Marilyn Ann Taylor (née Briggs; April 22, 1952 – April 12, 2009), known professionally as Marilyn Chambers, was an American pornographic film actress, exotic dancer, model, actress, singer, and vice-presidential candidate. She was known for her 1972 hardcore film debut, Behind the Green Door, and her 1980 pornographic film Insatiable. She ranked at No. 6 on the list of Top 50 Porn Stars of All Time by AVN, and ranked as one of Playboy's Top 100 Sex Stars of the Century in 1999. Although she was primarily known for her adult film work, she made a successful transition to mainstream projects and has been called "porn's most famous crossover".
Born Marilyn Ann Briggs in Providence, Rhode Island, Chambers was raised in Westport, Connecticut, 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. Her father was in advertising and her mother was a nurse. She was the youngest of three children, a brother, Bill Briggs (keyboardist for 1960s Boston band The Remains), and a sister, Jann Smith. Chambers attended Burr Farms Elementary School, Hillspoint Elementary School, Long Lots Junior High School, and Staples High School where she graduated in 1970 and was voted "Best Student Body". Her father tried to discourage her from pursuing a modeling career, citing brutal competition. "Ever since I was a little kid, I've always wanted to be an actress," Chambers said in 1997. "I was always a performer, a junior Olympic diver, a junior Olympic gymnast. My mother always told me I was a show-off".
"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". While in high school, she landed some modeling assignments and a small role in the film The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), in which Chambers was credited as Evelyn Lang. During her early career as a model, her most prominent job was as the "Ivory Soap girl" on the Ivory Snow soap flake box, posing as a mother holding a baby under the tag line "99 & 44/100% pure".
Upon the release of The Owl and the Pussycat, Chambers was sent to Los Angeles and San Francisco on a promotional tour. After that, 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. In 1970, she moved from Westport to San Francisco, where she held several jobs that included topless model and bottomless dancer. "I moved to San Francisco, thinking it was the entertainment capital of the world, which indeed, it is not," she said.
Chambers sought work in theater and dance groups in San Francisco to no avail. In 1972, she saw an advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle for a casting call for what was billed as a "major motion picture". She rushed to the audition only to find it was for a pornographic film, which was to be called Behind the Green Door. She was about to leave when producers Artie and Jim Mitchell noticed her resemblance to Cybill Shepherd. They invited her upstairs to their offices and told her the film's plot. Chambers was highly dubious about accepting a role in a pornographic film, fearing it might ruin her chances at breaking into the mainstream. But she was turned on by the fantasy of the story and decided to take a chance, 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. The Mitchell Brothers balked at her request for a percentage of the film's profits, but finally agreed, realizing the film needed a wholesome blonde actress.
The film told the story of a wealthy San Francisco socialite, Gloria Saunders (Chambers), who is taken against her will to an elite North Beach sex club and loved as she's never been loved before. Unusually, Chambers does not have a single word of dialogue in the entire film. After engaging in lesbian sex with a group of six women, she then has sex with actor Johnnie Keyes. This possibly makes Behind the Green Door the first U.S. feature-length hardcore film to include an interracial sex scene. The porn industry and viewing public were shocked by the then-taboo spectacle of a white woman having sex with a black man. The scene with Keyes is followed by Chambers mounting a trapeze contraption suspended from the ceiling. She then engages in vaginal intercourse with one man as she performs oral sex on another and masturbates two others.
"Each sequence was a surprise to me", she 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."
After filming concluded, she informed the Mitchell Brothers that she was "the Ivory Snow Girl"; the Mitchells capitalized on this by billing her as the "99 and 44/100% impure" girl. Although she said at the time the film would help "sell a lot more soap", Procter & Gamble quickly dropped her after discovering her double life as an adult-film actress, and the advertising industry was scandalized. The fact that Chambers's image was so well known from Ivory Snow boosted the film's ticket sales, and led to several jokes on television talk shows. Nearly every adult film she made following this incident featured a cameo of her Ivory Snow box.
Chambers was relatively unknown prior to Behind the Green Door; however, the film made her a star. Green Door, along with Deep Throat, released the same year, and The Devil in Miss Jones, ushered in what is commonly known as the porno chic era.
Resurrection of Eve and Inside Marilyn Chambers
Following Behind the Green Door, the Mitchell Brothers and Chambers teamed up for Resurrection of Eve, released in September 1973. Although not the runaway blockbuster that Green Door was, Eve was a hit and a well-received entry into the porno chic market. It also helped set Chambers apart from her contemporaries Linda Lovelace and Georgina Spelvin as the wholesome, all-American girl next door. Following Eve, Chambers was anxious to transition her fame into other areas of entertainment. At the time, the Mitchell Brothers were still her managers. "They were always talking about some half-assed idea I knew wouldn't come off", Chambers said in 1992. "'Flakes' is a terrible word but they were, in a cute sort of way". Chambers had always considered the brothers as her own brothers but when she abruptly announced that she was leaving them to take up with Chuck Traynor, they were appalled and had a falling out with Chambers.
In retaliation, the brothers created a documentary in 1976 called Inside Marilyn Chambers, which was composed of alternate shots and outtakes from Green Door and Eve, as well as interviews with some of her co-stars. This was done without Chambers's knowledge or approval but when she learned of it just prior to its release, she negotiated a deal that would offer her 10% of the gross as long as she would contribute interviews to the film and promote it nationally. "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." Chambers 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 films, which were shot at the Mitchell Brothers Theatre, co-starred Erica Boyer.
Chambers dreamed of having a career in mainstream films and believed her celebrity as the star of Behind the Green Door and the Ivory Snow girl would be a stepping stone to other endeavors. "The paradox was that, as a result of Green Door, Hollywood blackballed me," she 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."