Mary Millington
Encyclopedia
Mary Millington was a British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

 model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

 and pornographic actress. She has been described as one of the "two hottest British sex film stars of the seventies", the other being Fiona Richmond
Fiona Richmond
Fiona Richmond is a former glamour model and actress. She is the daughter of the Reverend John Harrison. Born Julia Rosamund Harrison, she became a British sex symbol in the 1970s for her appearances in numerous risqué plays, comedy revues, magazines and films.-Acting career:She made her film...

.

Early life

Millington was born out of wedlock, and grew up without her father (whose name was John Klein). She was bullied at school due to being born illegitimately, and suffered from low self esteem throughout her childhood and teenage years. After marrying at a young age she took the surname Maxted, and lived in Dorking
Dorking
Dorking is a historic market town at the foot of the North Downs approximately south of London, in Surrey, England.- History and development :...

. She had to nurse her terminally ill mother for more than ten years, and began her porn career to pay for her care. She became a glamour model in the late 1960s.

Career

Soon after this she met the pornographer John Jesnor Lindsay
John Jesnor Lindsay
John Jesnor Lindsay is a Scottish former photographer who turned to the more lucrative trade of making blue movies during the late 60s and all the way through the 70s. A former student of the Glasgow School of Art, Lindsay had begun his career as a photojournalist with limited financial success...

, and began appearing in 8 mm hardcore
Hardcore pornography
Hardcore pornography is a form of pornography that features explicit sexual acts. The term was coined in the second half of the 20th century to distinguish it from softcore pornography. It usually takes the form of photographs, often displayed in magazines or on the Internet, or films. It can also...

 porn loops which sold well in Europe. One of her first films was Miss Borehole in 1970. Miss Bohrloch won the Golden Phallus Award at the Wet Dream Festival held in November 1970 in Amsterdam. Millington starred in around twenty short hardcore films for John Lindsay, although only five (Miss Bohrloch, Oral Connection, Betrayed, Oh Nurse and Special Assignment) have so far resurfaced. She then returned to modelling for British pornographic magazines such as Knave
Knave
Knave may refer to:* Knave , a British adult magazine*A male servant see also varlet*A journeyman*Another name for the Jack in a deck of cards*In knights and knaves logic puzzles, a person who always lies...

 and Men Only
Men Only
Men Only is a British soft-core pornographic magazine published by Paul Raymond since 1971. However, the title goes back to 1935 when it was founded by C. Arthur Pearson Ltd as a pocket magazine . It set out its editorial stall in the first issue:'We don't want women readers. We won't have women...

. She also appeared in softcore
Softcore
Softcore pornography is a form of filmic or photographic pornography or erotica that is less sexually explicit than hardcore pornography. It is intended to tickle and arouse men and women. Softcore pornography depicts nude and semi-nude performers engaging in casual social nudity or non-graphic...

 short films by Russell Gay (Response, 1974), Mountain Films (Love Games, Wild Lovers) and Harrison Marks
Harrison Marks
George Harrison Marks was a British glamour photographer and director of nudist, and later, pornographic films who was active in the fields for several decades.-Kamera and Pamela Green:...

 (Sex is My Business, c. 1974).

Sex is My Business was shot late on a Saturday night at a sex shop on London’s Coventry Street
Coventry Street
Coventry Street is a short London street, within the City of Westminster, running from Piccadilly Circus to Leicester Square. The street is the main conduit between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square and at the weekend up to 150,000 people walk from one to another along the street...

. The storyline concerns a powerful aphrodisiac
Aphrodisiac
An aphrodisiac is a substance that increases sexual desire. The name comes from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexuality and love. Throughout history, many foods, drinks, and behaviors have had a reputation for making sex more attainable and/or pleasurable...

 being dropped by a customer, the potency of which renders the shop's staff and customers sex crazy. Millington, dressed in a short see-through dress, is the film's main focus of attention, playing a member of staff who drags a customer into the back room for some multi-position sex, thoughtfully turning on the shop's CCTV camera so others can watch. Sex is My Business was considered something of a lost film
Lost film
A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...

 until a Super 8 mm film
Super 8 mm film
Super 8 mm film is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format....

 print of the film was located and privately transferred to DVD in 2008. The film subsequently made its internet debut on the 26 July 2008 at the (now defunct) site ZDD Visual Explosion, in 2010 Sex is My Business is set to be included as a special feature on the DVD re-release of Come Play With Me. .

In 1975 she met adult magazine publisher David Sullivan, having been introduced to him by her Sex is My Business co-star Maureen O’Malley in February 1975. Although she was still married the pair became lovers. Millington became well-known thanks to her appearances in Sullivan's porn magazines such as Whitehouse and Private. In her first Whitehouse appearance Sullivan claimed that she was the bisexual nymphomaniac sister of the magazines editor Doreen Millington, and so gave Mary a new stage name. She soon became the most popular model in any of Sullivan's magazines. She then had a small part in Sullivan's 1977 softcore sex comedy
Sex comedy
Sex comedy is a term for comedy movies with sexual content usually referring to those made in the United Kingdom in the mid 1970s. They may range from comic pornographic films like the Confessions series to relatively innocent comedies that include jokes about sex and other sexual related humour,...

 Come Play with Me, alongside Alfie Bass
Alfie Bass
Alfred Bass was an English actor. He was born in Bethnal Green, London, the youngest in a Jewish family with ten children; their parents had fled persecution in Russia...

 and Irene Handl
Irene Handl
-Life:Irene Handl was born in Maida Vale, London, the daughter of an Austrian banker father and French mother. She took to acting at the relatively advanced age of 36, and studied at the acting school run by the sister of Dame Sybil Thorndike...

 Although critically panned, the film was highly successful, running continuously for four years at one London cinema. It then became one of the first British films to sell in large numbers on the new VHS format. This was followed by a larger role in The Playbirds (1978), in which she was cast as a policewoman working undercover as a nude model. Although her poor acting ability was evident, The Playbirds was also a commercial success. Like Come Play with Me it was extensively trailed in Sullivans magazines. At the height of her fame she was also working behind the counter in Sullivans sex shop
Sex shop
A sex shop, erotic shop is a shop that sells products related to adult sexual or erotic entertainment, such as sex toys, lingerie, clothing, pornography, and other related products...

s, mainly in the Whitehouse shop in Norbury
Norbury
Norbury is a town in the London Borough of Croydon, also crossing the London Borough of Merton. It shares the postcode London SW16 with nearby Streatham. Norbury is south of Charing Cross.-History:...

. She also continued working as a call girl
Call girl
A call girl or female escort is a sex worker who is not visible to the general public; nor does she usually work in an institution like a brothel, although she may be employed by an escort agency...

, which she had done since her early modeling days. She then made a cameo appearance in Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair (1979), which was a flop, and Queen of the Blues (1979). She also appeared in other sex movies such as Eskimo Nell (1975), Intimate Games (1976) and Derek Ford
Derek Ford
Derek Ford was an English film director and writer, most famous for sexploitation films such as The Wife Swappers Keep it Up Jack! Sex Express , and What's up Superdoc! .Ford began as a writer in collaboration with his brother Donald Ford , originally...

's What's Up Superdoc! (1978). Millington's final appearance was in the Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...

 film Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle directed by Julien Temple
Julien Temple
Julien Temple is an English film, documentary and music video director. He began his career with short films featuring the Sex Pistols, and has continued with various off-beat projects, including The Great Rock And Roll Swindle, Absolute Beginners and a documentary film about Glastonbury.-Temple...

, which was released theatrically in March 1980. However, neither she nor her punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 co-star Sid Vicious
Sid Vicious
Sid Vicious was an English musician best known as the bassist of the influential punk rock group Sex Pistols...

 lived to see the completion of the movie.

One of Millington's most outrageous moments was being photographed topless outside 10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street, colloquially known in the United Kingdom as "Number 10", is the headquarters of Her Majesty's Government and the official residence and office of the First Lord of the Treasury, who is now always the Prime Minister....

. In which Millington, while posing for an innocuous picture with a policeman outside Number Ten, decided to unzip her top, exposing her breasts for the photograph, much to the surprise of those also present which included fellow Come Play With Me actress Suzy Mandel
Suzy Mandel
Suzy Mandel is the stage name of an ex-actress and model best known for her roles in such 1970’s British sex comedies as Confessions of a Driving Instructor , Come Play with Me , and The Playbirds , and for her appearances on The Benny Hill Show.-Biography:Born in London, Mandel grew up on the...

, Whitehouse photographer George Richardson (who took the picture anyway) and the policeman in question (who tried to confiscate the reel of film). According to Simon Sheridan’s biography of Millington, “For this stunt Mary was conditionally discharged and bound over to keep the peace”. Millington's film Come Play With Me still stands as one of the longest-running films in British movie history, and ran continuously at the Moulin Cinema in London's West End
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...

 from 1977 to 1981. In a publicity stunt for the second year anniversary of the film’s opening, both Suzy Mandel and Millington posed in lingerie on the Moulin cinema’s marquee.

In 1978 she was approached to appear in a hardcore porn film called Love is Beautiful, to have been directed by Gerard Damiano
Gerard Damiano
Gerard Damiano was an American director of adult films and producer, writer and director of the 1972 cult classic Deep Throat .-Biography:...

. However, despite Millington and Damiano being pictured together at that year's Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

, the movie (meant to have been produced by David Grant
David Grant (producer)
David Grant sometimes billed as David Hamilton Grant was an English porn producer during the late 1960s and 1970s.-Biography:...

’s Oppidan Films) never materialized. Potential co-stars may have included Harry Reems
Harry Reems
Harry Reems is the nom de film of one of the most notorious pornographic actors of the 1970s and star of the 1972 cult classic Deep Throat.-Early life and career:Reems was born Herbert Streicher...

, Gloria Brittain, and Lisa Taylor. The same year she turned 33, and began being replaced by younger models in Sullivans magazines. She began to spend more time working in her own sex shop, in which she sold illegal material. The shop was raided by the police on numerous occasions, and she claimed the police threatened her and forced her to pay protection money.

Last years and death

She had always been prone to neurosis and depression, which was exacerbated by her cocaine habit. Her mother's death in 1976 also affected her deeply, and her behaviour became unpredictable, which led to her breaking up with Sullivan. Her life had begun a downward spiral into drug use and depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...

 following the raids on her shop. A few months prior to her death she had received a large tax bill which she was unable to pay. Her kleptomania became more pronounced in the last year of her life, with her being arrested for shoplifting in June 1979, and again for stealing a necklace the day before her death. Millington committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 at age 33, using a deliberate overdose
Drug overdose
The term drug overdose describes the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities greater than are recommended or generally practiced...

 of paracetamol at her home in Walton-on-the-Hill
Walton-on-the-Hill
Walton-on-the-Hill, Surrey, is a village in England, situated midway between Reigate and Epsom, just inside the M25 orbital motorway around London. It is situated close to the larger village of Tadworth. Other neighbouring villages include: Kingswood, Burgh Heath, Headley and Box Hill...

, Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

. Her husband found her dead in her bed on 19 August 1979. She left four suicide note
Suicide note
A suicide note or death note is a message that states the author has died by suicide, and left to be discovered and read in anticipation of suicide....

s which were found near her body. In one of them she had written, "The police have framed me yet again. They frighten me so much. I cant face the thought of prison...The Nazi tax man has finished me as well"

She was buried at the St Mary Magdalene Church, Betchetts Green Road in the village of South Holmwood
South Holmwood
South Holmwood is a village in the Mole Valley District of Surrey, England located south of Dorking on the A24 road. The village is part of Holmwood civil parish....

, Surrey. Her grey granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 tombstone is situated at the side of the churchyard and bears the surname "Maxted" – her married name. She is buried in the same grave as her mother, Joan Quilter, who died in 1976.

Legacy

A posthumous exploitation film
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...

 about her life was released in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in October 1980, entitled Mary Millington's True Blue Confessions. In 1996 Channel Four television screened a tribute to her entitled Sex and Fame: The Mary Millington Story featuring an interview with David Sullivan.

Twenty years after her death, the author and film historian Simon Sheridan put Millington's life into context in his critically acclaimed biography Come Play with Me: The Life and Films of Mary Millington. Further information about her career can be found in Sheridan's follow-up book Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema, the third edition of which was published in April 2007.

In 2004 Millington’s prominence was recognized by her inclusion into the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Colin Matthew and Brian Harrison. Her entry was written by Richard Davenport-Hines
Richard Davenport-Hines
Richard Davenport-Hines is a British historian and literary biographer, best known for his biography of the poet W. H. Auden....

.

2008 saw a London exhibition of the work of the late glamour photographer Fred Grierson, which included several little-seen pictures of Mary taken by Grierson at June Palmer
June Palmer
June Palmer, also known as June Power, was possibly the most famous Harrison Marks model in the 1960s, featuring in his publications Kamera and Solo...

s’ Strobe Studios in the early 1970s.

In 2009 Millington was referenced in an episode of Eastenders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...

 (broadcast Thursday 18/06/09) when Aunt Sal (Anna Karen
Anna Karen
Anna Karen is a South African-born British film, television and theatre actress.-Career:Early in her career, Karen worked as a striptease dancer at London's Panama Club. During her acting career she has starred in many films and television programmes, including the BBC sitcom Wild, Wild Women,...

), after hearing Ronnie Mitchell (Samantha Janus
Samantha Janus
Samantha Zoe Womack is an English actress, singer and director, both on television and stage. In recent years she has been best known for playing the role of Ronnie Branning in EastEnders, but made her name in the early 1990s as Mandy Wilkins in Game On, and also represented the United Kingdom in...

) had been caught in a compromising position on the Queen Vic’s floor, greeted Ronnie with “ooh, here she is, Mary Millington herself”.

In late 2009, an 8 mm copy of one of her early John Lindsay short films “Special Assignment” resurfaced. Unseen since the early 1970s, it was subsequently transferred to DVD, two years later in 2011 another 8mm film starring Millington "Wild Lovers" was also traced and transferred from 8mm to DVD.

Biographical movie

A new documentary movie on Millington's life, entitled "Respectable - The Mary Millington Story", based on the bestselling book by Simon Sheridan, and featuring interviews with Mary's family, friends and co-stars, will be released in the spring of 2012.

Filmography

  • Miss Bohrloch (short, 1970)
  • Oh, Nurse! (short, 1971)
  • Special Assignment (short 1971)
  • Oral Connection (short, 1971)
  • Betrayed (short, early 1970s)
  • Love Games (short, early 1970s)
  • Wild Lovers (short, early 1970s)
  • Secrets of a Door to Door Salesman (1973, scenes cut)
  • Response aka Go Down, My Lovely (short, 1974)
  • Sex is My Business (aka Sex Shop) (short, 1974)
  • Eskimo Nell (film)
    Eskimo Nell (film)
    Eskimo Nell, a.k.a. The Ballad of Eskimo Nell a.k.a The Sexy Saga of Naughty Nell and Big Dick , is a 1975 British film directed by Martin Campbell and produced by Stanley Long...

     (1974)
  • Erotic Inferno
    Erotic Inferno
    Erotic Inferno is a 1975 British sex film, directed by Trevor Wrenn, and starring Chris Chittell, Heather Deeley and Mary Millington...

     (1975)
  • I'm Not Feeling Myself Tonight (1975)
  • Private Pleasures (Shot in Sweden
    Sweden
    Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

    , 1975)
  • Keep It Up Downstairs (1976)
  • Intimate Games (1976)
  • Come Play with Me (1977)
  • The Playbirds
    The Playbirds
    The Playbirds is a 1978 British sexploitation film made by Irish-born director Willy Roe and starring 1970s' pin-up Mary Millington alongside Glynn Edwards, Suzy Mandel and Windsor Davies...

     (1978)
  • Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair (1979)
  • Queen of the Blues (1979)
  • The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle
    The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle
    The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle is a mockumentary film directed by Julien Temple and produced by Don Boyd and Jeremy Thomas about the British punk rock band Sex Pistols....

     (Posthumous, 1980)
  • Mary Millington's True Blue Confessions (Posthumous, 1980)
  • Mary Millington's World Striptease Extravaganza (Posthumous, 1982)
  • Sex and Fame: The Mary Millington Story (TV documentary, 1996)

Magazine appearances

  • Around the World in 80 Lays 197? (Beryl Grant)
  • Sexpert Vol.2 No.8 197?
  • Knave Vol.6 No.3 1974 (Cover and 8 pages inside inc centerfold)
  • Fiesta Vol.8 No.5 1974
  • Caprice Plus No.4 197?
  • New Direction Vol.5 No.8 197?
  • Supermag No.4 197?
  • Late Night Extra 1974 (As "Nancy Astley")
  • Titbits No.4613, 1–7 August 1974, ("Eskimo Nell")
  • Fiesta Vol 8 no 5 1974 inside photograph of Mary on the London Underground
  • Janus Vol.4 No.7 circa 1975 (cover picture)
  • Janus Vol.4 No.8 circa 1975 (cover picture)
  • Spick No.261 August 1975 (As "Mary Maxted")
  • Beautiful Britons No.238 September 1975
  • Rustler Vol.1, No.5, 1976 (Small cover photo, 5 page layout with 11 photographs)
  • Club International Vol.5, No.1, January 1976 (5 pages as "Mia" with Pat Astley
    Pat Astley
    Pat Astley is a British actress best known for appearing in blue films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. She also appeared as a regular, albeit uncredited, character in the comedy television series Are You Being Served? in 1976 and 1977. In 1984 she had a starring role in the horror film Don't Open...

    )
  • Beautiful Britons No.247 June 1976
  • Playbirds Vol.1, No.1 197?
  • Playbirds Vol.1, No.2 197? (Cover and 15 pages inc colour photographs)
  • Playbirds Vol.1, No.3 197?
  • Playbirds Vol.1, No.4 197?
  • Playbirds Vol.1, No.6 197?
  • Playbirds Vol.1, No.8 197? (Millington at the Frankfurt trade fair)
  • Playbirds Vol.1, No.16 197? (Cover and inside)
  • Playbirds Vol.1, No 21 197? (Cover only)
  • Playbirds Vol.1, No 24 197? (Inside)
  • Continental Film Review Vol.25, No.6, 1978 (The Playbirds)
  • Continental Film Review Vol.25, No.7, 1978 (The Playbirds)
  • Cover Girl Vol.1, No.3 circa 1978
  • Cover Girl Vol.1, No.6 circa 1978
  • Private No.28 197?
  • Park Lane No.15 197?
  • Weekend Sex No.17 197?
  • Whitehouse No.10 197?
  • Whitehouse No.15 197? (Cover 5 pages article inside)
  • Whitehouse No.16 197? (10 pages inc colour photographs and centre spread)
  • Whitehouse No.40 197? (Colour trade ad for Playbirds film and four page synopsis)
  • Whitehouse No.47 197? (Colour trade ad for the David Galaxy affair plus four page article on film)
  • Weekend Sex No.31 197?
  • Park Lane No.10 197? (5 pages article plus two pages colour photographs)
  • Park Lane No.11 197? (8 pages article)
  • Park Lane No.23 197?
  • Ladybirds No.1 197?
  • New Action MS no 28 (Millington meets Rosemary England photo shoot and queen of the blues trade ad)
  • Playbirds erotic film guide No.1 (Millington cover, Come Play with Me feature)
  • Climax No.14 197?
  • Exciting Cinema No.18 circa 1979 (“Mary Millington meets Rosemarie England in the Flesh”)
  • International Cover Girls No.14 1979
  • Revel No. 3 (Tribute to Millington)


* David Sullivan’s magazines were often undated, as such the only way of dating them is by which Sullivan produced films were being promoted inside the magazines, i.e. a Sullivan magazine which promotes Come Play With Me would be from 1976/1977, ones promoting The Playbirds would be circa 1978, and ones promoting Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair from 1979.

See also

  • Heather Deeley
  • Sue Longhurst
    Sue Longhurst
    Sue Longhurst is an English actress, most famous for appearing in several X-rated comedies in the 1970s.-Life and work:Born on 27 January 1943, Sue trained at the Royal Academy of Music, and was initially a music teacher, but was soon posing for magazines, record sleeves, book covers & TV...

  • Suzy Mandel
    Suzy Mandel
    Suzy Mandel is the stage name of an ex-actress and model best known for her roles in such 1970’s British sex comedies as Confessions of a Driving Instructor , Come Play with Me , and The Playbirds , and for her appearances on The Benny Hill Show.-Biography:Born in London, Mandel grew up on the...

  • List of British pornographic actors
  • Outline of British pornography

Further reading

  • Simon Sheridan Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema 2011 (fourth edition) (Titan Publishing, London)
  • Simon Sheridan Come Play with Me: The Life and Films of Mary Millington 1999 (FAB Press, Guildford)
  • Mary Millington & David Weldon The Amazing Mary Millington (Futura, 1979) ISBN 0708814530

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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