Remembering Jamie Gillis

If you watched The Deuce, or listen to the great podcast The Rialto Report, you might have heard of Jamie Gillis. While not a household name among "the squares", he was a star, and now a legend, of the NYC adult film business in the 1970s and 1980s.

By all accounts Jamie was a wild man -- someone who didn't live life so much as charge through it. He wasn't your typical idea of a porn star, he wasn't some uneducated Neanderthal who was basically the life support system for a penis. He was a true Renaissance man. In addition to the naughty movies, Jamie also studied French Literature at Columbia University, was a collector of rare objects, a gourmet, and, apparently, a demon gambler. He knew everyone and went everywhere, a big man about town. Jamie died in 2010 at the age of 65 from cancer. If you want to learn more about his life, it's worth listening to these podcasts from the Rialto Report, one of which includes an interview with him from the 1970s.

The most recent podcast is about what was arguably the darkest moment of his life. In 1982, he was living on East 23rd street when a gorgeous model that lived in his building was killed. (The model was probably one of the few women Jamie wasn't shtupping.) Jamie actually found her stabbed body and called the police but then Jamie was held as a suspect -- apparently the cops thought that the man's chosen profession made him a potential murderer. Jamie was never charged but the incident haunted him for the rest of his life -- including a bizarre incident in the year 2000 when he was arrested -- again! -- for the same crime in San Francisco before being released -- yet again (a lawsuit ensued). Finally it was discovered that the model's ex-boyfriend had committed the murder but he had killed himself in 1987, never facing proper justice (Side note: the model's roommate was a young aspiring actress named Kim Delaney who later became a star on NYPD Blue.) Jamie never got over the fact that, twice in his life, he was suspected of murder and that his scandalous job was the reason for it. 

A truly weird, sad story.

This case is much lesser known than -- but in some ways a NYC equivalent to -- the Wonderland murders in California in 1981 (just a year earlier) both of which involved murder, porn stars, and a cast of bizarre characters including nightclub owners and drug addicts. 

But back to Jamie. His notoriety as a porn star remained even until the end of his life. Apparently he went to a boxing match in 2008 and someone yelled at him that he was the guy who had banged Vanessa Del Rio. He certainly had -- and lots of other women including every big name female porn stars from the 1970s and '80, over 400 women! 

What a life. What a legacy! What a loss to NYC.