Remembering Marilyn Chambers

Marilyn Chambers - Photo by Kenji

Marilyn Chambers passed away suddenly five years ago today. She is missed and remembered fondly not only by her fans, but by all of those who knew her well. In the summer of 2007, I interviewed Marilyn over the telephone for our biography, John Holmes: A Life Measured in Inches. Marilyn's memories of Holmes were overwhelmingly positive -- she understood him. A year after "Inches" was published and Marilyn sadly passed away, I reread our interview and realized there was enough material that could hopefully serve as the foundation for a Chambers profile/chapter in Golden Goddesses. Though the book was still in its infancy stages, my conversation with Marilyn Chambers is what became the impetus to highlight twenty-five women from Marilyn's era. 
     When we spoke, Marilyn's honesty, her spirit, her introspection and her love for her daughter, McKenna, were the factors that came through, and I wanted to honour those elements when I began to piece together Marilyn's profile. Thanks to McKenna, and to documentarian Valerie Gobos, because of their input, I was able to finish the chapter.
     One of the most touching aspects of launching Golden Goddesses in Hollywood in November 2012, was having the opportunity to meet Marilyn's long time best friend, Peggy, and her husband Darcy. Peggy and Darcy are wonderful, salt of the earth people. I am happy and pleased that Marilyn and Peggy were able to share in one another's lives for as long as they did, and I greatly appreciate their support of the book, in addition to McKenna and Val.
     The following excerpts are condensed from chapter four, "Marilyn Chambers: Girl Next Door Goes Behind the Green Door." I'd like to thank Valerie Gobos for suggesting the chapter's title. It's what Marilyn would have wanted.

    Of all of the female stars to resonate with aficianados of the golden era of Adult, Marilyn Chambers towers above the rest. Legendary for her unbridled, sexual  eccentricities onscreen, Chambers' early years  offer a glimpse into her potential as a maven in her field.

     Born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1952, Marilyn Ann Briggs came from good stock. Chambers was actively involved in gymnastics and trained as a junior Olympic diver as a young teenage girl. At seventeen Marilyn travelled to New York and enlisted with the Wilhelmina Talent Agency where she was promptly sent on auditions for commercial and film work. Chambers won a small role as Robert Klein's girlfriend in The Owl and the Pussycat, a Barbara Streisand that also co-starred reputable actor George Segal. During this period, Marilyn was photographed for the now infamous Ivory Snow soapbox advertisement that surfaced just as her career as an adult actress emerged after she agreed to appear in Behind the Green Door (1972) for brothers Artie and Jim Mitchell. When the pair made her an offer to star in their production and engage in real sex on camera, Chambers flatly turned them down, but reconsidered when they agreed to pay her an impressive sum of money for her efforts. She never imagined that the filmmakers would meet her demands and terms.

Marilyn Chambers: "I did that because I didn't want to do the film. I thought, 'Okay, I'm really going to give them something they're going to say no to.' I said 'I'm from New York, Don't you know who I am? I'm not going to do that!' They were cool guus and and they were very foxy, very sly, you know? They had their shit together for a short period.
      I loved the Mitchell brothers. I loved Artie and Jim and still do today. They're like brothers. Tey gave me an opportunity to do something and I thought 'Okay, I'll do a couple of films for them and then I'll get out of it, and I'll be able to do stuff in Hollywood.' I agreed [to do the film] and I got a percentage [of the film's gross] for approximately ten years, and then it was over. That part of the contract I forgot to look at."

 "It's an interesting thing. For a very long time I've been obsessed about wanting to write a book or  doing a documentary about why people go into the porn business and is there a type of person. Whey did they do it? What was their childhood like? If you were getting your master's in psychology, this would be a great thesis. I have a lot of questions about my own life, but I had a great childhood. Something interjected in there though, to propel me in that direction whether it was outside forces or inner stuff. It would be an interesting topic to explore."

 "In Insatiable, I did the last scene with John [Holmes], and I remember Stu Segall, the director -- we were shooting this film in San Francisco. Stu days, 'We're going to pick John up at the airport.'
     I said, 'Okay, great.' I'm not sure if another person was there, but we got into the car and we drove to the airport, and we picked up John Holmes. I was so totally nervous. I'd heard so much about him. I was no afraid, but just totally shy like, 'Oh my god.' [John] and I were sitting in the back seat and we were talking, and I was just kind of looking at him in awe, going, 'God, this guy is really smart. He really is reasonably articulate.' He said that he was just kind of a country boy and that he was doing all of this so that he could live a normal life. He was so not the John Holmes that I thought he was going to be. He didn't come marching up going 'Hey! Move over bitch!' He was a meek, kind of  a gentle man. I thought, 'Oh, okay, is he going to be able to take control here in the scene?'"

"Insatiable is my favourite film. I looked the best. I felt the best. I felt the sexiest. It was like the prime of my life right there. That was a time when you saw me being totally sexual, everything was great. Everything was going my way and I just felt sexy, and I felt happy. I wasn't into drugs and alcohol. We partied, but that wasn't my life. I love that film, but the problem with the film industry is that they got so into 'Let's make it a story for women, so women will watch.' They they went overboard and the fims had too much story and too much talking, and these people can't act. Then it evolved into vignettes. There's a beginning -- a middle and an end. There's not this big, long story that you have to sit through. The filmmakers went from stag films to loops, to Behind the Green Door, which was very experiemental to an Insatiable type thing. -- back to almost loops, which were sort of life vignetters [as in] Marilyn Chambers' Private Fantasies, five fantasies in one film."
 

"When VHS came out that was a huge turning point. Because then people started shooting on video. You could be the straightest, staunchest person in the world, but this is a person’s human nature. They are curious about sex. Everybody has sexual fantasies. And the older I get, I believe you don’t want those fantasies. That’s a private thing that you do in your own home, or behind closed doors, unless you’re a swinger. Everybody doesn’t have to know what your sexual fantasies are. We are different people in this world. We are different people when we go to work. In a straight job, around the water cooler, you can’t say, ‘Oh yeah, we did this and that’ because it’s going to haunt you. Our generation, we just wanted to be free and live the way we wanted to, but that’s not how life works."

"The best thing that’s ever happened to me is my daughter. To be a Mom is the best thing in the world. You know, that’s all I ever really wanted to do after I had finished doing films."

Golden Goddesses: 25 Legendary Women of Classic Erotic Cinema,1968-1985 © 2012 Jill C. Nelson

Golden Goddesses Book Review by John Harrison

I'd like to thank Australian pop culture writer John Harrison (the author of the Headpress published book, Hip Pocket Sleaze: The Lurid World of Vintage Adult Paperbacks) for composing the following review of Golden Goddesses. John's next project, a biography titled Rene Bond: America's Tragic Teen Fantasy, is due out later this year. Please also visit John Harrison's blog:  Sin Street Sleaze. 

Golden Goddesses: 25 Legendary Women of Classic Erotic Cinema, 1968-1985

"I made it a rule, an absolute rule for all of the films that no women were allowed on the crew except for make-up. The technical crew: cameraman, gaffer, grip and sound — I never hired a woman. I don’t like women." (Roberta Findlay)



There is a continuing, undeniably voyeuristic fascination with people who were involved in the golden age of adult cinema (both in front of and behind the camera). Perhaps it’s the fact that they were both pioneers in a field of phenomenally popular (and perennially profitable) entertainment, yet also looked down upon as outcasts by the majority of mainstream society, who were happy to inwardly look but outwardly condemned. Or perhaps it’s partly because the people then had definitive personalities, looks and styles, unlike the mostly cookie-cutter, fake blonde and siliconed boobed porn starlets of today.

The co-author of the definitive John Holmes bio, Inches, Jill Nelson returns with Golden Goddesses: 25 Legendary Women of Classic Erotic Cinema 1968 - 1985. Told in an oral history format, Nelson has selected a diverse range of names to interview - including not just performers but also screenwriters, directors and costumers - which not only give us a terrific insight into the adult film industry during this rapidly evolving outlaw period, but allows us to know them as women, individuals and human beings. The bulk of the credit for this, of course, belongs to Nelson herself, who has obviously been able to win the trust of her subjects enough for them to open up a lot more than they would have in the pages of publications like Adam Film World back in the day.

Picking out highlights is a tough ask. The interviews conducted with actors who have since passed on (Marilyn Chambers, Juliette Anderson, Barbara Caron Mills) resonate with a certain sadness, but also serve as fitting epitaphs. Likewise, the chapter on actor/director Ann Perry (House on Bare Mountain, The Toy Box, Sweet Savage) also has an emotional timbre to it, since Perry’s battle with Alzheimer’s meant that her son had to do most of the talking for her. Elsewhere, Jody Maxwell (often billed as ‘The Missouri Stick Licker’) talks about losing her film virginity to Jamie Gillis and her unique talent for being able to sing while performing oral sex, and Laurie Holmes remembers her life with John and her disdain at the current state of the porn industry.

If I had to pick a favourite chapter, however, it would have to be Nelson’s interview with the normally publicity-shy Roberta Findlay. Along with her husband Michael, Roberta Findlay was responsible for some of the more notorious of the sexploitation black & white ‘roughies’ that emerged from the New York underground of the mid-to-late 1960s, including Satan’s Bed (1965, starring a pre-Lennon Yoko Ono), Take Me Naked (1966, written by and starring Roberta) and the infamous Flesh trilogy (The Touch of Her Flesh, The Curse of Her Flesh and The Kiss of Her Flesh). They later turned to the drive-in and grindhouse circuits, producing the 1971 Manson-inspired filmSlaughter, which had footage added to it by Allan Shackleton and re-released in 1976 as the notorious Snuff (‘The film that could only be made in South America...where Life is CHEAP!’). After Michael Findlay was killed in a 1977 helicopter crash, Roberta went on to direct hardcore features such as Mystique (1979) and Shauna: Every Man’s Fantasy (1985, a tribute to Shauna Grant, who had committed suicide a year earlier), as well as returning to exploitation and horror with the likes of the grimy Tenement (1985) and Blood Sisters(1987). An impressive oeuvre indeed, and Findlay relays a lot of great anecdotes and memories, from hiding film reels at the bottom of a well to avoid the authorities, getting a cyst in her breast removed (a result of years of filming with a 40 pound Panaflex camera) , and her love for dialogue and disdain at actually having to shoot hardcore sex ("I was always disgusted by the sex scenes so I’d say "Okay, everybody screw". That would be it").

Other names covered in Golden Goddesses include such well-known names (at least within the industry and it’s supporters) as Seka, Kay Parker, Georgina Spelvin, Christy Canyon, Nina Hartley, Annie Sprinkle, Ginger Lynn (whose chapter touches on the industry-changing Traci Lords underage scandal), Veronica Hart, Kitten Natividad and Serena.

At 950 pages, Golden Goddesses is an expansive and exhaustive tome, heavily illustrated with over 300 black & white photos (including many candid and childhood snaps), and an essential addition to the library of anyone with more than a passing interest in its subject matter. I only hope that Nelson returns to the adult genre in the near future, as her two works on the subject so far have provided welcome breaths of fresh air in a field filled with uninspiring, sensationalistic and inaccurate studies.

Review Copyright 2013 John Harrison

"No Agenda" Book Review by Gore Gore Girl

I'd like to extend my appreciation to Gore-Gore Girl (XXX through feminist lens) for composing the following in depth analysis of "Golden Goddesses". The review can be found here: No Agenda Book Review: Gore Gore Girl

Hi folks! An exciting book review for you today: Golden Goddesses: 25 Legendary Women of Classic Erotic Cinema, 1968-1985 by Jill C. Nelson, who previously co-wrote the John Holmes biography, Inches. This book is a real labor of love; a collection of lengthy interviews and background stories behind 25 women of the golden age. Each chapter is effectively a mini-biography, with intimate interview responses from the women themselves and occasionally their loved ones (as in the case of those no longer living, such as Marilyn Chambers and Ann Perry), as well as brief analyses of significant works by the women in question and a plethora of photos. At nearly 1000 pages, this is no fluff piece, and Nelson's (and her publisher's) willingness to allow the space necessary for these women to voice their experiences - diverse, unexpected, often inspirational, sometimes sad, occasionally unsettling - should be applauded.

Sex work usually polarizes people, as evidenced by the simplistic "pro" and "anti" porn binary, a binary that affects not only writers on the subject, but sex workers themselves when representing their work and themselves. The lack of agenda behind Nelson's project naturally leads to a diversity of stories, some of which are not positive. This, to me, is one of the strengths of the book. When considering the ways in which people write and talk about sex work, I often think about a comment I read from Dutch sex worker Jo Doezema in Wendy Chapkis's fantastic book, Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor. Reflecting on her work, Doezema writes,

"I think for almost everybody I make it more positive than it is, because everybody has such a negative idea about it already. So you tend to only talk about the good things or the funny things. With most jobs, if you have a shitty day or a bad client or something, people don't immediately say that it's because of the kind of work you do and that you must stop right away. But with prostitution, I've always felt that if I didn't convince everybody that this work was fantastic for me and that I really loved it that they would all be on my back to quit. Anytime something negative happens in your work, it just confirms peoples' worst suspicions." (120-121).

This insightful perspective can, I think, be applied to all types of sex work, and Nelson's agenda-free approach is refreshing in that it allows for the full spectrum of experiences: good, bad, and in between. For this reason, the book is not always a comfortable read. The project prompts questions, provokes critical thinking, and opens up a space for these women to truly voice themselves and their experiences rather than functioning as a "ventriloquist's dummy," to borrow Anne McClintock's phrase, for whichever agenda-driven group needs them. Through careful structuring, Nelson manages to narrate these women's stories while at the same time never overshadowing or undermining their voices.

What piqued my interest about this project, aside from the opportunity to read about the lives of such incredible women who are too often overlooked or dismissed (at best) by mainstream culture, is the fact that Nelson is not a long-time porn fan. For this reason, there is a refreshing degree of subjectivity throughout the book- a lack of agenda, as Nelson puts it - which leads to interviews that are thorough, yet also intimate and often surprising. Nelson explains it in her introduction, "Occasionally, family and friends have been puzzled and queried as to why I have chosen to dedicate much time and energy to developing two books centering on this unusual group often misunderstood and even persecuted by society. I smile and answer, 'I'm not interested in writing a book about Julia Roberts.'" (16). Indeed, Nelson seems drawn to these women for the same reason I am, and her goals for the book are made clear from the outset. "My intention is to escort readers to a clearer understanding of the beautiful and intrepid females who favored an alternative profession in adult cinema that was cultivated at the apex of the 1960's sexual revolution" (17). What sets the book apart is the diversity of women included. While superstars of the screen such as Seka, Amber Lynn, and Marilyn Chambers take up the majority of the focus, women who worked behind the camera are also featured, such as screenwriter Raven Touchstone, writer/director Roberta Findlay, and writer/producer Ann Perry, creating a project that acknowledges a fuller spectrum of female contribution to adult film than is typical.