Gia Scala was born Josephine Grace Johanna Scoglio on the 3rd of March 1934 in Liverpool to Baron Pietro Scoglio, an aristocratic Italian, and Eileen Sullivan, of Irish-Spanish descent. She had a younger sister, Agatina Carmen Maria, who acted under the name of Tina Scala.When Gia was just three months old the family moved to Messina, Sicily where she had a misspent childhood in war-torn Italy, playing with her younger sister in bombed out houses, then later in Mili San Marco in Sicily, on the estate of her grandfather, Natale Scoglio, who was one of the largest citrus growers in Sicily. With her father working for the British government he was away a lot and, after the war, planned to send her to school in England, but did not have enough money. At the age of 16 she suggested visiting an aunt in the United States and to her surprise, she was allowed to go and makes the journey by way of Halifax. Her mother and her sister accompanied her to live with her aunt Agata in Whitestone, Queens, New York City. After graduating from Bayside High School, Gia moved to Manhattan to pursue acting and supported herself by working as a file clerk, sales girl in a lingerie shop, and airline reservations taker, while studying with Stella Adler and the Actors Studio. Here she had a romance with ex-Marine Steve McQueen whom she dated from 1952 to 1954 and began to appear on game shows, where she was discovered for films by Maurice Bergman, an executive of Universal International while on a television quiz show in New York where her knowledge of music made her a winner. In 1954, accompanied by her mother, she flew to Los Angeles to screen test for the role of Mary Magdalene in 'The Gallileans' and, although she did not get the part, Peter Johnson was impressed with her screen test and she was placed under contract by Universal-Internation after she was given a non-speaking, uncredited part in the movie, 'All That Heaven Allows' starring Rock Hudson. They dyed her hair dark brown, had her four front teeth capped, and gave her the stage name Gia Scala. Songwriter Henry Mancini met her on the set of 'Four Girls in Town' and inspired by her beauty, he wrote "Cha Cha for Gia", which appeared uncredited in the 1957 film. Concerned about the health of her mother, she cried while live on air on 'The Steve Allen Show' and was emotionally distraught following her mother's death in 1957 after they returned from a Hawaiian holiday. Her father then made his first visit from Rome and it was the first time she had seen him for 4 years. On the 25th of February 1958, she became a naturalised American citizen with her father, Pietro Scoglio, now a New York importer. In April of that year Hedda Hopper reports that when Gia went to London for a picture with Jack Hawkins, it became the start of a beautiful friendship with Lord Douglas Isham, a distant relative of the royal family; "They met at an Italian embassy party and have been an item since. He recently entertained her at his beautiful Sussex estate". Gia had landed roles in such films as 'Tip on a Dead Jockey' (1957), 'The Garment Jungle (1957) and 'The Tunnel of Love' (1958).
In August 1958 it was reported that she was in an altercation with a taxi driver and policeman on Waterloo Bridge and taken to Bow Street police station from where her father later picked her up and took her home. Later in her dressing room at Elstree Studios, filming 'The Angry Hills' with Robert Mitchum, she said, "I don’t know what I was doing. I wasn't myself. A few months ago my mother died. We were very close—always together. It hit me very badly." She resumed her relationship with young actor Don Burnett who she had been romantically linked for two years and on the 21st of August, 1959, she married the actor turned investment banker at Los Angles City Hall, whom she had first met three years before on the set of 'Don't Go Near The Water'.
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| With James Darren and David Niven in 'The Guns of Navarone' |
As well as appearing in 'The Guns of Navarone' (1961), starring Gregory Peck and David Niven, she made frequent appearances on American television during the 1960s, appearing in such series as 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents', 'Covoy', 'The Islanders', 'The Rogues', 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea', 'Twelve O'Clock High', 'Tarzan' and then 'It Takes a Thief' (1969) in the episode 'The Artist Is for Framing, her final acting role. In March 1969 she and her husband, separated after 10 years of marriage and made a court agreement under which he would pay her $800 a month pending trial of her divorce action. After 11 years of marriage they divorced on the 1st of September 1970, and Burnett married wealthy television actress Barbara Anderson. Having difficulties with alcohol Gia's career had began to wane and in May 1971 a judge sent her to a state hospital for psychiatric examination after she collapsed in the Ventura, California, courtroom during an appearance on a drunk driving charge. Later she was released into the custody of actress Anna Kashfi.
On the night of the 30th of April, 1972, 38-year-old Gia Scala was found dead in her Hollywood Hills home. The Los Angeles County Coroner reported that her cause of death was from accidental 'acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication'. She is interred in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
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