"Ever since I was a little kid, I've always wanted to be an actress, I was always a performer, a junior Olympic diver, a junior Olympic gymnast. My mother always told me I was a show-off."
Rabid
Picture Legend:
1. Miss Marilyn
2. At the Girls and Corpses Halloween Party in 2008 (Girls and Corpses? WTH?)
3. Two of her later public photographs
4. ^
5. Marilyn’s daughter, McKenna Marie Taylor
6. Marilyn Briggs at 18, just starting out
7. Young Marilyn
8. Another young Marilyn, just for the pure sweet hell of it
9. And another one!
10. Brother Martin at the keyboards
11. Brother Bill
12. Hillspoint Elementary School
13. Burr Farms Elementary School
14. Long Lots Junior High School
15. Staples High School
16. Reverend Jim "Iggy" Ignatowski
17. Ivory Snow Girl
18. In “The Owl and the Pussycat,” with Robert Klein
19. Roz Kelly
20. “It's A Beautiful Day”
21. Maximizing Marilyn’s notoriety in a 1973 re-release of “Together”
22. Sean S Cunningham
23. Wes Craven
24. Jim and Artie Mitchell
25. Marilyn and Cybill
26. Theatrical poster for “Behind the Green Door”
27. In “Behind the Green Door”
28. Linda Lovelace
29. Georgina Spelvin
30. Constance Money
31. Theatrical poster for “Resurrection of Eve”
32. In “Resurrection of Eve”
33. Key to the City
34. Xaviera Hollander
35. “Inside Marilyn Chambers”
36. 1976‘s "Benihana"
37. Ginger Lynn
38. Traci Lords
39. Season Hubley in “Hardcore”
40. “Rabid” poster
41. Three screen shots from “Rabid”
42. ^
43. ^
44. Susan Roman
45. The Mitchell Brother’s O’Farrell Theater
46. Erica Boyer
47. 1979‘s “Never a Tender Moment”
48. “Insatiable” poster
49. In “Insatiable”
50. Jessie St. James
51. John Holmes
52. “Insatiable II” poster
53. 1983‘s “Up and Coming” poster
54. “Marilyn Chamber’s Private Fantasies”
55. “Marilyn’s Sensual Secrets”
56. Ron Jeremy
57. “Angel of H.E.A.T.” poster
58. Mug shots
59. ^
60. Veronica Hart
61. “Solitaire”
62. Valerie Gobos
63. Steve Miner
64. Still the Ivory Snow Girl
65. Marilyn
I’m not a fan of pornography. I’ve never seen a pornographic film, feature, short, or clip. I’v’e never read a so-called adult book or magazine...even Playboy. I believe the practice to be disgusting and an abomination against the rule of God. I believe the pornographic industry demeans and abuses the men and women who perform in it, and the audience who views such material.
You can go blind using this foul stuff, and my eyesight is deteriorating fast enough on it’s own as I get older.
And those who use pornography will surely enjoy eternity in the fiery pits of Hell.
James Joyce’s Hell. Not that weak Protestant crap.
As a matter of fact I hate sex altogether. Hate it!
It can be very distracting.
However, if I were perchance interested in it, or curious, it would have been around 1973, when I was 18 years old, and I would have taken my young wife to the Ivar Theater in Hollywood to see “Behind the Green Door,” and “Resurrection of Eve,” staring the lovely and talented Marilyn Chambers.
But of course that never happened.
Marilyn would have been 65 years old today. Unfortunately she passed away probably on April 11th in 2009 of a cerebral hemorrhage following an aortic aneurysm, which means she had a heart condition, and enlargement actually, which ruptured, sending massive amounts of blood throughout the body, and in her case into her brain which caused the cerebral hemorrhage, which is a type of stroke, which in this case killed her.
She was 56 years old when she died, just 11 days shy of her 57th birthday.
At the time of her death Marilyn was working at a BMW dealership here in L.A. and living in a mobile home near Santa Clarita, 34 miles northeast of where I’m typing this in downtown Los Angeles if you’re using the mighty US-101 N and I-5 N, about an hour and fifteen minute drive (49.2 miles) if you’re using the mediocre I-210 W.
“A lot of people didn’t know who she was,” says Peggy McGinn, her friend (who states she’s never seen one of Marilyn’s movies). “She went by Marilyn Taylor. And those who knew didn’t care because of the way she carried herself. She was a classy lady.”
She was making about $1,000 to $1,200 a week from the dealership, Peggy estimated, “not after taxes.” Marilyn also brought in about $12,000 in residuals and about $15,000 making guest appearances at Comic-Con. “She earned enough to get by.”
Marilyn also had a passion for gardening. “Marilyn had beautiful flowers,” Peggy remembers. “The neighbors would say, ‘What a beautiful garden,’ and the next day their garden was planted. That was her therapy.”
Some say she may have liked animals more than people (her daughter remembered with a laugh at one of Marilyn’s memorial services how her mother loved animals so much that their dog Teddy rode in the car's front seat while she took the back), and she was a master of Trivial Pursuit.
One man who showed up at that memorial said he met Marilyn when she volunteered at a dog shelter in Castaic the previous year and didn't know who she was until he saw TV reports of her death.
"I just thought she was really nice," said John Richardson, 38, of Valencia. "Some people strike a chord with you. I think it's sad she died so young."
Shortly before she died Marilyn had flown to New York to audition for “The Deep Throat Sex Scandal,” a play about the making of of film “Deep Throat,” and the obscenity trial that followed. “She killed it,” says David Bertolino, who wrote the play. “I think she knew she could act, but I think she wanted to prove it to the general public. She was phenomenal. I had goose bumps.”
Marilyn was thrilled when she got the part. “She was going to quit the car dealership, but not until the ink was dry and the check was in the mail,” says Peggy, who says her friend spent her last weeks alive memorizing her lines. “It was just a matter of days. She was leaving it all to do the play in New York.”
She was never able to appear in the play, dying while it was in rehearsals.
On opening night in 2010, Bertolino says he placed some of Marilyn’s ashes on the stage as a favor to her daughter. They were held, of course, in an Ivory Soap box. “We actually gave her a credit,” he says. “Marilyn Chambers appears nightly posthumously.”
A coroner’s report found that Marilyn Chambers died on April 12, 2009. But Peggy doesn’t believe that, saying she died the night before.
“She always had one glass of wine and one cigarette before she went to bed,” she recalls. Inside the mobile home the next day were an untouched glass of wine and a burned-down cigarette.
“She never got a sip of wine. The cigarette was one long ash. It was like she didn’t have a puff of it. She died exactly the way we all want to die. She didn’t know what hit her.”
Her body was found on the twelfth by her 17 year old daughter, McKenna Marie Taylor. She was survived by McKenna (what a lovely name), and her sister and brother, Jann Smith and Martin Briggs (keyboardist for 1960s Boston band The Remains. By the way, if you Google Marilyn Chamber’s brother and sister it will display a second brother, Bill Briggs, who is not confirmed in any of the other sources I’ve come across, Bill must have been the brother they kept locked up in the closet).
She was cremated and her ashes scattered to the sea.
Marilyn Ann Briggs was born at a very early age in Providence, Rhode Island (41° 49′ 25″ N, 71° 25′ 20″ W). She was raised in Westport, Connecticut, 130.6 miles from Providence via the middling I-95 S.
A lot of people thought she was born in Westport, but Marilyn herself confirmed in 2007 that she was born in Providence.
Now that we’ve got that cleared up we can move on.
Marilyn’s dad was in advertising and her mother was a nurse. No one knows what their names were or are, so we’ll respect their privacy.
Marilyn was the youngest of the two or three children.
She attended Hillspoint Elementary School. She didn’t like that one so she scooted over to Burr Farms Elementary School. She naturally progressed to Long Lots Junior High School, and then good old Staples High.
Why do I include pictures of all four schools?
Because education is important my friends, and I have absolutely nothing better to do.
The Reverend Jim "Iggy" Ignatowsk, better known by his stage name, Christopher Lloyd, also attended Staples, but way before Marilyn got there.
Marilyn was a precocious child.
"When I was about 16 I learned how to write my mother’s name on notes to get out of school", she said. "And then I'd take the train into the city to go to auditions"
So we can officially add forgery to her many other accomplishments.
And while still in high school, being so naturally pretty and all, she won some modeling jobs, the most auspicious being a gig with Procter & Gamble, for a photograph of her posing with a little baby for the cover of a product called Ivory Snow soap flakes.
She became the "Ivory Soap Girl" at 17 years of age. The picture would appear on each box of Ivory Snow in about two years she was told (the time needed to phase out the current box cover and phasing in the new one).
The tag line for the advertising campaign being "99 & 44/100% Pure."
She also got her first acting job in a small non-speaking role in the film “The Owl and the Pussycat,” staring Barbara Streisand and George Segal.
While the film was in production Marilyn, who was then living in New York, worked as a model and was dating a man who was the stand-in for George Segal. The man asked if she would like to come down to set one day and check it out.
Much later Marilyn said the producer, Ray Stark, noticed her and asked her if she was an actress. She lied and said she was and Stark brought her to the offices on the set where they were currently casting for the minor role of "Barney's Girl" opposite Robert Klein. They told her she might have to be topless, to which she agreed, and that while the role was small she would be able to get her Screen Actors Guild card. Much to her surprise, she was given the role.
"They said, 'Well, can you start right away?’”
Well yeah.
When the film was released Ray Stark asked Marilyn, who by the way, was inexplicably billed under the name Evelyn Lang, to travel to Los Angeles and San Francisco on a promotional tour for the film. Marilyn agreed and she and Roz Kelly, who was also in the film, first went to L.A. and stayed at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. From there they traveled north to San Francisco where Marilyn said she fell in love with the city.
Well who doesn’t.
Marilyn had trouble finding more acting jobs upon returning to New York, except for the low budget soft-core pseudo-documentary “Together,” released in 1971, the film was directed by Sean S Cunning ham (who would later go on to create the Friday the 13th empire). The film is nominally about teenagers in the wake of the sexual revolution (those silly kids!).
I’m not saying Marilyn got the lead role because she was willing to get naked in the movie, or that she was dating Kevin, Sean’s brother, or that the Briggs and Cunningham families were close. I’m not saying that, but it’s probably the case.
Marilyn said this about the advertising for “Together.”
"Sean told me he wanted to make a documentary with real people. It was about ESP and that
whole genre of films about awareness. Not free sex, but love, peace, couples feeling comfortable in their relationship -- blah, blah, blah. I didn't even get a billing. Sean did something really smart where he made a lot of money with this silly film. He bought advertising time on local television stations, and the ads would announce a special sneak preview at 10 a.m. for all the housewives. They'd see this film with a black man and white woman, and she was holding his huge schlong in her hand. There was another scene where the black man got an erection, but no sex. The housewives would tell everybody about this scene, but when it played its regular run in the theaters, the scene would be cut out. That's the power of advertising."
Wes Craven, who would later be deemed "Master of Horror," by making such films as “Nightmare on Elm Street (and it’s many sequels),” “The People Under the Stairs (they’re illegal immigrants hiding from Trump),” and “The Last House on the Left, (which was produced by Cunningham),” got his start on “Together.” Craven left his lucrative career in porn to try his hand in mainstream and Cunningham hired him to synchronize the dailies from the three- to four-day reshoot, later becoming an assistant producer.
Marilyn said she did not receive any billing for “Together,” but The Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) lists her as Marilyn Briggs in this film, her real name. She was reportedly paid $250 for her work.
It was after this that she became Marilyn Chambers.
It is also said that after “Together,” Marilyn packed her bags and with several members of the 1960s rock group “It's A Beautiful Day” drove cross-country to San Francisco.
Because a young girl just needs part of a rock group while driving long distances.
In San Francisco she had trouble finding work in theater or dance groups, and took on a series of odd jobs such as hostess in a health food restaurant, a topless and bottomless dancer (work I’ve had to resort to occasionally... Hey! The money’s good!), working for a dentist (I worked for a veterinarian), and others.
She saw an add in the San Francisco Chronicle for a casting call for what was billed as a "major motion picture," in 1972. She went to the audition and was given a form to fill out.
One of the questions was if she wanted a “Balling,” or “Non-Balling,” role. She thought about that for a while, and decided it must be a typo, and it was actually asking her about “Bowling.”
Well Marilyn was a pretty good bowler so she completed the form.
However, she began to get a weird vibe from the other actors auditioning and her surroundings and began to suspect that the film she was auditioning for, which was to be called Behind the Green Door, might be a tad risque in nature, possibly even racy, or worse yet, provocative.
She wasn’t interested and was leaving when the producers, Artie and Jim Mitchell noticed her resemblance to Cybill Shepherd. They invited her upstairs to their offices and told her the film's intricate plot.
Marilyn hadn’t been interested in doing a pornographic film. Topless was okay, she’d done that, but porno?! No way.
But she was intrigued by certain fantasy elements of the plot, and the fact that this would be a porno with a story, which had a beginning, middle, and end. Up until then pornographic material in the film medium had been 8mm shorts, and stag films, which were about 12 minutes in duration.
She eventually decided to take a chance and accepted under the condition that she receive a hefty salary and 10 percent of the film's gross. She also insisted that each actor get tested for venereal disease.
After the brothers finished laughing, Marilyn took off and went home. Not being in a porno wasn’t a big thing to her.
Jim and Artie however, couldn’t get it out of their heads that they needed her fresh, wholesome, Cybill Shepard look (despite “The Last Picture Show”).
They called her up, went to her place and made a deal.
Don’t take my word for it. Here’s Marilyn telling the story herself, by golly!
Marilyn didn’t say one word throughout the movie. So this is one of the first examples of semi-mime porn, semi as the props she uses, or are accurately, are used upon her, are real.
If you’ve ever seen the “Godfather Part II,” wherein Michael and Fredo and others visit a sex club in Cuba, the scene in which Fredo gives himself away (that he had secretly worked with Hyman Roth and Johnny Ola, which allowed an attempt on Michael’s life), that’s pretty much the idea of “Behind the Green Door.”
Gloria Saunders, a wealthy socialite from San Francisco, is visiting a suburb and is kidnaped, hypnotized, and a sexually used on a stage at an elite club.
The movie features a long lesbian sequence with six women ganging up on Gloria, one of the first interracial sex scenes, and one scene utilizing a trapeze.
I know what you’re thinking. Trapeze porn is pretty common these days, but “Behind the Green Door,” was a pioneer in the development of this art.
"Each sequence was a surprise to me," Marilyn said in 1987. "They never told me what was happening next. I just did it as it happened, and it worked. I've always been highly sexed. Oh, my God, I love it! Insatiable is the right word for me."
Here’s the opening scene, and a longer one. I have to warn you now of the graphic nature of these clips, so if you have small children or animals present you may want to have them go into another room briefly.
As “Behind the Green Door,” was about to be released in December of 1972, Marilyn remembered that she was the Ivory Snow Girl, and after remembering that she told Jim and Artie.
“Really,” they said.
“Yeah,” she replied.
She calculated that two years had passed since she had posed for the picture and it should be on the shelves of local supermarkets at that time.
So they went to the local supermarket, and lo and behold, there was Marilyn holding a little baby on hundreds of boxes of detergent.
The brothers ran a PR campaign which billed her as the “99 and 44/11% pure” girl.
Procter & Gamble didn’t like that at all! They were down right shocked and appalled. They dropped her like a hot balloon, and it didn’t take two years either. The advertising industry was scandalized, late night talk show hosts had a lot to make jokes about. “Behind the Green Door” got a huge amount of free publicity, and ticket sales soared.
The movie cost $60,000 to make, and according to World Wide Box Office made $50 million.
I know what your thinking, if the film made $50 million, Marilyn should have made $5 million, at which point she could have retired (other sources state she was paid $2,500 plus 1% of the gross, which would have gotten her the goodly sum of $500,000).
You’re right to think that. I’m right to think that.
Where did the money go?
Who knows? I certainly don’t!
Maybe she gave it to Doug Chapin, her first husband, whom she met while he was playing bagpipes for money on the streets of San Francisco. They married in 1971. She divorced Chapin in 1974 and married Chuck Traynor that same year. He had been recently divorced from one of her contemporaries, Linda Lovelace. He also became her manager and they were together for 10 years.
Anyway, “Behind the Green Door,” made Marilyn a star. Green Door, along with “Deep Throat,” (Linda Lovelace) released the same year, and “The Devil in Miss Jones,” (Georgina Spelvin) ushered in what is commonly known as the Golden Age of Porn (this phrase refers to a 15-year period (about 1969–1984) in which commercial American pornography in the form of sexually-explicit films experienced positive attention from mainstream cinemas, movie critics, and the general public. It began with release of the 1969 film “Blue Movie,” directed by Andy Warhol, and the 1970 film “Mona,” which of course was produced by Bill Osco. These films were the first adult erotic films depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States. Both of these films influenced the making of movies such as “Deep Throat,” “Behind the Green Door,” “The Devil in Miss Jones,” and “The Opening of Misty Beethoven,” starring Constance Money).
Marilyn chose not to retire, and I don’t blame her. She and the brothers came up with “Resurrection of Eve,” which was released in September of 1973. Here’s a clip (what you see may shock you, but it will definitely change the way you think about inter-personal relations. You may want to close your eyes for this one).
Eve wasn’t as big of a hit as Green Door, probably because it didn’t have any monkeys in it.
However, it was a hit and cemented Marilyn’s position as a professional porn star, and a big one, who was set apart from her contemporaries Lovelace and Spelvin by filling up the niche of the freaking Ivory Snow Girl, the wholesome, all-American girl next door.
Yet at this point, in 1974, Marilyn split with Jim and Artie in favor of her new husband, Chuck Traynor.
"They were always talking about some half-assed idea I knew wouldn't come off", Marilyn said in 1992. "'Flakes' is a terrible word but they were, in a cute sort of way."
In 1974/1975 Marilyn starred in the dinner theater production of “The Mind With the Dirty Man,” in Las Vegas. The play ran for 52 weeks which was the longest-running play in Las Vegas history then.
The mayor of Las Vegas at the time, who was either Oran K. Gragson, a republican, or William H. Briare, a democrat (who beat Harry Reid for the spot in 1975) gave Marilyn the Key to the City, which she was quite proud of, as she should have been (the "Key to the City," is presented to esteemed visitors, residents, or others whom the city wishes to honor, and symbolizes the freedom of the recipient to enter and leave the city at will, as a trusted friend of city residents. In 1975, if you didn’t have one of these you didn’t get in or out).
She later starred in Neil Simon's “Last of the Red Hot Lovers,” in Vegas.
She wrote a memoir “My Story,” and co-authored “Xaviera Meets Marilyn Chambers,” with Xaviera Hollander, whose own book “The Happy Hooker: My Own Story,” I of course have not read.
Jim and Artie were a little, how should I put this... miffed, that Marilyn had abandoned them for Traynor. They still had a lot of unused material from Green Door and Eve, as well as interviews with some of those who were connected to those movies, so they made a documentary entitled “Inside Marilyn Chambers,” which was made without her knowledge or consent. However, when she did learn of it just before it was released in May of 1975, she made a deal with the brothers which got her 10% of the gross as long as she cooperated with the production, provided additional interviews, and promoted the film, on and on.
"I hated the film and I still do," she said later. "It's supposed to be the story of my life, and it's not true. Jim and Art ripped me off. They felt I'd betrayed them ... I felt they'd betrayed me, and for many years, we didn't speak. Only when money was to be made did we start talking again.”
Marilyn went on to do the New York musical stage revue “Le Bellybutton,” an off Broadway show meant to be in the vein of “Oh! Calcutta!” and other edgy adult musicals of the late 1960s and early- to mid-1970s. Here she is talking about it, and “Inside Marilyn Chambers,” in a 1977 interview.
“Le Bellybutton” ran for 26 performances.
Marilyn can sing!
She sang in and produced a disco single, “Benihana,” in 1976. Billboard magazine said "She...sings quite nicely in a sexy little voice in this catchy disco tribute to an oriental lover man."
The song is played in the background of one scene in the film “Rabid.”
I think she has multiple orgasms near the end, but that's only me. Here, you decide.
Marilyn wrote a sex advice column in the mid-to-late 70s for Genesis magazine called "Private Chambers," which she mentioned in the interview above. She also wrote one for Club magazine throughout the 80s called "State of the Nation."
But her goal was always to work in mainstream films, movies where people weren’t having sex all over the place... and no trapezes!
The problem that so many adult actresses, such as Ginger Lynn Allen and Traci Lords for example, had was the paradox.
"The paradox was that, as a result of Green Door, Hollywood blackballed me," Marilyn said later. " [Green Door] became a very high-grossing film...But, to a lot of people, it was still a dirty movie; for me to do anything else, as an actress, was totally out of the question. I became known as a porno star, and that type of labeling really hurt me. It hurt my chances of doing anything else."
In 1976 the industry magazine Variety announced that Marilyn would star along with Rip Torn in a movie called “City Blues,” about a hooker being defended by a seedy lawyer. It was to be directed by veteran film maker Nicholas Ray of “Rebel Without a Cause,” fame, however, the project never got started for one reason or another.
And she looked too wholesome to be a porn queen, the casting director thought, when she was up for a part in “Hardcore," with George C Scott. "The Hardcore people wanted a woman with orange hair who chews gum, swings a big purse, and wears stiletto heels. That's such a cliche," Marilyn said years later. Season Hubley was cast instead.
When they were just starting out, Canadian film makers David Cronenberg and Ivan Reitman (who would later make such films as “Scanners,” “The Fly,” and “Easter Promises.” And “Animal House,” “Ghostbusters,” and “Twins,” respectively) were looking for a female lead for Cronenberg’s second feature film, “Rabid.” Reitman was the producer and musical supervisor. David’s first choice was Sissy Spacek, but the studio suits axed her due to her Texas accent and freckles. This was at a time before actors learned how to create accents other than their own, and before make up was invented.
Ivan had heard that Marilyn Chambers was looking to get started in mainstream films and suggested her to David. Ivan felt that it would be easier to market the film in different territories if a well-known porn star portrayed the main character.
I don’t know why.
David later stated that Marilyn put in a lot of hard work on the film and that he was impressed with her. He further stated he had not seen “Behind the Green Door” prior to casting her.
Here he is talking about the film and Marilyn.
And here is the Canadian voice actress Susan Roman, who was also in “Rabid,” talking about working with Marilyn.
And here’s the film’s trailer.
"It was great working with David", Marilyn said in a 1997 interview. "He taught me a lot of things that were very valuable as an actress, especially in horror films. I found it useful in sex films, too!”
“Rabid,” was released theatrically in the United States by New World Pictures in 1977.
It tells the tale of a young woman (Marilyn) who, after being injured in a motorcycle accident underwent an experimental surgical procedure, afterwhich she develops an orifice under one of her armpits. The orifice hides a phallic stinger that she uses to feed on people's blood. Soon, those she feeds upon become infected, whose bite spreads the disease and soon causes massive chaos starting with Quebec and ending up in Montreal.
“Rabid” was a breakthrough movie with international distributors and Cronenberg’s next two horror features gained stronger support because of it.
It cost $530,000 to make and made $1,100.000,000.00.
Marilyn reunited with the Mitchell Brothers in 1979 for two 30-minute features called “Beyond de Sade” and “Never a Tender Moment,” which explored BDSM (The term "BDSM" is first recorded in a Usenet posting from 1991, and is interpreted as a combination of the abbreviations B/D (Bondage and Discipline), D/s (Dominance and submission), and S/M (Sadism and Masochism). BDSM is now used as a catch-all phrase covering a wide range of activities, forms of interpersonal relationships, and distinct subcultures, but no kazoo parades!). The films, which were shot at the Mitchell Brothers Theater, co-starred Erica Boyer in her first foray into pornographic movies.
Excluding the two shorts above, Marilyn’s adult career and reputation and the opportunities she took advantage of due to her notoriety, was based solely on her two films... Green door and Eve. In today’s adult industry, so I’m told, new girls are in 30 to 50 different movies a month, so the industry and the way it’s product is produced and consumed, has changed quite a bit over the years.
But what hasn’t?
After trying for a mainstream career and shedding her image as a porn star, Marilyn returned to the adult film industry with 1980's “Insatiable.”
In the film Marilyn played actress, model, and heiress Sandra Chase, whose appetite for sex is, well, it’s insatiable! I mean she wants sex all of the freaking time!
Sandra is getting ready to make a movie and her manager, played by Jessie St. James, is working on getting some big names to appear alongside her. The story is told in a series of flashbacks which details Sandra's sexual encounters.
"My manager had never really wanted me to do X-rated films," Marilyn said in 1997." He tried to move me out of that, but—seeing as things didn't go that way, and I wasn't getting legitimate projects—it was something that we needed to do. I was known in the X-rated business, and it was the right time. It was a cool story and the budget was going to be a lot higher; there were going to be helicopters and Ferraris. It was going to be very classy. There were some names in it that would be good for the box office, including John Holmes, and that was at a time when X-films were still playing in theaters."
Here’s a clip.
And here’s a two part interview with Tom Snyder with Marilyn promoting the film. Here and here.
“Insatiable” was the top-selling adult video in the U.S. from 1980 to 1982 and it was inducted in the XRCO (X-Rated Critics Organization) Hall of Fame (the XRCO Awards are given by the American X-Rated Critics Organization annually to people working in adult entertainment and it is the only adult industry awards show reserved exclusively for industry members).
“Insatiable” was followed by a sequel, “Insatiable II” in 1984. Another X-rated film, “Up 'n' Coming,” was released in 1983 (here’s a clip of Marilyn singing at the beginning of the film). She also released six direct-to-video features in the early 1980s called “Marilyn Chambers' Private Fantasies,” in which she acted out her own sexual fantasies alongside with some of the biggest names in the industry. She wrote the scenarios and dialogue for these videos herself.
In 1981 she released a book of sex positions and tips called “Sensual Secrets.” One of the male models featured in the photos with Marilyn was a young hedgehog, er, I mean Ron Jeremy (who co-starred with Marilyn in “Marilyn Chambers' Private Fantasies III”).
In 1983 she appeared in a non-explicit scfi/action made for cable movie called “Angel of H.E.A.T.” Marilyn plays Angel Harmony, a sort of female James Bond, who has been assigned a mission to stop a mad scientist and his team of androids from world domination (my ultimate goal as well).
H.E.A.T., stands for Harmony's Elite Assault Team.
I have not seen “Angel of H.E.A.T.,” and fervently hope to one day, yet I’m told the movie is filled to the brim with karate, mud wrestling, river rafting, and sex with robots.
As one reviewer put it “This is probably the greatest movie ever made.”
Intriguing.
Here’s the trailer.
On February 1st, of 1985, while performing her nude act at the "Cine-Stage" within the O'Farrell Theater in San Francisco, Marilyn was arrested by vice squad officers and charged with committing a lewd act in a public place and soliciting prostitution.
It was alleged by the plainclothes policemen who were in the audience that she allowed audience members to touch her. The show was called “Feel the Magic," after all.
She was released on $2,000 bail and the charges were later dropped.
"I've never been arrested in my life for anything, ever, so this is kind of a big shock for me, not only as a performer but as a human being", Marilyn said at the time. "It's a heart breaker. This is supposed to be a hip city. I really love -- make that LOVED -- this city. These people have been my fans for years, and it's a thrill for them to touch me up close. There's nothing illegal if I'm not taking money."
"The O'Farrell was packed the day after we were arrested," She said. "And they put the mayor's phone number up on the marquee -- 'Call Mayor Dianne Feinstein'...I'm in jail with my fur coat and nothing else on, and [the police officers] want to take pictures. I took a mug shot with every cop in the place, and they're going, 'I'm really sorry we had to do this.' And the next night they were all back enjoying the show."
On December 13th of that year she was arrested again, this time in Cleveland.
She was arrested during a performance at Stage Door Johnny's, a strip club in Cleveland. Police said she was nude except for her shoes and was having sexual contact with an audience member. She was charged with promoting prostitution and was held in jail until she was freed on a $1,000 bond. She denied the charge, saying, "I did the same show I've been doing for the last six years. Police just happened to be in the audience."
In November 2012 the mug shots from Marilyn’s Cleveland arrest sold on eBay for $202.50
In 1984/1985 Marilyn left the adult film business because of the increasing fear of AIDS.
Marilyn’s co-star in “Insatiable,” “Up and Coming,” and adult star legend, John Holmes died in the VA hospital on Sepulveda Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles on March 13th, 1988. He died from AIDS-related complications (according to his death certificate, cardiorespiratory arrest and encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) due to AIDS, associated with lymphadenopathy (disease of the lymph nodes) and esophageal candidiasis (an opportunistic infection of the esophagus by Candida albicans... a fungus)).
He was 43 years old.
Marilyn was an addict. Apparently she was addicted to alcohol, cocaine, nicotine and potentially other substances, and she was using heavily when she met her future husband on a blind date, truck driver William Taylor Jr,. She was using so much that many feared for her life.
After that date he called her to say he couldn’t see her anymore due to her drug problem. Marilyn got angry, kicked a wall and broke her leg.
Bill came to see her in the hospital, which was nice of him, wherein they continued seeing each other, and Marilyn sought help with Narcotics Anonymous, which is an indication she was using more than alcohol, cocaine, and smoking cigarettes, as those three are not narcotics.
She worked the 12 Step program well and got sober.
The couple were married around 1991 or 1992 the union resulting in McKenna in 1992.
They divorced in 1994.
On a rainy February 27th, 1991 evening, Jim Mitchell, in response to friends's and associates's demands to "do something" about alcoholic, cocaine-addled Artie Mitchell, drove to Artie's house with a .22 rifle that he inherited from his father and fatally shot his brother to death. O'Farrell dancer Julie Bajo (Artie's lover at the time) immediately called 911, and the police arrested Jim minutes later. Marilyn spoke at Artie's funeral, and he was then buried in Lodi Memorial Cemetery, about 98 miles northeast of San Francisco.
After a highly publicized trial Jim was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Before Jim's sentencing, numerous people spoke on his behalf, including former Mayor Frank Jordan, Sheriff Michael Hennessey, and former Police Chief Richard Hongisto.
Mitchell was sentenced to six years in prison.
After he served three years in San Quentin, Jim was released in 1997.
Jim Mitchell died at his ranch in western Sonoma County on July 12th, 2007, from an apparent heart attack.
In 1999, Marilyn returned to San Francisco to perform at the Mitchell Brothers' O'Farrell Theatre. Mayor Willie Brown proclaimed a "Marilyn Chambers Day" for her unique place in San Francisco history, and praised her for her "artistic presence", her "vision", and her "energy".
After Marilyn’s death Brown had this to say: "That wasn't from any personal knowledge. That was all part of the allure of San Francisco. At the time that she was doing what she was doing, it created an interest nationally if not internationally in our city. And people would come here to see if Marilyn Chambers was really dressed in snowflakes."
That same year she returned to adult features (like Ginger Lynn) with a trio of films made for VCA Pictures called “Still Insatiable (1999),” “Dark Chambers (2000),” and “Edge Play (2000),” each directed by former adult actress Veronica Hart.
Veronica and I share the same birthday, October 27th.
She is one year younger than I am.
Linda Susan Boreman, better known as Linda Lovelace, died after sustaining injuries incurred after a automobile accident April 22nd (Marilyn’s 50th birthday), 2002, in Colorado. She was 53.
Three months later, on July 22nd, 2002, Linda and Marilyn’s former husband, Chuck Traynor, died of a heart attack in Chatsworth, California.
Linda's sister, Barbara Boreman, later said in an interview in “Inside Deep Throat” that she was disappointed that Traynor had died before she could kill him.
I detect some animosity between the two.
In the 2004 United States presidential election, Marilyn ran for Vice President on the Personal Choice Party ticket, a libertarian political party. She received a total of 946 votes.
In the 2008 she ran again as a write in candidate with Charles Jay at the top of the ticket in the presidential election. She ran in Arkansas, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah.
If they had just been running against Sen John McCain they may have won.
Unfortunately for them and John, Barrack Obama ran in that election as well.
In 2007, she landed a small part in a low-budget film called “Solitaire,” in which she played a Rhode Island cop in hot pursuit of a group of teenage thieves, but she died before she got to see the movie. Here’s a clip.
At 8:20pm, December 31st, 2009, Amanda Jensen, Erica Boyer's real name, was walking near her home in Panama City, Florida, south on Front Beach Road (U.S. Highway 98) near Second Street, and while attempting to cross Front Beach Road was struck by a 2001 four-door Hyundai being driven by an off-duty officer in the Florida Highway Patrol. She died instantly.
She was 53 years old.
On August 30th, 2015, Wes Craven died of brain cancer at his home in Los Angeles, 4 weeks after his 76th birthday.
In a 2004 interview, Marilyn 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."
“I'm just kind of resolved to the fact that this is it and you might as well enjoy it and reap the benefits of working 30-something years to achieve a name. And life is cruel when you get to be over 40 and nobody wants you, nobody wants to see you without your clothes on. Which is fine with me, because I don't want to take them off anymore.”
“I think Marilyn was taken advantage of her whole life,” says Valerie Gobos, an agent and producer who owns the rights to Marilyn’s life story. “She didn’t have a good manager or a good lawyer. If she had known better in her youth, she would have been a lot better off financially. She wasn’t real savvy to say, ‘Hey let’s sign a pre-nup.’ I think she never was a good business person.”
“She thought she could cross over to the mainstream, but she couldn’t,” says Gobos. “The studios wouldn’t accept her.”
"She created Marilyn Chambers," McKenna said of her mother. "She was definitely proud of it. It's cool to say my mom was part of the sexual revolution."
McKenna says her mother didn't believe her profession defined who she was. "She didn't regret anything she did," she said. "It wasn't just porn. It was way more than that. People didn't have the right to talk about their sexuality freely back then."
“I don’t think she regretted becoming Marilyn Chambers,” says Valerie. “She did what she felt she needed to do to become a star. She wanted to be famous and she accomplished that.”
But her friend Steve Miner disagrees. He sees her life as a cautionary tale about the adult industry. “Her's is not a story about a victim but a protagonist that makes bad choices,” Miner said. “It paid off in very short terms. It clearly didn’t pay off in the long term. It just seems like the whole porn industry is a road to ruin. Marilyn is the ultimate example for me.”
I don’t believe Marilyn was an example of a life in ruin. She led an exciting one of some notoriety. She pursued her dreams to the utmost of her ability and by some measure of fortunate circumstance became a legend in a field that many disparage while secretly are a party to. She became a legend in a field that many venerate. She was unique in a business that chews and spits out young women like a Dakota wood chipper. She overcame ridicule, and addiction. She had a wonderful daughter.
She was not satisfied with her life near the end, and wanted change, but she always wanted change. She always strove to tackle bigger and more ambitious projects. She took what life handed out and made the best of all things.
My life is better for her having been in it to the small degree that she was in it.
Her greatest accomplishment though, was becoming the person that she was ultimately to become. She transcended all of the bullshit and pain that her profession and it’s attendant necessities put upon her. She turned to drugs for awhile to help her with that, but overcame that particular problem as well. And that’s a big problem, one I’m all to familiar with.
She became the person who gardens, and volunteers at animal shelters. She left the Chambers, Taylors, and Briggs personas behind and was just... Marilyn.
Which was quite a lot indeed.
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