Mary Millington was the first real porn star the UK ever had; she was famous, infamous and admired by millions - women as well as men - yet at just 33 she committed suicide in tragic circumstances. Born Mary Quilter in 1945, she became a glamour model after a chance meeting with a photographer, who is one of the people along with her publisher David Sullivan who appears in this film.
As well as archive footage we hear part of an audio interview with the lady herself. At just 4 foot 11 she was nowhere near tall enough for the catwalk or mainstream modelling. Totally uninhibited sexually, she took to her new profession like a duck to water. Curiously or otherwise, she was married throughout her career to an apparently extremely tolerant gent who does not appear in this film.
Her career may have been short, but it was never dull. After her glamour shoots she moved into hard core, then as she grew older into soft core, not the usual career path.
She starred in the sex comedy "Come Play With Me", which Sullivan said was a totally innocuous film. She also became an anti-censorship activist in a small way, standing trial for obscenity in 1977 in connection with selling porn rather than making it. She was acquitted, and when the actor David Webb founded the anti-censorship pressure group NCROPA in 1979, she joined as member number 19; Sullivan was member number 18.
NCROPA is not mentioned in this film, but sadly a lot more is: abuse of cocaine, prostitution, and most bizarrely kleptomania. It remains to be seen what drove her to suicide, but it was probably a number of factors including possibly the death of her mother, her hounding by the taxman, and of course liberal use of the white stuff is not conducive to anyone's mental health.
For those who might be interested, there is an official Mary Millington website which is run by her biographer Simon Sheridan. Sheridan appears in this film as a teenage fan; he was born two months after her death.
