The Ivory Snow model who became a porn star

Marilyn Chambers

1952–2009

Fledgling actress Marilyn Ann Briggs was working in San Francisco as an exotic dancer when she auditioned for a “major” motion picture. Only when she filled out an application for producers Jim and Artie Mitchell did she realize they were making a pornographic movie. Offered the starring role, she rationalized, “I figured it might be my last chance at something really big.” It was big: As Marilyn Chambers, she achieved lasting notoriety in Behind the Green Door, one of cinema’s best-known hard-core films.

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Chambers’ origins were long way from the triple-­X world, said The Washington Post. Growing up in Westport, Conn., “she was a diver, gymnast, and cheerleader in high school and appeared in commercials for Clairol and Coca-Cola.” With her girl-next-door looks, she was also a familiar face on boxes of Ivory Snow detergent, which advertised itself as “99 and 44/100% pure.” When the Mitchell brothers signed her, she insisted on $25,000 plus a percentage of the profits, “which proved lucrative when the $60,000 film ended up earning $50 million.”

Released in 1972, Behind the Green Door depicted the abduction of a young woman who is forced to perform sex acts before a masked audience, said USA Today. Along with The Devil in Miss Jones and Deep Throat, it was part of the 1970s wave of “porno chic” that combined smut with a pretense of art. “Chambers spoke no dialogue, which added to her mystique.” Audiences rushed to see the squeaky-clean Ivory Snow girl indulge in orgies and interracial intercourse; Chambers thought her role might help the company “sell a lot more soap.” Instead, it quickly pulled boxes bearing her image from store shelves.

Although Chambers hoped to graduate to legitimate films, said the Philadelphia Daily News, she remained in porn and such lowbrow fare as Rabid, in which “she played a woman who feeds on human blood, spreading an incurable disease.” A familiar figure on the adult-film convention circuit, Chambers struggled with drug and alcohol problems and was ambivalent about her work. She said it was “like getting paid to live out my greatest fantasies,” but also complained that the porn industry “chews women up and spits them out.” She was found dead in her Los Angeles home by her daughter; her death is being investigated.