When Lee Gambin died, Jamie Blanks and I cried together. He sent me an email the next day reiterating how “gutted” and “inconsolable” he was. Given we’re coming on just two years since Lee left us, it feels completely unbelievable to now be expressing similar sentiments about Jamie. Reading his email again, he could have been talking about himself.
It’s a long story behind my friendship with Jamie, but it started with an interview – in which a few of the weird parallels between our lives is explained – and then blossomed into one of those deep relationships that I feel genuinely blessed to have experienced. I can hand-on-heart say, Jamie felt like a brother-from-another-mother to me.
Dearest Jamie, I really hope you and Lee are together raving about horror movies (like our very cold sessions sitting outside the Arts Centre in the middle of winter!) and you’re reunited with Debra Hill and Everett De Roche. I went to our planned screening of Come and See solo at the Cult Cinema session at Classic Cinema on 3rd April, but I left a seat spare for you.
Miss you like crazy, my friend. You will always be one of my favourite people on the planet.
Featured image: Jamie Blanks (left) and wife Simone Chin during summer holidays, 2024.
Emma Westwood 