Versace's murderer willing to kill for fame and fortune

Edgar Ramirez plays fashion designer Gianni Versace in the second instalment of the American Crime Story series, The Assassination of Gianni Versace.

In the summer of 1997, Gianni Versace was at the top of his game. The company he had built from scratch from one boutique in Milan in 1978 was valued at US$807 million ($1092m) and had 130 stores across the world.

In under 20 years, this son of a Calabrian dressmaker had transformed the industry with his brazenly sexy, luxury fashion and couture, breaking down barriers between conservative high fashion and popular culture.

The front rows of his fashion shows were filled with his A-list friends, including Diana, Princess of Wales, Elton John and Michael Jackson, while on the runway supermodels such as Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington walked for him.

But on the morning of July 15, Versace was shot dead on the steps of his mansion on Miami's South Beach by Andrew Cunanan, who it later transpired had also murdered four other men, at least two of them gay.

Cunanan, a notorious liar, was also gay but initially struggled to come to terms with it, and unable to find a job after dropping out of college, had taken to befriending rich gay men to fund a wealthy lifestyle.

"It was a political murder," believes Ryan Murphy, who is recreating the story in the second instalment of his American Crime Story series, The Assassination of Gianni Versace.

"[Cunanan] was a person who targeted people specifically to shame them. He wanted to out them and to have a form of payback for a life that he felt he could not live."

The Assassination of Gianni Versace follows the extraordinary success of Murphy's first American Crime Story series, The People v O.J. Simpson, an account of the trial of the former NFL superstar for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.

It won nine Emmys and two Golden Globes for its unflinching confrontation with the police corruption, racism and 90s celebrity culture that helped lead to OJ's acquittal.

People were stealing x-rays, just to have a connection to a famous person.

Nina Jacobson

The second instalment — based on the book Vulgar Favours: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in US History, by former Vanity Fair writer Maureen Orth — has been adapted by British screenwriter Tom Rob Smith, who has flipped the story to tell it backwards, starting with Versace's murder, in order to understand how Cunanan could have evaded arrest for so long.

"The idea behind American Crime Story was that every season should be not just about a specific crime, but about a crime that America is guilty of, something that implicates us culturally," says executive producer Nina Jacobson.

With the OJ trial, the "cultural crime" was the racism of the LAPD, who were accused of attempting to racially incriminate Simpson.

With Versace's murder, Murphy and his team believe the crime is homophobia, including within the police who were criticised for not prioritising an investigation into Cunanan's previous victims.

"It's about the degree of shame and secrecy among gay people in America in the 90s, in the wake of the Aids epidemic and the difficulty of living an authentic life," says Jacobson.

The series also serves as a dark comment on the celebrity culture that blossomed in the late 90s, with Versace and his love for the spotlight at the epicentre.

"You see it in the frenzy when Versace is murdered," says Jacobson.

"Something that should be an outpouring of grief and horror is turned into a commercialised event. People were stealing x-rays, just to have a connection to a famous person."

Cunanan, too, was obsessed with status and wealth.

"One of his traits early on is this absolute infatuation with fame; he was willing to kill for it," says Orth.

Filmed, in part, on location in the Versace mansion — a lush, colourful, wildly over-the-top property — the show has a particularly colourful dramatis personae. Edgar Ramirez plays the designer, and Ricky Martin his long-time partner, the former model, Antonio D'Amico. Glee star Darren Criss is Cunanan, while Penelope Cruz plays the imperious Donatella Versace, Gianni's sister.

While the series will no doubt rekindle interest in the personal story of Versace, his fashion legacy remains undimmed. To mark 20 years since her brother's murder, Donatella launched the Versace Tribute Collection at Milan Fashion Week last September. But the clothes were overshadowed by the finale: five original supermodels — Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, Helena Christensen and the former French First Lady Carla Bruni — took to the catwalk. Social media lost its mind. Gianni would, no doubt, have heartily approved.

Daily Telegraph American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace is on Sky channel Soho on February 28.