Versace vendetta
Gianni’s murder under the spotlight
Combining glamorous of fashion the and worlds Hollywood with murder and mystery, it’s the perfect recipe for a scandalous TV sensation, so it comes as no surprise that The Assassination of Gianni Versace, about the shocking real-life killing of the Italian style guru, is already a smash hit.
Critics have lauded it as “thrilling, delicious, campy television”, however, Gianni’s sister and successor, the outspoken Donatella – played by Penélope Cruz on the show – has slammed the series, branding it a “work of fiction”.
It’s a stab to the heart for Spanish screen siren Penélope, who has said, “It’s important to me that when Donatella sees what I’ve done, she can feel the love and respect that I have put there and how I feel for her.” as ambitious the But Versace perhaps a goal, family that especially was released too two statements before the Assassination premiere, condemning the show as “lurid” and based entirely on “speculation”. The series – from the same team as 2016’s award-winning The Peoplev. O.J. Simpson – is an adaptation of the book Vulgar Favours, by respected journalist Maureen Orth, who the Versace clan has accused of fabricating the story for her own notoriety and monetary gain. However, their damning disgust has done little to deter public appetite for the series, which screens here on Sky’s SoHo channel. The first episode attracted 5.5 million viewers in the US alone – a legacy to the enduring fascination with the story of Gianni and his tragic murder on the morning of July 15, 1997.
The legendary designer – portrayed by Édgar Ramírez – was shot twice at point-blank range outside his $47 million mansion in Miami Beach, Florida, as he returned from a nearby café. His longtime boyfriend Antonio D’Amico – played by Ricky Martin – ran to his aid, but the 50-year-old was already dead.
Witnesses claimed that the killer, later named as Andrew Cunanan, walked away from the scene slowly and calmly. “My heart just stopped to beat,” recalls Antonio, now 59. “I ran out and then I saw Gianni lying down on the stairs in blood.”
But it wasn’t just the shocking execution style of his death or the initial mystery
of who the murderer was that posed such a crushing calamity – it was the question of why Cunanan murdered the style icon at all that had people hooked. And shrewdly, this question is at the core of The Assassination.
Played by Glee’s Darren Criss in the series, Cunanan, a 27-year-old from San Diego, California, was tracked eight days later to a houseboat less than 5km from the Versace palazzo. He had turned his pistol on himself but hadn’t left a suicide note.
The designer had been Cunanan’s final victim after a cross-country killing spree that snuffed out the lives of four other men. His motives have always been unclear, but as the case unravelled, Cunanan was exposed as a male prostitute who targeted older, rich gay men to bankroll his lavish lifestyle.
He was a highly intelligent man but also an unapologetic show-off. He would tell extravagant tales, like eating $850 blowfish at a fancy Japanese lunch.
The first victim was his former friend Jeffrey Trail, 28, an ex-navy lieutenant who Cunanan visited at his Minneapolis home in April 1997. The year before, Jeffrey had told his inner circle that he never wanted to see Cunanan again after the pair had argued.
At their reunion, Cunanan took a claw hammer and struck him on the back of the
head. His body was later found rolled up inside a carpet.
Cunanan’s next victim was ex-boyfriend David Madson, a talented architect also living in Minneapolis. After failing to turn up to work two days in a row, his body was finally tracked down 80km out of town. He had been shot three times.
The third murder was the most gruesome. The body of Lee Miglin, a 72-year-old business tycoon living in Chicago, was found mutilated in his garage, his head almost cut clean off with a hacksaw. Chillingly, it was later revealed that after the killing, Cunanan ate a sandwich in the library and had a shave in the master bedroom, before leaving in the victim’s car with stolen cash.
FBI files claim that Cunanan was friends with the married, cashed-up tycoon, who had two grown-up children and definitely fitted the profile of the men Cunanan targeted.
“Andrew did his homework,” a former friend tells. “He would investigate older, wealthy gay men who didn’t have families and he would place himself in those circles. That was his living.”
The next killing was described as a “functional homicide”, with William Reese, the caretaker of Finn’s Point National Cemetery in Pennsville, New Jersey, found with a bullet to the back of the head. The married father-of-one was murdered for his red Chevrolet pick-up truck, which was then driven to Gianni’s home in Miami.
After three months of evading police, despite being on the FBI’s most-wanted list, Cunanan calmly walked up to Gianni on July 15 and shot him twice in the back of the head. After the designer’s body was taken away and the blood washed from the stairs, flowers and tributes started to pour in as quickly as the many theories
about the killer’s identity.
The first hunch was that the murder was a mob hit, with many speculating Gianni had become fed up by increasing pressure from mafia bosses to launder money through his successful fashion house.
But this rumour soon lost momentum and as the world learnt more about Cunanan, many wanted to know if the pair had known each other. The 1999 book Vulgar
Favours claims Cunanan and Gianni had actually met in 1990, with witnesses revealing to the author that the star approached his killer in the VIP room at a San Francisco nightclub, saying, “I know you. Lago di Como, no?”
Lago di Como was the designer’s residence in Lake Como, Italy.
Later, a second witness declared to have seen Gianni and Cunanan in a vehicle together. But it’s a claim that the Versaces and Gianni’s boyfriend Antonio both vehemently deny.
Just a month after Gianni’s death, a San Diego counsellor revealed that Cunanan had visited him in late 1996 to ask about Aids, although post-mortem tests showed that he was HIV negative.
Then, in 2014, a leaked FBI file alleged that the killer had told friends, “If I had Aids or if someone did that to me, I would go on a five-state killing spree and take everyone with me I could.”
Mystery motive
There are endless theories, some speculative and others with a little more clout. But there’s no doubt that Gianni represented something that Cunanan was desperate to have. The designer was not only adored, but he was also successful and had acquired serious wealth – around $1 billion at the time of his death – from his clothing line.
He’d come a long way from sewing for his mother Francesca, a dressmaker in Reggio Calabria, Italy. Before his death, his mastery for creating frocks that enhanced and accentuated women’s figures were world-famous.
To be clad in a Versace creation was a privilege. Princess Diana, Madonna and Kate Moss were just a few of the chosen ones. Elizabeth Hurley even credits her career
to wearing “that” Versace gown with oversized safety pins to the Four Weddings and a Funeral premiere in 1994. Gianni lived an extravagant lifestyle and he was openly gay in a time when most of those in the limelight were still firmly in the closet. And when he was murdered, the world stood still.
On July 22, a who’s who of Hollywood and fashion filled Milan Cathedral for his funeral. There was Diana, Sting, Naomi Campbell and, of course, the Versace family.
Donatella recently said, “When my brother was murdered, I had the eyes of the whole world on me and 99% of them thought I wasn’t going to make it. And maybe I thought the same at first. My brother was the king and my whole world had crashed around me.”
But then it was back to work. Gianni left a 50% share of the family’s business to Donatella’s daughter, his 11-year-old niece Allegra. She is now 31 and has battled a debilitating eating disorder throughout her adult life, shying away from publicity.
The rest was shared between Donatella, who became creative director, and her brother Santo, who was named CEO. Today, the brand is worth $5.8 billion.
It’s perhaps no surprise that when Donatella, 62, learnt that a drama was being made about Gianni, she was on board – the savvy businesswoman couldn’t overlook the free publicity. But after learning the show was more focused on Cunanan, with the help of a book that the family loathed, she vocally denounced all her support.
After all, the cold-blooded killing of her brother had given his murderer exactly what he wanted – instant notoriety – not only at the price of Gianni’s life, but his reputation too.
In Cunanan’s high-school year book, he was described as the student “most likely to be remembered” – and his portrayal in The Assassination is further feeding the beast, even if his motives will forever remain a mystery.