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As much as he loved dining a casa with loved ones, the fun usually wrapped up early, says his friend of a dozen years, Italian publishing mogul Leonardo Mondadori, "Gianni was not one to gab until 2:30 in the morning. At 11 o'clock it was over, and everyone went home." When he was away from South Beach and his sister Donatella--the family's most energetic social animal--would hold court, Versace might call the staff to make sure there weren't too many guests milling about. Sometimes the butler would frantically motion everyone to quiet down.
All in all, Versace was considered by many to be, as Bowles put it, "an unbelievably thoughtful person." He would, adds Bowles, "always remember who people's kids were, always think to ask 'How's your mother, Ann?" Moreover, Versace was known as one of the rare fashion designers who actively encouraged up-and-comers. Along with Donatella, he showed his support for the young designer Jacobs by attending the crucial debut of the line he launched following his departure from Perry Ellis. When Versace spotted the work of Todd Oldham early in the young Texan's career, Versace called a handful of European fashion editors and asked them to check it out. "In our industry this is highly unheard of," says Oldham. "He saw my work and told people. I was really flabbergasted because he was such a design hero of mine."
Versace enjoyed sharing his love of art with friends. Before he died, he had completed renovating his fourth home, a town house on Manhattan's Upper East Side that was to serve as a museum for his mind-boggling collection of Picassos, Lichtensteins and Schnabels. Interview magazine editor Ingrid Sischy last saw Versace in Florence just a few weeks ago, at a hectic moment between the unveiling of his fall menswear line and his couture collection. But he dropped everything, she recalls, picked her up at her hotel one morning and took a small group to Ravenna for two days just to show them the city's Byzantine churches.
During the past couple of years, Versace had started to allow himself more such breaks from hard work. This fall he was scheduled to begin shooting a new Woody Allen movie in which he would have played himself. Versace survived a bout of rare ear cancer recently, and he was determined to spend more time in respite. As he told a friend not too long ago, "When you are cured of something like that, you feel you have been pardoned, granted clemency. It changes your view of life." Tragically, he had little time to live by his new vision.
--With reporting by Jordan Bonfante/Milan, Cathy Booth/Miami Beach and Georgia Harbison/New York