Sex and Fame: The Mary Millington Story (1996) Online

Mary Millington found fame in the 70s as a glamour model and porn star. In addition to this she became the first celebrity porn star Britain has produced. Her rise to fame and demise has been compared to that of Marilyn Monroe as there are a lot of parallels.

This documentary is excellent. The production is polished and of a high standard. As documentaries have become more and more glossy in recent years, The Mary Millington Story stills holds up well today despite being more than 10 years old. What makes this documentary so good is the interesting story. Without giving too much away it is about Mary's quick rise to fame and her later downfall of unpaid taxes, mental health problems and later her suicide. This story is both tragic and compelling. It is told by the people that knew her and is partly narrated. The fact that Mary Millington has not been the subject of too many documentaries makes it more interesting to watch as a lot of viewers will be unfamiliar with the story, making it fresh. Mary Millington still has a large fan base today and it is sad to see the life of a beautiful and charismatic woman cut short.

Highly recommended. The documentary was broadcast twice on Channel 4 in the UK. Once in 1996 as part of the Fame Factor series of documentaries and was repeated in 2000. If you can get hold of a copy it's well worth watching.

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.