‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace’: How Miami Became the Striking Visual Epicenter

In “American Crime Story’s” second season, creator Ryan Murphy explored the social significance of the murder of legendary fashion designer Gianni Versace (Édgar Ramírez) by spree-killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) outside his Miami mansion in 1997. In particular, Murphy contrasts the high and low worlds of Versace and Cunanan in Miami, the difficulty of coming out of the closet in the ’90s, and the culture’s underlying homophobia.

Visually, it was a tour-de-force for production designer Judy Becker (“Feud: Bette and Joan”) and costume designer Lou Eyrich (a three-time Emmy winner for “American Horror Story”). And Miami’s South Beach became the visual epicenter. “It’s about the clash between the high Versace world and the low Cunanan world,” Becker said. “But then within Cunanan’s world there were the contrasts of being taken care of by sugar daddies and being on his own.”

The clothes, too, reflected the difference between Versace, who transformed fashion into a glam party world, and Cunanan, who aspired to be a part of that fantasy. “Versace liked to be stylish but comfortable, and Andrew was a chameleon: He dressed the part to fit into the older gentleman’s world,” said Eyrich.

Miami: Black and Gold Meets Pink

The Versace mansion (Casa Casuarina) has since become a boutique hotel, but, fortunately, the production was allowed access. The opening of the first episode (“The Man Who Would Be Vogue”) was completely shot in the Versace mansion, including the interior, the pool area, and the first courtyard. The interior design was intricate and extravagant, with two rooms made out of seashells. Since much of the original furniture was sold, the art department commissioned Italian upholsterers to recreate the original, Versace-designed, furniture fabric, accentuating black and gold.

“His ambition and authenticity were important to Ryan,” Becker said. “Versace was rich and successful so the sets showed the success, taste, and his personality. He was very flamboyant, but we didn’t go crazy with the palette. We used a lot of tone on tone, whereas Andrew’s sugar daddies lived in monochromatic homes, and when he was alone, Andrew lived in a world of beige.”

In the second episode (“Manhunt”), Becker built two important sets in LA for the Miami locations: the interior of the grungy Normandy Plaza Hotel, where Andrew stayed, and a more upscale hotel, where he worked as a prostitute. Both emphasized different shades of pink, at Ryan’s request. “It’s a color you see in Miami,” she said. “It’s indicative of the sunsets, and it represents the pink triangle that gay men had to wear in concentration camps.

“The Normandy had cracking on the walls and it represented a place where Andrew had no power and was alone and poor. Ryan kept telling me to add more cracks. It really showed the decay. The other hotel had pink neon and the Memphis look [with bold colors], and was a place where Andrew held power.”

High and Low Fashion Statements

Without the cooperation of the Versace fashion house, costume designers Eyrich and Allison Leach were left to their own creative devices, so they turned to online resellers to purchase authentic Versace pieces while making garments for the principal actors. Two Versace standouts included the pink robe that he wore in the beginning, and the iconic black leather bondage dress worn by his sister, Donatella (Penélope Cruz ).

In fact, Eyrich’s favorite outfit for Versace was a leather shirt and pants that she recreated from one of his research books. “It really showed the beauty of his work,” she said. But the bondage dress was a difficult construction challenge. “Trying to figure out how he draped that had all of us in the department full of awe and respect for Versace and his meticulous hand,” she added.

However, when it came to Cunanan, there was obviously a lot more artistic license in dressing the 27-year-old hustler, who relied on relationships with wealthy older men to achieve the appearance of success and affluence. Eyrich and Leach mainly used descriptions from Maureen Orth’s book, “Vulgar Favors,” from which the FX series was adapted.

But when Cunanan fled to Miami, desperate and embittered, he planned the murder of Versace with few resources. “He has very little clothes left after his killing spree and he’s using drugs and losing weight,” said Eyrich. “We back track and tell his story, dressing him very sporty and conservative or preppy to fit in.”

“It was more about not letting him stand out,” added Eyrich. “Dressing him up in a linen sport coat with the perfect jeans and a loafer for when he’s at the height of the high life, to finding a place when he’s destitute and his clothes are all too big on him.”

Darren Criss crosses to dark side

The actor and singer, best known for his role as openly gay drama student Blaine on the TV series Glee, stars in the new instalment of Ryan Murphy’s true crime anthology series American Crime Story.

Following on from the successful first season The People vs OJ Simpson, this new nine-part stand-alone season explores the killing spree of Andrew Cunanan which included the shooting of Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace on the steps of his Miami mansion.

“We get caught up in the really scary things, but we have more in common with the worst people we can think of than we care to admit,” Criss says.

“We all have access to the same emotions and actions. There’s a cocktail of variables for why we don’t go down certain paths.

“I by no means in finding all my similarities forgive or exonerate anything Andrew did. But I know what it’s like to have pain and hurt and longing. Most of that stuff doesn’t stem from these scary moments but from very simple, relate-able things.

“He was a bit of a showman. As an actor I can understand that – the desire to stand out, be ambitious, to leave a good impression. I’m also attracted to big ideas; I love flourish and embellishments.

“It becomes very easy to see how they get twisted and turned around. The point of attack (as an actor) is finding the best parts of somebody.”

Cunanan killed four other men, including Chicago business tycoon Lee Miglin, before he shot Versace. The series, which is based on Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favours, delves into those events which lead to his most infamous murder and subsequent suicide.

“The huge difference between the OJ story and this story is that most people don’t know most of the story,” Criss says. “I knew Gianni was tragically murdered on the steps of his home and I vaguely remember it was by a half-Filipino guy, but that happens in the first eight minutes of the series. There’s a whole lot more to talk about.”

Unlike his other dramatic roles, there was an added layer of responsibility for Criss in bringing a real-life tragedy to the screen.

“He was a real person who took very real people’s lives and wrought havoc on peoples lives who are still alive today,” he says.

“It’s fun to play baddies when they’re James Bond villains and you can play with the fantastical element, but when you’re inhabiting someone real it’s a different kind of invigoration.

“There’s a great deal of responsibility of making sure to tell the story right and hit the emotional beats right to not only honour those taken away but somehow allow an audience to wrap their brains around how something like this can happen.”

The drama also stars Edgar Ramirez as Gianni Versace, Ricky Martin as his partner Antonio D‘Amico and Penelope Cruz as Donatella Versace. Murphy directs five of the episodes and is an executive producer.

“He was my boss on Glee but we had never worked tog in the typical actor director relationship,” he says.

“We talked about doing the Versace story before they made the OJ series. By the time it came out, if I wasn’t already extremely excited about shooting this series then I was more excited after I saw how well he was working with true crime stories.”

Darren Criss crosses to dark side

Ricky Martin was TURNED ON in sex scenes for Versace biopic

He revealed his regret for not coming out in an interview with American talk show host Barbara Walters in 2000.

But Ricky Martin wasn’t holding anything back after claiming he got ‘excited’ while shooting a steamy scene for new series, The Assassination of Gianni Versace.

‘There was a beautiful model next to me in bed and so I did some method acting,’ he told The Sun Herald, before adding: ‘I got a little bit excited.’

‘The exhibitionist [in me] was acting up because there was 40 people running cameras. I used to always ask, “How do actors do it?” But now I know how they do it.’

With a cheeky chuckle, the 46-year-old hunk added: ‘It was amazing!’

In his first lead acting role, the former Voice Australia coach stars as the late designer’s boyfriend Antonio D’Amico in the glossy biopic focused on Gianni Versace’s shocking murder in 1997.

Alongside Edgar Ramirez, Darren Criss and Penelope Cruz – who has won rave reviews for her portrayal of Gianni’s fashion maven sister, Donatella – Ricky believes the Ryan Murphy penned saga puts the spotlight on homophobia.

Married to artist Jwan Yosef, the father-of-two said it was so important to highlight the struggles the LGBTQI community face.

‘To be able to talk about homophobia, even still today, is very important!’

Officially coming out in 2010, the Livin’ la Vida Loca singer revealed his regret at not disclosing his sexuality during an interview with US talk show host, Barbara Walters in 2000.

‘Why didn’t I say yes back then?’ he reflected during a recent appearance on Watch What Happens Live.

The singer admitted he should have been honest and open after being grilled about the topic for years.

Now completely in charge of his personal life, Ricky claimed: ‘I believe that everybody should just say yes. If you are, say yes.’

The star tied the knot with Yosef in 2017. The couple raise nine year-old twin boys, Matteo and Valentino.

Ricky Martin was TURNED ON in sex scenes for Versace biopic

My Friend Dahmer: is it time to stop glamorising the serial killer?

My Friend Dahmer is about as unglamorous a serial-killer movie as you could hope for: it doesn’t even feature any murders (not of humans, at least). Instead, it lays out the warning signs that all was not right with the teenage Jeffrey Dahmer: his unstable parents, his repressed sexuality, his high-school victimisation, his unwholesome interest in anatomy.

And yet, by its very existence, the movie can’t help but glamorise its subject, who went on to variously rape, murder, dismember, violate and cannibalise his 17 male victims. It doesn’t matter if you portray them as damaged souls or psychopaths; you’re still adding to the legend. Faced with this realisation, much of our current serial-killer fare has cast realism aside to embrace the glamour. That was certainly true of Ryan Murphy’s miniseries The Assassination of Gianni Versace, whose glitzy Miami settings, A-list cast and 90s couture made for a more appealing watch than such grubby classics as, say, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Meanwhile, Zac Efron is set to play Ted Bundy in a big-screen thriller that suggests that, with the right breaks, Bundy could have had a fruitful career as a lifeguard. And who knows what Quentin Tarantino’s forthcoming Manson flick has in store? He’s described it as “probably the closest to Pulp Fiction that I have done”.

Post-Hannibal Lecter, we prefer our killers cultured, intelligent and presentable, like Dexter, American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman or Kevin Spacey in Seven. That dangerous glamour also rubs off on the actors. It never looks bad to have a serial-killer role on your CV, especially if all that’s on it so far are wholesome teen roles. That was the case with Ross Lynch, AKA Young Jeffrey Dahmer, who’s been largely a Disney kid up to now. Versace’s murderer Andrew Cunanan was played by Darren Criss, previously best known for Glee, just as Efron was once indelibly associated with High School Musical.

Which brings us to the best current take on serial killers: David Fincher’s Netflix series Mindhunter, detailing the early history of FBI psychological profiling. Our wide-eyed fed hero, Holden (Jonathan Groff, another Glee graduate), is almost starstruck by the killers he interviews, including Ed Kemper and Richard Speck. He considers Manson the ultimate challenge. But unlike previous serial-killer thrillers, including Fincher’s own Seven and Zodiac, Mindhunter examines the troubling mix of awe and disgust with which we regard these murderers. In the final episode, Holden visits Kemper in hospital. “Why are you here, Holden?” Kemper asks. “I don’t know,” Holden replies. Kemper then hugs him, as he finally realises how totally messed up things have become. We’re right there with him.

My Friend Dahmer: is it time to stop glamorising the serial killer?

21st Century Fox Falls Short Of Earnings Expectations, As Broadcast TV Revenue Plummets

Fox’s cable business was a bright spot, with operating income of $1.68 billion for the quarter, up 16% from a year ago. FX network drama The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story and the Donald Glover comedy Atlanta were two shows Murdoch identified as performing well.

“Our cable segment delivered its highest earnings ever in our fiscal third quarter, propelled by sustained double-digit gains in domestic affiliate revenues,” said Executive Chairmen Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch. “Creatively, we are firing on all cylinders. Our stand-out programming continues to drive up the value of our video brands to distributors, as well as build our direct relationship with consumers, as we’re demonstrating with the successful inaugural season of Indian Premiere League on STAR Sports and Hotstar platforms.”

21st Century Fox Falls Short Of Earnings Expectations, As Broadcast TV Revenue Plummets

On my radar: Matthew Bourne’s cultural highlights

4. TV
The Assassination of Gianni Versace (BBC Two)

I’m very interested in storytelling and anything that plays with structure. Rather than building up to it, we actually get the killing of Versace in episode one and then you go back in time. I feel very drawn in by the character of Andrew Cunanan, played by Darren Criss in a real breakthrough performance. You get an insight into the mind of this serial killer and it’s interesting that, even though he goes around killing people, you have a certain sense of sympathy towards him. It’s really well produced and very glamorous. [Executive producer] Ryan Murphy is the king of television at the moment.

On my radar: Matthew Bourne’s cultural highlights

‘It’s time for a blanket ban on naming pathetic, deluded sick killers’

I’ve just finished watching a series on the BBC which had the most misleading title since Bobby Davro: Rock With Laughter.

Just as mirth failed to rock anyone within wincing distance of Bobby’s show, so The Assassination of Gianni Versace had little to do with the murdered fashion designer.

It was basically a nine-hour glamorisation of his murderer, serial killer Andrew Cunanan .

The sad, not good-looking, attention-seeking, blood-lusting misfit was played by Darren Criss, the handsome, talented, empathetic star of the hit TV show Glee.

The Versace series effectively endowed star status on a man who brutally took five lives. It elevated a non-entity from being the killer of a celebrity to a celebrity killer.

If Cunanan, an extreme narcissist whose only aim in life was achieving fame, had watched this series he’d have been living out his ultimate wet dream.

Which is why I had this uneasy feeling throughout.

That in some bedsit, another inadequate saddo who couldn’t find a job or form a relationship and blamed his plight on a big, bad world that didn’t understand him, was seeing his own story unfold.

And when it came to the scene, after Versace’s murder, where Cunanan dances around a room howling with delight and swigging champagne as his face appears on every US TV news channel, that bedsit saddo’s mind was made up – it was his destiny to copy Cunanan by forcing the world to give him the recognition he was currently denied.

Then, on Monday, a van was driven onto a Toronto pavement claiming 10 lives , and the man accused of the murders, Alek Minassian, had his smiling face plastered all over our TV screens, as friends described him as a loner who struggled to hold down a relationship.

He’d been inspired, not by Cunanan, but by another misfit who’d achieved fame through a murder spree. Minassian belongs to an online group called Incel, which stands for Involuntary Celibate, a mysogynistic rabble who believe they’re being unfairly denied love and validation by women because they’re unattractive or socially awkward.

And who pledge violence as revenge.

In what is alleged to have been Minassian’s last Facebook post he paid tribute to the group’s hero, woman-hater Elliot Rodger, who had killed six people in a gun rampage near the University of California on his “day of retribution” in 2014.

Who knows, maybe the fame being showered on Minassian is now inspiring a similarly inadequate loser to follow in his path. And on it goes.

As we approach the anniversary of the Manchester terror attack, when 22 innocents were murdered, I only want to hear words about those lovely young people still deeply mourned by their shattered families.

I don’t want to see the face of their killer. I wish we’d never heard his name.

Indeed I wish the world’s major TV and publishing organisations would agree, for an experimental period, to a blanket ban on naming all terrorists, serial killers and mass-murderers.

Referring to them as Just Another Pathetic Non-Entity.

With the internet, it’s impossible for the names not to come out. But a global mass media ban would mean their faces weren’t plastered all over TV screens, their back stories weren’t told in papers, and all focus instead would be on the victims whose lives were stolen in their bid for recognition.

Because if it stopped even one deluded narcissist from killing due to there being no mass fame on offer, the experiment would have been worth it.

And might be made permanent.

‘It’s time for a blanket ban on naming pathetic, deluded sick killers’

One-On-One With The King Of Vintage Fashion, Seth Weisser, Of Celeb-Favorite WGACA

HL: Do you curate each store to the specific location in terms of what you carry?

SW: Yes, our stores are a unique experience because each store has one-of-a-kind products. My partner Gerard is very careful with the way he designs each of the stores in the different locations—each are unique based on the space and based on the market. We’re consistent in that the service and the quality of the product is the same, but each store has a totally different feel on a cultivated uniqueness that makes it fun for our customer to come to new stores. Between our five stores, you’ll find that what we have in Miami is distinctively different than what we have in Beverly Hills or New York. So, you’ll want to go to each store to see what pieces are there that fits their style at the moment, and each market gets a little bit of its moment. For example, In Miami, we’ve been emphasizing Versace because it’s been really hot since the show [American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace] came out.

One-On-One With The King Of Vintage Fashion, Seth Weisser, Of Celeb-Favorite WGACA

TV review: The Assassination of Gianni Versace; The Secret Life of the Zoo

The Assassination of Gianni Versace
BBC Two
★★★★☆

The title The Assassination of Gianni Versace has turned out to be something of a misnomer. It isn’t about Versace’s killing, it is about his killer. Versace is a bit character fussing over dog-collar dresses (and, lest we forget, that safety-pin frock that introduced us to Liz Hurley’s breasts). As a portrait of a fantasist serial murderer it has been mesmerically done, mostly thanks to Darren Criss. His portrayal of Andrew Cunanan, who killed five people before putting a bullet through his head, has been consistently outstanding.

However, recently the show has become flabby. Like many dramas, it has suffered mid-series spread, using more filler than a meal-deal supermarket sandwich (part seven last week being a case in point). Last night’s penultimate episode also went round the houses, but in showing us Cunanan’s childhood and his abusive weirdo father who hero-worshipped his youngest son and kissed his feet when he got into the “right” school it at least brought us closer to the nub: what made Cunanan a monster. It’s a cautionary tale for anyone who repeatedly tells their child that they are “special”.

These were helpful retrospectives, with Cunanan’s broker father being caught for fraud and bolting to his native Philippines, leaving his family homeless and penniless, then telling his son to be a man for once and stab him. The timeline has been messed with far too much, but here, at last, we saw the making of the narcissist as Andrew, aged 11, was given the master bedroom while his older, unfavoured siblings shared. “If you’re a lie, then I’m a lie,” the young Cunanan told his fugitive father. And a lie is what his entire life went on to be, with him hiring himself out to men for sex under pseudonyms while pretending Daddy was a high-flyer.

Running in parallel was a mini version of Versace’s childhood in Italy, with his mother supporting his dream of being a dress designer even as his teacher called him a pervert. The stage is fully set now for the finale and although I’m very queasy about TV shows immortalising serial killers, thereby giving them what they always craved — notoriety — I think our patience will be rewarded. It’s just a shame it’s been about three episodes too long.

TV review: The Assassination of Gianni Versace; The Secret Life of the Zoo

Gentrification May Be Killing The Gay Bar. But The Way The LGBTQ Community Communes Today Is Changing.

From coast to coast, gay bars seem to be disappearing.

In recent years, San Francisco has lost The Gangway, the city’s oldest continuously running gay establishment and Latino staple Esta Noche in the Mission, as well as Lion Pub, The Lexington Club and Marlena’s.

In New York, legendary leather bar The Rawhide, open since 1979, ‘90s power club Splash, and Chelsea’s G Lounge, have all shuttered, not to mention Urge Lounge, Escuelita, and once-throbbing parties such as Westgay, Pretty Ugly, and JB Saturday’s.

In Los Angeles, The Palms, one of the city’s last remaining lesbian bars, WeHo’s diverse mega-club Circus Disco, and Silver Lake’s The Other Side have all gone — and the list seems to keep growing.

We all know the drill, that familiar story of gentrification once again running its course: Gays move in to downtrodden neighborhoods, open and other establishments, turn them into hip enclaves that quickly attract the developers and the upwardly-mobile straight families who then price them out of the very places they were at the forefront of revitalizing. (Race also, obviously, is an enormous factor in this.)

While we celebrate the meteoric expansion of LGBTQ rights, we still need places where we can celebrate our otherness.

We need look only to Miami Beach to see just how extreme this trend can become. Watching “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” on FX these past few months, I’m reminded of all the places I hung out in during my frequent visits to South Beach in the mid-‘90s: Warsaw. Amnesia. Salvation. Twist. Kremlin. Les Bains. A city that housed dozens of gay bars has been left with only a handful.

The condos go up and the gays move away, off to find more affordable digs that they can then spruce up and claim as their own. A walk through the West Village, Chelsea, or the Castro only serves to reinforce just how much has changed: Neighborhoods that were once thought of as gay “ghettos” have gotten complete makeovers, complete with expensive bistros, real estate offices, outposts of large corporate chains, bank branches, and probably a Whole Foods.

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Gentrification May Be Killing The Gay Bar. But The Way The LGBTQ Community Communes Today Is Changing.