The Ivory Snow Soap model gone XXX porn legend of the 70s and 80s pries open the paint-chipped green door and lets us peak inside… the Insatiable… Miss MARILYN CHAMBERS r e t s o P d n a k o o B d o o w y l l o H f o y s e t r u o c s o t o Interview by Robert Steven Rhine h P G&C: You’re truly a survivor, Marilyn. Many of the 70s porn performers are gone and buried. ODs, suicides and AIDS – which also happen to mainstream performers – it seems like in your business a lot more actors had some really rough, and even deadly, times. So, to what do you owe your longevity and survival? There’re only a handful of Marilyn: [laughs] Probably a little bit of AA names who meet the test of here and there. I also have a teenager who keeps legendary adult film icon: JOHN me real busy. As far as being a survivor over the HOLMES, LINDA LOVELACE, RON years, I didn’t totally over-expose myself, pardon JEREMY, TRACY LORDS, GINGER LYNN, JENNA JAMESON the pun. I didn’t go to the max like a lot of porn performers do, especially, today. When I first and, of course, at the top of that list… MARILYN CHAMBERS. came around, everything was shot on film and it I happen to be a bone-a-fide fan of Marilyn Chambers, having became porno chic. They just don’t make these watched her in the very first XXX movie I ever saw, Behind the kind of adult movies anymore. For instance, Green Door, at the Pussycat Theater in Santa Monica, California. Insatiable was a half a million-dollar budget. The Pussycat Theater, for those of you who are too young to Back then, that was a lot of money. We used hel - remember, was “the” place to see adult films (before video). Back icopters and Ferraris and shot in London. then; you had to make a real commitment to see (and be seen) Insatiable was a very well put together film. It with a bunch of lonely men wearing overcoats. No porn surfing on actually had a story and really great music. I your computer – you had to actually buy a ticket, sit in a darkened know people that had never seen it and finally theater and risk being seen by your boss, neighbor or preacher – looked at it and went, “Wow, I’m blown away.” So I think that also part of my survival is that I more likely all three. That’s what made it so wonderfully forbidden had a sense of family, I didn’t go to extremes, I and exciting. Now it’s just click… click… click. didn’t take my career home with me. I still was a Marilyn Chambers is a porn pioneer of sexual freedom. She wife and, you know, I was married to (porn pro - was the Columbus of the New Porn World, legs splayed, as she ducer/director) Chuck Traynor for years. sailed uncharted waters. And we loved her for it. But did Marilyn Chambers become rich from porn? Did she G&C: How long were you married to the wind up destitute? Or, did she wind up a grandmother in the sub - infamous Chuck Traynor? (Who was also urbs of the valley, pushing her shopping cart through Wal-Mart? married to Linda Lovelace of “Deep Throat” I needed to know. So I went directly to the porn star’s mouth. fame). When I interviewed Marilyn Chambers she was smart, sexy, Marilyn: A little less than ten years. We funny and still had that mischievous twinkle in her eye. really weren’t involved in the porno business 24 hours a day 7 days a week. We did a lot of freaky I was, of corpse, tongue-tied as I worried if I would measure things but we also did a lot of other stuff besides up to other interviewers. Would I experience interview anxiety? that. I also did stage plays. I just think that Judge for yourself, as we give you the one… the only… the helped me be a survivor. I kind of shielded Insatiable… MARILYN CHAMBERS. myself from people that have overdosed and 44 girlsandcorpses.com died drunk. Believe me, I’ve had my share of ing for a major motion picture.” So I went down I did a scene. I was very professional because I drugs and alcohol but I tried to remain tame. there with my little model’s portfolio and they was a dancer, so I stripped and made tons of had me fill out a form to ask me if I wanted a money doing that but you know if I had gotten G&C: Your era was such a heyday of “balling” or a “non-balling” role.” So, when they drunk and did drugs before I went on the stage, cocaine. There’s this notion that performers said, to me in the audition, “So, then you don’t I’d fall off. are sometimes on drugs when they make mind having sex on cam - adult movies. Was it impossible to stay away era?” I went “What?! No, G&C: How about from? no, I’m not that naughty! during the filming of Marilyn: Oh, it was totally impossible. I “But you checked off Insatiable? think the Gods were with me – that I made it ‘balling” they said. And I Marilyn: As far as through. replied, embarrassed, “I Insatiable, I might have had thought you meant bowl - a sip of a drink but I was G&C: How about other drugs? ing!” When I was a very in tune with what I Marilyn: Well, on Behind the Green Door model we did topless and was doing. Now I can’t say we smoked a lot of pot. I think that was the only stuff like that and cam - the same for John Holmes – way I could have gotten through Behind the eramen would chase me we couldn’t get him out of Green Door, because I was a kid. around the back room the bathroom. He did like a but it wasn’t a required gram of coke up each nostril G&C: How old were you? thing to be nude. You’ve and then he couldn’t get it Marilyn: Eighteen. It was my first adult got to remember too that up, you know. That was film. I was brought up in the another point being that guys 60s era of sex, drugs didn’t want to do drugs G&C: So, how did you get the lead in and rock ‘n’ roll. So because they couldn’t get it Behind the Green Door? being naked didn’t up. We were pretty straight. Marilyn: They had a casting call in the San bother me but having And plus we don’t allow any - Francisco Chronicle and the ad said, “Now cast - actual “sex” did, so I thing on the set like drugs or said “no.” The alcohol or pot because we Mitchell brothers, don’t want to get busted. Jim and Art, were standing at the top of the stairs… I’ll never forget it… in their little G&C: Today many of the male porn stars preppy sweater vests and a tie and an are taking Viagra and they didn’t have that in oxford shirt and they said, “Wait, wait, those days, which makes people like John wait. Don’t go!” They told me the story of Holmes all the more amazing when you think Behind the Green Door and I thought, about it “That’s a pretty cool fantasy.” So, I asked Marilyn: I’m so naïve about what’s going them for some ridiculous amount of money on today with the drugs with the guys. I mean and a piece of the film. They said “Ok, somebody was telling me that they do this injec - don’t call us, we’ll call you.” And I went tion thing in their penis. You can tell as soon as “Whew” … until an hour later when the they unzip their pants and they’ve got a hard-on. phone rang and they said Ok. To me, that’s really fake and phony. Now that I know that, it’s like yuck. They’re really not G&C: So they got you to commit to being turned on, I guess. If I see an erotic film, I the movie before you could change your want to think they’re actually being turned on by mind. the other person. Marilyn: Exactly. When I went on the set, I wasn’t a sexually promiscuous person. G&C: Why do you think Behind the Then, they said, “Oh by the way… you’re Green Door became such a classic? not going to be saying anything in this Marilyn: The only reason why I think movie.” That was one of the hardest things to Behind the Green Door made a lot of money and accomplish for me was to let the audience became a classic was that I was the mom on the know what was going on inside my head – Ivory Soap box. I was holding a baby and it because back then they really didn’t do came out the same week as Behind the Green everything from a gynecologist’s point of Door. You couldn’t buy that kind of press. So, view. It was a little bit more “civilized.” the controversy promoted that film into a major thing.