Gia Scala

The Gaze Hollywood Failed to Read

Gia Scala arrived in New York at fourteen with a suitcase full of moves between Liverpool and Sicily. She wasn't obsessed with the spotlight, but she ended up studying with Stella Adler while working for an airline to pay the rent.

A talent scout spotted her in a television contest, and Universal Pictures offered her a seven-year contract in 1954. The studio machinery was looking for a new Ingrid Bergman and believed they had found her in this young woman with green eyes and a latent sadness.

But the reality of filming sets was far harsher than the promises made by agents.

Her first major role came in 1957 with The Garment Jungle. Critics praised a strange mix of fragility and toughness that didn't fit the mold of the bleached blondes who dominated the movie screens of the era.

The Navarone Peak and the Quiet Decline

In 1961, she took part in the production that was supposed to catapult her to lasting stardom. She played Anna in The Guns of Navarone alongside Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn. Her character was a resistance fighter who did not speak (an acting challenge she met with astonishing physical expressiveness).

She was paid a tiny fraction of the salary of her male co-stars even though her face sold much of the film's dramatic weight in Europe.

And success didn't bring peace.

Her marriage to actor Don Burnett in 1959 coincided with the start of her struggles with alcohol and depression. Gia began showing up late to sets, and the industry in California (always unforgiving toward other people's weaknesses) started closing the doors on major projects.

Universal canceled her contract after several public incidents that the gossip press exploited to sell newspapers. So she had to settle for sporadic appearances in television series such as Tarzan or It Takes a Thief during the second half of the 1960s.

An Ending Without Spotlights or Applause

Her divorce was finalized in 1970, and her mental stability completely collapsed. She tried to find refuge in European cinema, but producers only offered her supporting roles in B-movies that overlooked her earlier talent.

The industry forgot her quickly.

Because 1970s Hollywood no longer had room for the classic tragedies of stars who didn't know how to play the new game of modernity. Her life became a series of arrests for drunkenness and brief stays in rehab clinics that didn't work.

On April 30, 1972, her body was found lifeless in her Hollywood Hills home. The autopsy determined an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates at the age of 38. She was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, with almost no colleagues from the profession attending her funeral.