Marilyn Chambers

Marilyn Chambers
Marilyn Chambers DSC 0326 levels.jpg
At the 2005 FOXE Awards
Born Marilyn Ann Briggs
Died April 12, 2009(2009-04-12) (aged 56)
Height 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)
Weight 140 lb (64 kg; 10 st)
Measurements 35C-26-35
No. of adult films 36 (per IAFD)
Marilyn Chambers at IMDb
Marilyn Chambers at IAFD
Marilyn Chambers at Adultfilmdatabase

Marilyn Chambers (April 22, 1952 – April 12, 2009) was an American pornographic actress, exotic dancer, model, actress and vice-presidential candidate. She was best known for her 1972 hardcore film debut Behind the Green Door.

Contents

Early life

Born Marilyn Ann Briggs [1] in Providence, Rhode Island,[2][3] and raised in Westport, Connecticut[4] in a middle-class household. It is often reported that she was born in Westport, however in a 2007 interview Chambers confirmed she was born in Providence but grew up in Westport.[1] Her father was in advertising and her mother was a nurse. She was the youngest of three children, including a brother, Martin Briggs, and a sister, Jann Smith.[4] Chambers attended Burr Farms Elementary School, Hillspoint Elementary School, Long Lots Junior High School, and Staples High School.[4] Her father tried to discourage her from pursuing a modeling career, citing brutal competition. Chambers said in 2005, "When I was about 16 I learned how to write my mother’s name on notes to get out of school. And then I'd take the train into the city to go to auditions".[5] This initiative while in high school landed her some modeling assignments and a small role in the film The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), which starred Barbra Streisand[1] and in which Chambers was credited as Evelyn Lang.

Career

She moved to Los Angeles, California for more work. She did not receive any roles except for a low-budget film, writer-director-producer Sean S. Cunningham's Together (1971), in which she appeared nude. She left Los Angeles for San Francisco, California, where she held several jobs that included topless model and a bottomless dancer. During her early career her most visible modeling job was as the "Ivory soap girl" on the Ivory Snow soap box, posing as a mother holding a baby under the tag line "99 & 44/100% pure".[6][7][8][9][10][11]

Chambers saw an advertisement for a casting call and rushed to the audition, only to find it was for a pornographic film, Behind the Green Door. She was about to leave when producers Artie and Jim Mitchell noticed her resemblance to Cybill Shepherd and agreed a wholesome blond actress was needed for the film. After filming concluded, she informed them that she was "the Ivory Snow Girl"; the Mitchells capitalized on this by billing her as the "99 and 44/100% pure" girl.[6] Although she said at the time that the film would help "sell a lot more soap", Procter & Gamble quickly dropped her after discovering her double life as an adult-film actress,[1] and the advertising industry was scandalized.[11] The fact that Chambers image was so well known from Ivory Snow boosted the films ticket sales, and led to several jokes on television talk shows.[9] Nearly every adult film she made following this incident featured a cameo of her Ivory Snow box.[12]

Unusually, Chambers does not have a single word of dialogue in the entire film.[1] After engaging in lesbian sex with a group of women she has sex with the African-American boxer Johnny Keyes.[11] This possibly makes BTGD the first U.S. feature-length hardcore film to include an interracial sex scene.[13] The porn industry and viewing public were shocked by the then-taboo spectacle of a white woman having sex with a black man. Chambers was relatively unknown prior to BTGD, however the film made her a star.[7][8] Critics have since debated whether she was really having orgasms in her scenes or just acting. She stated in one early interview that they were real, but denied it in an interview many years later.[7]

In 1977, Chambers won the starring role in film director David Cronenberg's low-budget Canadian movie Rabid.[1][14] In 1980 she starred in Insatiable, which was the top-selling adult video in the U.S. from 1980-1982.[15] She still hoped to launch a successful mainstream acting career, however was unable to do so.[1]

In a 2004 interview, Chambers said "My advice to somebody who wants to go into adult films is: Absolutely not! It's heart-breaking. It leaves you kind of empty. So have a day job and don't quit it".[16]

Independent films

Near the end of her career, Chambers appeared primarily in independent films, including her last role in Solitaire. Chambers claimed that the more laid-back pace of these roles suited her as "there's a lot less pressure on you to perform [and] you don't have to be young and skinny."[17] Among these were Bikini Bistro, Angel of Heat (with Mary Woronov), Rated X, Party Incorporated, and Breakfast in Bed.

Singing career

Chambers had some chart success with the disco single "Benihana" in 1976, produced by Michael Zager on the Roulette Records label.[18]

Efforts in politics

In the 2004 United States presidential election, Chambers ran for Vice President on the Personal Choice Party ticket, a quasi-libertarian party. She received a total of 946 votes. In the 2008 United States presidential election, she was again Charles Jay's running mate, this time as an alternate write-in candidate to his primary national Boston Tea Party running mate Thomas L. Knapp in the states of Arkansas, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah.[19][20]

Death

On April 12, 2009, Chambers was found dead in her home near Santa Clarita, California.[1][21] Documents found with her body identified her as Marilyn Ann Taylor, presumably the name she assumed after a marriage.[1] She was discovered by her 17-year-old daughter, McKenna Marie Taylor.[22] The coroner's autopsy revealed that Chambers died of a cerebral hemorrhage and an aneurysm related to heart disease. Pain killer hydrocodone (Vicodin) and anti-depressant Citalopram were found in her blood stream but not enough to cause death.[23] Upon her death the Associated Press reported that she was survived by a daughter, McKenna Marie Taylor; a sister, Jann Smith, and her brother, Bill Briggs.[1]

Fictional portrayal

In 2000, Tracy Hutson played Chambers in the cable television biographical film Rated X, about the Mitchell brothers' film and strip-club career.

Awards

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Bruce Weber, "http://movies.msn.com/wonderwall/in-memoriam-2009/photo-gallery/feature/?photoidx=32The New York Times, April 14, 2009, reports that at her death, Ed Winter, assistant chief of the Los Angeles County coroner's office, gave her name as Marilyn Ann Taylor, "evidently the name she assumed after a marriage," and that "he could not confirm that her birth name was, as often reported, Marilyn Ann Briggs".
  2. ↑ Doubet, Phil (2006). My Pryor Year: A 333 Soul Anthology. iUniverse. pp. 120. ISBN 0-595-39157-5. 
  3. ↑ Morgan, Thomas J. "Providence-born porn star Marilyn Chambers dies at 54," The Providence Journal, Tuesday, April 14, 2009.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Adult Film Star Marilyn Chambers, Ex-Westporter, Dies at 56". westportnow.com. 2009-04-13. http://www.westportnow.com/index.php?/v2/comments/23202/. Retrieved 2009-04-16. 
  5. ↑ The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry, cited in WestportNow.com
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Helene Goupil, Josh Krist (2005). San Francisco: The Unknown City. Arsenal Pulp Press. pp. 238–241. ISBN 1551521881. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pXAsU1sQG1AC&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Falk, Pasi (1994). The consuming body. SAGE. p. 201. ISBN 0803989741. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Yo2Sz_9rjkQC. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Robert J. Kelly, Ko-lin Chin, Rufus Schatzberg (1994). Handbook of organized crime in the United States. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 301–302. ISBN 0313283664. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CWg1Efv5C5UC. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 David Smith Allyn (2001). Make love, not war: the sexual revolution, an unfettered history. Taylor & Francis. p. 235. ISBN 0415929423. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NE9lfn0FBHUC&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 
  10. ↑ Marilyn Chambers and Ivory Snow, snopes.com
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Williams, Linda (1999). Hard core: power, pleasure, and the "frenzy of the visible". University of California Press. pp. 156–158. ISBN 0520219430. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3wAe48_yfNUC. 
  12. ↑ John Hubner, Bottom Feeders, Dell (1994), pp. 213-216
  13. ↑ Williams, Linda (2004). Porn studies. Duke University Press. p. 299. ISBN 0822333120. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rdWZ8JD5dkkC. 
  14. ↑ Rabid at the Internet Movie Database
  15. ↑ Williams (1999), p.175
  16. ↑ Kirkland, Bruce, "Inside Chambers", Jam! Showbiz, June 5, 2004
  17. ↑ Foster, Rick (2007-07-23). "Ex-porn star Marilyn Chambers in local indie film". The Sun Chronicle. http://www.thesunchronicle.com/articles/2007/07/24/news/news1.txt. Retrieved 2007-07-24. 
  18. ↑ "Porn star Marilyn Chambers dies", Variety, Monday, April 13, 2009.
  19. ↑ Boston Tea Party Voter Guide
  20. ↑ Official vice-presidential campaign site
  21. ↑ Duke, Alan (2009-04-19). "Porn star Marilyn Chambers dies at 56". edition.cnn.com. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/13/obit.chambers/index.html?iref=24hours. Retrieved 2009-04-16. 
  22. ↑ McLellan, Dennis (2009-04-14). "Marilyn Chambers dies at 56; '70s porn star and Ivory Snow model". Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-marilyn-chambers14-2009apr14,0,2571017.story. Retrieved 2009-04-14. 
  23. ↑ "Porn star Marilyn Chambers died of heart disease". 2009-05-19. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090518/en_nm/us_chambers_1. Retrieved 2009-05-15. 
  24. ↑ XRCO Hall of Fame
  25. ↑ MayorDefacto. "Transcript of the video A Night of Legends: First Annual XRCO Adult Film Awards". http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dcpxgmgk_0hrghhdgp. Retrieved 2008-08-09. 
  26. ↑ Sherri L. Shaulis (2008-02-08). "Web, Studio Winners Announced At XBiz Awards". AVN.com. http://business.avn.com/articles/29098.html. Retrieved 2009-08-30. 

External links