By VennerRoad, 8th Nov 2014
Mary Millington with her clothes on.
Mary Millington died in 1979 aged only 33, and like many stars who died young, she has a cult following. It has to be said though that there have not been many stars quite like Mary Millington, who has been called Britain’s first porn star. Born Mary Quilter in November 1945, she stood just four feet eleven inches tall, so even if she had wanted to become a regular model, she would have been far too short.
By the time she was discovered, she was already a married woman, and for whatever reason neither her career nor her sexual exploits appeared to bother her husband. The man responsible for launching her onto an unsuspecting world was the photographer John Lindsay; he met her in a Kensington coffee bar while she was working as a veterinary assistant. Lindsay showed her a copy of a “men’s” magazine, which contained his work, and offered to take some photographs of her. She agreed, and that started the ball rolling.
From glamour she moved into hard core porn on the Continent, then into slightly less disreputable films, in particular sex comedies which although considered extremely tame today were viewed as borderline in the 1970s. Her last film credit was a minor part in The Great Rock ’N’ Roll Swindle, which was released after her death. Her most successful film was Come Play With Me, which ran for a staggering four years at the Moulin cinema.
In 1974, the publisher David Sullivan launched a men’s magazine called Whitehouse, which was named after Mrs Mary Whitehouse, a lady who needs no introduction to anyone au fait with censorship in Britain. The magazine was edited by Doreen Millington, and although the two women were unrelated, Mary became Mary Millington, Doreen’s nymphomaniac sister.
Many women become sex symbols but sex appeal and good looks are not the only requisite ingredients for longevity, personality is also required, and Mary Millington had bundles of that. Unfortunately, she was also a flawed as well as a complex human being. In the last year or so of her life she probably needed serious psychiatric help. She was abusing cocaine, and became of all things a kleptomaniac. In August 1979, she wrote four suicide notes and took a fatal overdose washed down with alcohol. She was found dead by her husband.
Among Mary Millington’s biggest fans is her biographer, the actor, broadcaster and author Simon Sheridan, who was born shortly after she died. If you want to learn more about Britain’s first true porn star, the best place to start is the dedicated Mary Millington website he set up.
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