And then there was Serena’s relationship with Jamie Gillis. It was a striking affair between two of the biggest names in adult film. She was a Californian, hippy red-head. Jamie was a dark, intense New Yorker. She moved to New York to be with him – and their relationship was unusual. It played out in films and in their private lives; on screen Serena would often assume the passive role in explicit S&M scenarios that were notable for their extreme sexual content.
Some doubted whether they were truly consensual, whether Serena was being coerced or manipulated. When we spoke to Jamie in the last years of his life before he passed away in 2010, he was clearly still enamored with her Here’s how he wrote about meeting Serena: “I first eyed Serena when she was posing for Sam Menning in his LA studio in 1973 or 74. She was writhing around naked while Sam snapped away and I was immediately smitten. He told me she was living with some guy in a remote area of northern California. I gave him a “too bad” shrug and left but I never forgot her.
