Gianni Versace & Andrew Cunanan
by Todd Richmond
365Gay.com Features Editor

A gay hero and a gay killer.  The events that brought them together July 25, 1997 in Miami might have been the subject of pulp fiction or a TV movie of the week.  But tragically they were true events.

Versace was at the peak of his fashion career.  He was as fearless in his vision for aesthetics as he was in his openness about being gay.

He was one Italy's first public figures to come out and worked tirelessly with out singer-composer Elton John   on behalf of people living with AIDS.

He was born in Italy but had bought a villa in Miami's South Beach and recently moved in.

Born in Reggio Calabria in 1946, Versace was nurtured on fashion; his mother was a couturier. 

Gianni began his apprenticeship at a young age, helping his mother find precious stones and gold braid with which to embroider dresses. He studied architecture before moving to Milan at the age of 25 to work in fashion design. In 1972, his knits drew the attention of head-hunters at Genny and Callaghan. Complice hired him to design their leather and suede collections. In March 1978, Versace showed his first women's collection, following it up the next year with his men's debut.

In 1982, Versace unleashed his fluid, metallic mesh garments on the fashion world. They have since become classics in a Versace repertory of jubilant vulgarity. It fulminates with florid colors, classical Greek and Roman motifs, and reams of gold.

He designed elaborate stage costumes for Elton John in the late '80s cementing his reputation as one of the beautiful people.

Versace's kinetic, kaleidoscope prints, biker leathers and skinny silhouettes are designed for maximum attention-grabbing. Jon Bon Jovi, Sting, Tina Turner, Madonna and the Artist Formerly Known as Prince all wore his designs.

He also created for opera, theatre and ballet. 

But, while Versace was at the top, Andrew Cunanan was in the depths.  

Both men created worlds. Cuanan's though was fabrication and delusion. 

When he graduated from high school Cunanan was voted by his classmates "Most Likely Not to Be Forgotten"

For years he had portrayed himself to friends in San Diego he as Andrew DeSilva, a man with a factory in Mexico, or wealthy parents in the Philippines, or a wife and daughter--the ones in the photo he would pass around that he got from who knows where. 

He worked his way into the lives of wealthy gay men living off his generosity.  But, by April 1997, when police say he started a cross-country killing spree that climaxed in the fatal shooting of Versace, all his worlds were collapsing. 

His last rich lover had dropped him. He was gaining so much weight that few would give him a second look. 

By the time their paths began drawing ominously closer, Cunanan's aggressively social personality had turned murderously sociopathic. 

The first victims in his path were two gay friends in Minnesota, a Chicago businessman and a New Jersey cemetery caretaker. 

Just days after the New Jersey murder, on May 12, Cunanan resurfaced in Miami Beach and began working his way into Versace's world. 

A friend of Cunanan's has told FBI agents that Cunanan had a crush on someone in Versace's entourage, perhaps a boyfriend. They suspect jealousy might have set off his next violent explosion.

Versace's villa was on busy Ocean Drive, the 15-block strip of Art Deco hotels and sidewalk cafes facing the ocean.

Versace was a man of routine.  The morning of July 25, he left the villa for his morning walk to the News Cafe, four blocks from his home, to buy magazines and a coffee. 

Returning home, just as he was opening the ornate wrought-iron gate, Versace was approached suddenly by a white man in his mid-20s.  Andrew Cunanan pumped one bullet into Versace's head from behind, then another as t he designer fell to the ground. 

Several days later, as police surrounded a houseboat when he was holed up, Cuanan ended his own life.

During the investigation it emerged that Cunanan had encountered Versace several years earlier in San Francisco where both people were a backstage party at the opera.  Witnesses said that the pair has spoken, but no one knows if they met elsewhere as well.

After the murder Elton John said  that "Gianni and I were like brothers." 

In bringing rock music into the previously staid world of haute couture, Versace often chose openly gay singer Boy George as one of the composers for his fashion shows, and George said that in the many times they worked together, Versace "was nothing but a complete gentleman."

When set Cunanan on his murderous rampage may never be known but some people who knew him speculated at the time that he had learned he was HIV positive and was out to extract revenge on some of the men with whom he had had sex.