For Marilyn

I'm willing to take the heat from this post but I've got to say that on April 13th a legend passed away, and not the type of legend that many of us are willing to look up to. Her name was Marilyn Chambers, actually Marilyn Ann Briggs. For you see Marilyn Chambers was the performing name of Ms. Briggs. Marilyn became an icon of a different type of cinema, a cinema fraught with many battles and cast into the limelight of cheap sound bites and media exploitation. That cinema is what many people call pornography or adult cinema.

Marilyn got her start in an extra role in the Owl and the Pussycat and then in Sean S. Cunningham's adult sex education film Together. Her first touch of fame came when she was selected to represent the mother on Ivory Soap products.




Marilyn's icon would soon create stirs when she took on her first adult film role in the Mitchell Brothers Behind the Green Door. Marilyn was immediately placed into the spotlight and at the time of Behind the Green Door's release, adult cinema's golden age began with Marilyn Chambers becoming an instant queen of the screen. Unlike other adult film actresses of the time, Marilyn made two films with the Mitchell brothers and then decided to do cross-over into mainstream film. She was cast in David Cronenberg's Rabid as a disease infected temptress that spreads an outbreak that causes people to become zombies. The film would be prophetic in its representation of the growing spread of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. The film would also be the last major mainstream role in which she would play. Which in my view is not a bad thing considering that she returned to adult cinema and put on one of (possibly her best) roles as Sandra Chase in the film Insatiable.

Insatiable was a film that brought a high quality of filmmaking to adult cinema that had always been attempted but many times fell short. The film cost more than most adult films but also created a non-linear narrative that added a sophisticated aesthetic to the film. It is possible that Insatiable is what the adult filmmakers always wanted out of adult films but failed in developing. But just as Insatiable opened the doors to the possibility's of an adult cinema of high aesthetics, that door was shut in the anti-pornography crusades of the 1980's.

Spearheaded by the Moral Majority on the right and feminist groups on the left adult cinemas began to close their doors and fall away from film and into the world of video. Marilyn had few to little choices and continued her career in the video market. With growing concern with AIDS and STD's Marilyn backed away from starring roles in adult films and began starring in softcore cable productions and making guest appearances in adult films.

I got to meet Marilyn Chambers a few years back at a film convention. I wanted to meet the actress that created characters that battled the stereotypes of adult cinemas opponents. She was pleasant and courteous and spoke to me about what it was like working with David Cronenberg and making films. She had guts and she had talent. She was part of a time period of filmmaking that is no longer with us. It is my hope that someday film historians and critics of adult cinema will look back and see how valuable the contributions that Marilyn Chambers has given filmmaking throughout her career.