show founder/producer MICHAEL ANKETELL at the Gianni Versace gala at Century Plaza Hotel in 1991. PHOTO COURTESY MICHAEL ANKETELL
industries and, like businesses, do not want to be associated with any issue that might offend any segment of their potential customer base.” The Versace show was the fifth benefit for APLA and by 1991, Hollywood had stepped up. But this was the “first fullblown retrospective of his career,” Anketell says. “It was a big deal. People flew in from all over the world” to honor the designer who dressed and was close friends with Princess Diana, Elton John, Cher, George Michael and created that famous red jacket Michael Jackson wore in “Thriller.” Since this was to benefit people with HIV/AIDS, the designers were responsible for 50 percent of the budget and the whole look of the show. Versace’s team designed the entire ballroom, flying in a backdrop from the La Scala opera house that looked like an Italian garden, using Versace fabric for tablecloths and lampshades. Elizabeth Taylor dropped by during rehearsals and walked out with an armful of clothes, Anketell says. “Gianni’s brother Santo told me not to worry about money. They would pay for everything,” he says. That included flying in the Fab Five top supermodels — Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista and Claudia Schiffer, all of whom donated their time. There were hitches, of course. When it was announced that Versace would be the honoree, Cher’s manager called Anketell to say she wanted to be a presenter. However Cher had stiffed Anketell in 1989 in the show honoring Bob Mackie. Though there was a whole segment devoted to the singer’s Mackie outfits, Cher failed to show up until the middle of the benefit when she came in a motorcycle jacket and torn jeans to underscore a tiff. Anketell nervously agreed to have Cher present Versace at the tribute. “We were getting ready for her to go out and she caught a glimpse of herself
in the mirror and she thought she looked fat. She refused to go out,” he says. Anketell quickly resorted to plan B, made his way through his bodyguards to get to Sylvester Stallone and asked him to introduce his close friend Versace. But by the time they got backstage, Cher changed her mind and decided to go on after all.
“They got into a tiff, she pushed him and he fell over. He isn’t a tall man and he wore lifts,” Anketell says. But he got up, brushed himself off, cast aside the remarks prepared for Cher and winged it. “Gianni was like a brother to him — this Italian brotherhood,” Anketell says. “To hear Stallone talk from his heart, he always plays the macho man and here he was at an AIDS benefit introducing one of his closest friends. It was quite moving.” “Gianni could never understand why we chose him to be honored instead of Armani,” Anketell says. “It was because of his grace and how open he was about being gay.” Anketell says he was devastated to hear about Versace’s murder. “I can’t explain how much grief I felt. I worked with Gianni for over a year on the show. I was a guest in his house,” says Anketell, who is now battling cancer. “And when someone you know dies so unexpectedly — this unpreparedness washes over you. I couldn’t talk for a couple of days. It was just such a shock.” “Young people don’t understand what it was like for us during those days” Anketell says. He hopes Ryan Murphy’s series will get people interested in the Gianni Versace he knew.
Versace docudrama compelling, well-acted By JOHN PAUL KING “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” made its much-anticipated premiere on Jan. 17 (on FX), and promises to deliver the same kind of savvy and cinematic style that elevated last season’s topic of the O.J. Simpson trial above the level of a lurid potboiler and prevented it from being an exploitative rehash of a story most of us already knew all too well. The murder of fashion giant Versace on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion in 1997 came as a shocking twist at the end of a news story that had already been unfolding for weeks. In April, Andrew Cunanan, a 27-year old San Diego resident, had begun a cross-country killing spree that started with the beating death of an acquaintance and claimed the lives of at least three more people before climaxing in the shooting of Versace on July 15. With the first installment of “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” producer Ryan Murphy and writer Tom Rob Smith waste no time in addressing that question. After an elegantly orchestrated opening sequence depicting the events of that July morning, in which the activities of both Versace and Cunanan are intercut until they come together for their fatal meeting, the show immediately begins to explore a subtle but pervasive homophobic slant. The first episode culminated with the arrival of Donatella Versace (played with imperious splendor by a spectacularly blond-wigged Penelope Cruz), who swoops in to protect the family business by clamping down on the way her dearly departed brother’s image is depicted in the media. Though it’s never explicitly stated, it’s clear that public perception of his sexuality — which was an “open secret” during his life — is central to her concerns. Despite solid acting and amazing period detail, what makes the show worth watching is that it fearlessly explores the deeper issue behind the investigation — homophobia, much like the exploration of racism that fueled the first season of the show dedicated to the Simpson case. It will be interesting to see how Murphy and company further explore this thread in upcoming episodes.