Biography for
Gia Scala More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

3 March 1934, Liverpool, England, UK

Date of Death

30 April 1972, Hollywood, California, USA (overdose)

Birth Name

Giovanna Scoglio

Height

5' 8" (1.73 m)

Mini Biography

This tall, dazzling, yet shy and painfully sensitive foreign import was born Giovanna Scoglio in Liverpool, England but moved to Sicily with her aristocratic Sicilian father and Irish mother at three months of age. She migrated to New York at age 14 and attended Bayside (Queens) High School, graduating in 1952. She worked various jobs as a file clerk and airline reservations taker while studying with Stella Adler and the Actors Studio. While appearing as a contestant on a television game show, a Universal Studios agent spotted her and placed the young beauty under contract in 1954.

After a few starlet bit parts, Gia earned good notices for her "second lead" role in The Price of Fear (1956), which led to even better love interest parts in The Garment Jungle (1957) with Kerwin Mathews, Don't Go Near the Water (1957) opposite Glenn Ford, The Two-Headed Spy (1958) paired with Jack Hawkins, The Angry Hills (1959) starring Robert Mitchum, and Wernher von Braun (1960) [aka I Aim at the Stars] with Curd Jürgens. Her best known film role came as Anna, the Greek resistance fighter, in the classic all-star epic film, The Guns of Navarone (1961).

From there things began spiral downhill for Gia personally and professionally. Riding on the coattails of her ever-rising glamour and success were those deep-rooted insecurities, and she began to drink heavily as compensation. She eventually lost her contract at Universal due to her unreliability, which forced her to seek work overseas. Her marriage to actor Don Burnett burnt itself out, and, at one point, she threw herself off the Waterloo Bridge in desperation. She would have drowned in the Thames River had a passing cab driver not plucked her out of the water in time. Her alcoholic addiction led to numerous arrests, and her bouts with depression grew so severe that she was forced to undergo frequent psychiatric observations. On April 30, 1972, it all ended for her. Gia was found dead in her Hollywood Hills bedroom of an overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills, another Tinseltown statistic. It was listed as a suicide.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Spouse

Don Burnett

(21 August 1959 - September 1970) (divorced)

Trivia

Memorable, in The Guns of Navarone (1961), for her piece of dramatic business with Irene Papas - or, it might be better said, Irene's with her!

Her sportscar turned over on a winding canyon road in July 1971 and she lost part of her index finger.

Is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California, USA, next to her mother.

Arrested over a dispute with a downtown Los Angeles parking lot attendant when she refused to pay an additional fifty cents overtime charge, and an altercation ensued. [20 April 1971]

Older sister of actress Tina Scala.

On May 1971, Anna Kashfi took custody of her.

Was cast by Universal to play the role of Mary Magdalene in a film originally to be entitled "The Galileans," but the movie ended up being scrapped.

First attempted suicide in 1958 after the death of her mother. She later tried again after her ex-husband, Don Burnett, married "Ironside" star Barbara Anderson a year after their divorce.

Was once involved with actor Steve McQueen during her New York years (between 1952-54).

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