Death of porn star and Ivory Soap Girl

Another blonde for this blog. Except this blonde is dead at 56. Marilyn Chambers, Ivory Soap Girl, "99 & 44/100% pure," and star of Behind the Green Door. An absolutely transgressive piece of iconic 70's pornography. She doesn't have single line of dialogue in the film. In fact, I can't remember any dialogue. She just has sex. With a group of women, and then African American boxer, Johnny Keyes. The world was agog. Lesbians! Inter-racial love! Scandal.

This blonde, according to CNN.com, grew up in Westport. That's CT to you. Upper middle class. Ran off to work in show biz. LA. That didn't work, so she danced in SF. In the meantime, she'd become the Ivory Soap Girl. Auditioned for BHGD. And the rest is history. She didn't hide her head in shame. She didn't claim to be a victim, like her counterpart, Linda Lovelace. Ms. Lovelace made a very public denunciation of her prominent role in porn history--- with Andrea Dworkin, extreme feminist, in tow.

To my knowledge, Marilyn Chambers made no such claim.

In this image, she is well into middle-age, and sexy. Her breasts spill out of her gown. She is elegantly coiffed. She's attractive, handsome. She doesn't look damaged. Or unhappy. But she did say, about her career, "it just leaves you empty." Perhaps this is what went wrong. I have to pay my respects to the woman, no matter what happened.

I don't remember where or when I saw this film. It was so long ago. But I do remember that, in its own perverse way, it gave me permission to accept the dark side of my own sexuality.