Gigi Darlene

Gigi Darlene was born Heli Leonore Weinreich on March 4, 1943 in Berlin, Germany. Of mixed French and German descent, Gigi had a repressive relationship with her strict mother and uncaring stepfather. Gigi entered and won regional beauty pageants as a teenager growing up in Germany. After threatening to run away from home at age sixteen, Gigi in 1959 was allowed by her mother to immigrate to Flushing, Queens, New York City, where she lived with a couple of family friends. Darlene did a fair amount of commercial print and magazine layout work as well as was hired for industrial shows. In 1963 Gigi got a short contract as a Wilson Girl working for the tennis clothing company. Darlene eventually moved to Manhattan; she lived on West 43rd Street and began posing for photo shoots for various men's magazines. Gigi branched out as an exotic dancer making the rounds at clubs in New York, New Jersey, and Long Island. While dancing at clubs Darlene met and befriended future soft-core movie actress Darlene Bennett. After crossing paths with exploitation picture director Barry Mahon, Darlene started acting in assorted low-budget sexploitation features that were made throughout the early to mid 1960's. Among the notable maverick East Coast exploitation filmmakers Gigi appeared in movies for were Doris Wishman, Joseph P. Mawra, David E. Durston, and Joseph W. Sarno. She often co-starred with Darlene Bennett in these films. Gigi was working as a featured dancer at a club in New Jersey when she first met her future husband Edwin Greal, who did a stage show as a hypnotist using the pseudonym Charles Lamont. Darlene and Greal got married on August 29, 1966. Gigi moved to Fort Lee, New Jersey after marrying Greal and agreed to stop acting in movies. Greal and Darlene eventually formed a stage act together and went on the road. The couple moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1975. They resided in Vegas for five years and continued to do stage shows before eventually moving to South Florida in 1980. Alas, shortly after moving to South Florida Greal died at age 56 on December 18, 1980. In the wake of Greal's untimely passing Gigi in 1981 went on to obtain a Real Estate license in Fort Lauderdale and sold time-share apartments on and off for twenty years. Moreover, Darlene was a member of the Screen Actors Guild and worked as an extra in movies that were shot in South Florida. Gigi died from stomach cancer at a hospice in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on New Year's Day in 2002. She was 58 years old. Her body was cremated and her ashes were scattered off the pier in Deerfield Beach, Florida into the Atlantic Ocean.