Becoming Versace

DONATELLA Versace — kneelength platinum hair, prominent lips, glitzy gogo wardrobe — got immortalized in that “House of Versace” TV movie. Legal huffing and puffing had blown away four previous unfinished works about Donatella, who’d resisted anything about daughter Allegra, major inheritor of Uncle Gianni’s estate and once reportedly “fragile” in a facility battling “anorexia nervosa.”

Brunette Gina Gershon, who played Donatella: “Took lots of lighting, Scotch tape, makeup, prosthetics and two wigs, one of which I still hope to keep.

“For that extravagant superskinny Versace look, I didn’t mind losing 11 pounds because, having played this lady, even now I’m eating less. I minded having to smoke those incessant cigarettes she loves.

“Looking like her, playing someone like her, is nothing unusual for me. I’m an actress. It’s what I do. Tight, tight clothes and really high heels was the fun part. I watched tons of her on French video. She moves hips forward, shoulders in, neck out.

“I was once a dancer so I could do that. And I exercised like mad, did power yoga to get her Barbie doll arms. I listened to the accent. Constantly played her recordings. A speech therapist helped because the way she speaks Italian English, nobody can understand her. If it were up to me you’d have subtitles.

“She’s very smart. Understand, she went through a ringer. Her genius brother’s killed and she’s left having to run a fashion operation, develop her own style and go through hell. She’d had her excesses. It’s a story of redemption.”

The House of Versace never lifted a finger or a pattern to assist this project.