The Porn Star and the Foodie: Jamie Gillis & Gael Greene in 1978 – Part 4: Renee’s Story – Podcast 179

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When adult film star Jamie Gillis, and his restaurant critic girlfriend, Gael Greene, started to write Jamie’s autobiography together, Gael wanted to meet his friends and family and interview them about their feelings towards Jamie. 

And one of these was a former girlfriend, Renee – one of the most important people in Jamie’s life. Jamie had met Renee over ten years earlier, back in the late 1960s. At the time, he’d just returned from Europe after trying to make a living as a mime. When he got back to the city, he took a small room in the house of an older man, Paul, a dentist, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Being Jamie, it was a typically unusual arrangement: Paul was infatuated with him, and gave him living expenses while Jamie got his New York life together.
 
And then Jamie met Renee – and they started a close and intimate relationship that lasted for years. But here’s the rub: Jamie met Renee when she was 15 and still at school. He was 22. They moved in, and were living together when Jamie first answered an ad for nude modeling which resulted in his adult film career.
 
When Gael spoke to Renee, Jamie and Renee had been split up for years, but were still close friends. She was a natural for Gael to speak with. Gael wanted to hear about their time together, his family – his distant mother, and his father Abi who he took after in many ways. And, at the very heart of their conversation, was the overarching question that had come to dominate Gael’s life: could Jamie change?
 
Gael taped the conversation with Renee, and it remained unheard for the last 50 years.

This is Part 4 of the story of Jamie Gillis and Gael Greene in 1978: Renee’s Story

You can listen to Part 1 of the series here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.

This podcast is 39 minutes long.

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