- Marilyn Chambers
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For the soap opera character, see Marilyn Chambers (Home and Away).
Marilyn Chambers 
At the 2005 FOXE AwardsBorn Marilyn Ann Briggs
April 22, 1952[1]
Providence, Rhode IslandDied April 12, 2009 (aged 56)
Santa Clarita, CaliforniaHeight 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) Weight 140 lb (64 kg; 10 st) Eye colour Blue Hair colour Blonde No. of adult films 36 (per IAFD) 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 (keyboardist for 1960s Boston Band, The Remains), 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 film's 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, but 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. Chambers was ten days away from her 57th birthday. Painkiller hydrocodone (Vicodin) and anti-depressant Citalopram were found in her bloodstream but not enough to cause death.[23] Upon her death the Associated Press reported that she was survived by her daughter, sister, and brother.[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
- XRCO Hall of Fame[24]
- 1985 XRCO Award – Best Kinky Scene -Insatiable II (with Jamie Gillis)[25]
- 2005 FOXE Award – Lifetime Achievement
- 2008 XBIZ Award – Lifetime Achievement for a Female Performer[26]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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".
- ^ Doubet, Phil (2006). My Pryor Year: A 333 Soul Anthology. iUniverse. pp. 120. ISBN 0-595-39157-5.
- ^ Morgan, Thomas J. "Providence-born porn star Marilyn Chambers dies at 54," The Providence Journal, Tuesday, April 14, 2009.
- ^ a b c "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.
- ^ The Other Hollywood: The Uncensored Oral History of the Porn Film Industry, cited in WestportNow.com
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ a b c Falk, Pasi (1994). The consuming body. SAGE. p. 201. ISBN 0803989741. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Yo2Sz_9rjkQC.
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ Marilyn Chambers and Ivory Snow, snopes.com
- ^ a b c 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.
- ^ John Hubner, Bottom Feeders, Dell (1994), pp. 213-216
- ^ Williams, Linda (2004). Porn studies. Duke University Press. p. 299. ISBN 0822333120. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rdWZ8JD5dkkC.
- ^ Rabid at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Williams (1999), p.175
- ^ Kirkland, Bruce, "Inside Chambers", Jam! Showbiz, June 5, 2004
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Porn star Marilyn Chambers dies", Variety, Monday, April 13, 2009.
- ^ Boston Tea Party Voter Guide
- ^ Official vice-presidential campaign site
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "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.[dead link]
- ^ XRCO Hall of Fame
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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
- Marilyn Chambers at the Internet Movie Database
- Marilyn Chambers at the Internet Adult Film Database
- Marilyn Chambers at the Adult Film Database
- Interview at RogReviews.com
- Biography at LukeIsBack.com
- "Marilyn Chambers, 56, Star of 'Green Door' Hard-Core Porn Movie," Obituary, The Washington Post, April 14, 2009
- Marilyn Chambers - Daily Telegraph obituary
- Marilyn Chambers at Find a Grave
Categories:- 1952 births
- 2009 deaths
- 20th-century actors
- 21st-century actors
- American actor–politicians
- American dance musicians
- American libertarians
- American pornographic film actors
- Boston Tea Party (political party) politicians
- Cardiovascular disease deaths in California
- Deaths from aneurysm
- Deaths from cerebral hemorrhage
- Female pornographic film actors
- Female United States vice-presidential candidates
- People from Los Angeles County, California
- People from Providence, Rhode Island
- People from Westport, Connecticut
- Personal Choice Party politicians
- United States vice-presidential candidates, 2004
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