The death of porn star Marilyn Chambers

Marilyn Chambers, the “wholesome” Ivory Snow detergent model-turned-porn star, said Dennis McLellan in the Los Angeles Times, died from unknown causes on Sunday at the age of 56. “Throughout the '70s and '80s, Chambers was one of the biggest names in the porn industry” and was “ranked by Playboy magazine as one of the top 100 sex stars of the 20th century.” (watch an interview with Marilyn Chambers from 1977)

Chambers was also no stranger to controversy, said John F. Morrison in the Philadelphia Daily News. Her X-rated debut, Behind the Green Door, “was among the first hard-core pornographic films widely released in the U.S., and it caused a sensation”—partly because it featured a then-taboo sex scene between Chambers and a black actor. The movie also caused Ivory Snow to substitute “another model for the no-longer-pure Chambers.”

But Chambers’ life wasn't just about porn, said Jesse Walker in Reason Online. She also appeared in “David Cronenberg's cult horror picture Rabid,” and “in 2004 she ran for vice president on the Personal Choice ticket, a spinoff of sorts from the Libertarian Party.” Marilyn Chambers was, “in her way, one of the cultural icons of 1970s America, and I hope she rests in peace.”

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