The Porn Star and the Foodie: Jamie Gillis & Gael Greene in 1978 Part 1, The Other Taxi Driver

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In ‘Taxi Driver’ (1976), Travis Bickle railed against social decay, moral corruption, and the depraved filth he perceived in the near-bankrupt New York City of the mid 1970s. An insomniac, alienated Vietnam War vet, his taxi trips revealed the city to him as a “sewer” filled with “scum” that needed to be “cleansed”.

Around the same time, another taxi driver, a real one, Jamie Gillis, was also recording audio diaries in a similar way. Jamie worked in cabs on and off in the 70s while he acted in adult films and the occasional play. But his tapes were the opposite of Travis Bickle’s: Jamie reveled in the city’s seediness and the sexual possibilities it offered, and he documented his days with a detail that was as graphic as it was honest.

And so, perhaps Jamie Gillis was what Travis Bickle feared: Jamie was the moral decay.

He was the other Taxi Driver.

Not to say that Jamie was untroubled. He was plagued by doubts, questions, and phobias – his “sickness”, he called it. He feared that the initial promise of the porn film business, that had made him a star of sorts after his leading turn in The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976), was about to come crashing down – that adult films would never live up to his high expectations, that he was turning into a sexual jester, and that he would never fulfill his potential.

So what is the story behind his recordings?

In 1976, Jamie met Gael Greene, a well-known character in the city. She belonged to the blue bloods of Manhattan society, having been New York magazine’s high-profile restaurant critic for the previous decade. She was a smart, sleek, feline blonde, ten years older than Jamie, well known and well-regarded in polite and cultured circles. And she was obsessed by Jamie’s sexually wanton lifestyle.

They first met when she was promoting her erotic novel, ‘Blue Skies, No Candy’: “He knew my work. I knew his,” she later wrote.

Jamie stopped, picked up the book, read a few lines, and laughed. “You’re the food writer from New York magazine,” he said to her. “And your hero has my name.”

Gael replied: “And you’re that actor. From those movies.”

She described him at the time as young, surprisingly shy, with shiny black curls and perfect posture. Even better-looking in person, she noted. “You were wonderful in Misty Beethoven,” she told him.

“That was fun to make,” Jamie replied,” because I liked the woman in that one.”

“What do you do when you don’t like the woman?” Gael asked.

Jamie looked her straight in the eyes, and said, “I can always get myself in the mood.”

They started a relationship that was tempestuous and torrid. They were an odd couple, but well-suited too: Jamie’s business was sex and his passion was food. And Gael’s interest and passion were, well, sex and food. She claimed that “the two greatest discoveries of the 20th century were the Cuisinart and the clitoris,” and she was quick to reach for sexual metaphors whenever describing the ecstasy of tasting food in the upper crust restaurants of the city. “Sex and food have been completely intertwined since the beginning of time,” she said.

They saw each other often, dealing with the pleasures, jealousy, and complications that resulted. Gael couldn’t get enough of Jamie’s sexual explorations, and Jamie slipped into her world – overnight becoming her guest at places that had never been available to him.

But Gael, the insatiable critic as she was called, wanted more from their union. She believed Jamie could, and should, be a big-name actor, and so she connected him with A-list players in the industry – auditions with directors like Mike Nichols, strategy meetings with super agents like Sue Mengers. She took him to Europe to try new restaurants, and stay with friends like Julia Childs.

And came the book: it was Gael’s idea. She persuaded Jamie they should write their story by documenting their hedonistic life together. It would capture the era through the eyes of two disparate people with similar lusts and appetites. Jamie agreed: he figured that with Gael’s literary track record and contacts, it could be a hit, raising his profile, and enabling him to fulfill his vague dream of becoming a full-time theater actor.

Gael suggested Jamie keep an audio diary for one year. He would tape his innermost thoughts, feelings, desires, and the crude, unexpurgated details of his everyday life in all its seamy detail. In return, she would add her own experiences – and they would turn it all into a biographical tale of two lovers crisscrossing 1970s New York, slipping between the city’s high society events and its grimy porn film scene.

So Jamie started recording: but his tapes ended up being more than a diary. They document a spiral – a downward journey into a damaged soul as he dealt with questions that plagued him: ambition, sexuality, art, talent, lust, and love. The recordings that resulted – unfiltered after hours reflections, candid and honest, are presented here for the first time. Needless to say, turn off now if you are liable to be offended.

This is Part 1 of the story of Jamie Gillis and Gael Greene in 1978.

This podcast is 49 minutes long.

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