Mary was actually a former veterinary nurse from Surrey, who stumbled into pornography quite accidentally; initially the hardcore variety and then softcore, which is not the usual career trajectory for actresses in that business. She had few inhibitions about sex and nudity, and after making some immensely successful 8mm films in Germany and The Netherlands, Mary began a relationship with publisher David Sullivan, who promoted her relentlessly in his stable of magazines, the most famous of which was Whitehouse - a cheeky sideswipe at Mary Whitehouse, the infamous pro-censorship campaigner. By the mid-1970s Mary started securing small supporting roles in British comedies like Eskimo Nell ( 1975) and Keep It Up Downstairs ( 1976). With Sullivan's help she soon elevated to more significant 'above the title' roles in Come Play With Me ( 1977) and The Playbirds ( 1978). That's how she gained a much wider audience. a b Prynn, Jonathan (8 September 2017). "Former 'sex comedy' cinema given new life as steakhouse". London Evening Standard . Retrieved 8 September 2017. Released to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Mary Millington's death, this special edition Blu-ray box set (individually numbered and limited to 3,000 units) features Mary's most glamorous film roles, with new, stunning 2K restorations, including: You don't really hear the word much 'sexploitation' anymore, but it's just a by-product of 'exploitation' - films predominantly made in the 1960s and 1970s that exploited a certain element of storytelling to engage the cinemagoers' attention. At the time, British filmmakers needed to offer the public something they couldn't see on TV - and this tended to be material which wasn't allowed on the small screen - namely violence, horror, martial arts and sex. In the 1970s British films were a lot tamer than European fare. Hardcore porn movies played mainstream cinemas on the continent, whereas in the UK it was a slightly different story. The success of Come Play With Me inevitably led to imitation productions sometimes similar in name only, and some more authorized than others.

In 1978, she was approached to appear in a hardcore porn film called Love is Beautiful, to have been directed by Gerard Damiano. However, despite Millington and Damiano being pictured together at that year's Cannes Film Festival, the movie (meant to have been produced by David Grant's Oppidan Films) never materialized. Potential co-stars may have included Harry Reems, Gloria Brittain and Lisa Taylor. That same year she turned 33 and found herself being replaced by younger models in Sullivan's magazines. [5] Last years and death [ edit ] However, in her later years, she faced depression and pressure from frequent police raids on her sex shop. After a downward spiral of drug addiction, shoplifting and debt, she died at home of an overdose of medications and vodka when she was 33 years-old. Sheridan, Simon (18 March 2016). "Come Play with Mary on DVD". Mary Millington . Retrieved 12 January 2021.A feature-length documentary chronicling Millington's life, entitled Respectable – The Mary Millington Story, [31] [32] [33] was partly shot and produced at Pinewood Studios in 2015. Screenbound Pictures: Come Play With Me and The Playbirds Restoration Comparison". Blu-ray.com. 1 April 2020 . Retrieved 13 October 2020. Her most famous film was Come Play With Me - almost a film genre all to itself! In a nutshell, the plot follows a couple of banknote forgers who are on the run. Hiding out at a stately home being run as a health farm, they find it is almost entirely staffed by sexy young women. There's an unexpected song and dance routine in the middle of the film, plus some fairly explicit sex scenes - certainly a world away from the likes of Carry On Camping! Simon Sheridan is a writer, broadcaster and filmmaker, as well as being Mary Millington's biographer. He is the world's leading authority on British sexploitation cinema and has written several books on the subject, including Come Play With Me: The Life And Films Of Mary Millington, X-Rated and Keeping The British End Up. Millington has been described as one of the "two hottest British sex film stars of the seventies", the other being Fiona Richmond. [3] David Sullivan described her as "the only really uninhibited, natural sex symbol that Britain ever produced and who believed in what she did". [22] Between 1975 and 1982, there was always at least one of Millington's films playing in London's West End. [23]

Sheridan, Simon (30 November 2015). "Teaser Trailer for 'Respectable: The Mary Millington Story' ". Simon Sheridan . Retrieved 3 April 2016. In April 1978, Millington and fellow Come Play With Me actress Suzy Mandel took part in a publicity stunt for the anniversary of the opening of the film at the Moulin Cinema, posing in lingerie on the cinema's marquee. [15] In May 1978, Millington was photographed topless outside 10 Downing Street. While she was posing for an innocuous picture with a policeman, she decided to unzip her top and expose her breasts for the photograph. This surprised the people present, including Suzy Mandel, Whitehouse photographer George Richardson (who took the picture), and the policeman (who tried to confiscate the film). According to Simon Sheridan's biography of Millington, "For this stunt Mary was conditionally discharged and bound over to keep the peace". [1] No such caveats for the last major feature film in this collection, Confessions Of The David Galaxy Affair. In The Playbirds it’s fair to say that Alan Lake’s charisma was put to great use, and he visibly relishes every scene he appears in, with charming brio; by comparison, Confessions Of The David Galaxy Affair is what happens when you give your lead actor free rein for all his most appalling excesses – problematic ain’t the word for some of ‘em – and Millington’s character barely troubles the narrative. A sad, depressing film, released two months prior to Millington’s suicide, and Lake’s last lead role before his tragic death by his own hand in 1984, Confessions Of The David Galaxy Affair is the twitching corpse of the British sex comedy at a time when its star had fallen, Columbia having pulled the plug on the Confessions series a year earlier. One wonders if the cunning stunts of Michael Armstrong or David McGillivray could have salvaged this turkey, but it’s doubtful. It’s sad to see the potential of The Playbirds squandered in this embarrassing dud – even Lake’s missus, the wonderful Diana Dors, phones it in. Mary on Location – Then and Now’ travelogue revisiting the main locations in Mary’s life and films.Firstly, I must tell you, compiling this new Mary Millington collection of films on Blu-ray has been my dream job! I've curated the whole box-set with the fantastic team at Screenbound Pictures. I've been asking them to remaster Mary's movies for years, and now it's happened. I don't care if anybody gets sniffy about Mary's films, because they're actually hugely culturally significant. These movies kept the British movie industry going through some pretty dark times - I absolutely believe they deserve to be restored, so I'm thrilled to bits about it. They look better now than ever.

The film received its world premiere at London's Regent Street Cinema in April 2016. [34] A DVD of the film was released in the UK on 2 May 2016. [35] Selected filmography [ edit ] Sutton is just one of a number of stalwarts who grace The Playbirds with their aspect, and with scenes propped up with the likes of Windsor Davies ( It Ain’t Half Hot Mum), Glynn Edwards ( Minder), Kenny Lynch ( Dr Terror’s House of Horrors) and Ballard Berkeley ( Fawlty Towers), there’s something reassuring about these dependable figures propping up this bizarre, and largely successful, mix of sexploitation, crime caper and light-hearted comedy. Babington, Bruce (2001). British Stars and Stardom: From Alma Taylor to Sean Connery. Manchester University Press. ISBN 9780719058417. Written, directed and produced by Mary Millington's biographer Simon Sheridan, the film mixes archive footage, previously unseen photographs and interviews with Millington's family, friends and co-stars, including David Sullivan, Pat Astley, Dudley Sutton, Linzi Drew and Flanagan.In late 2009, an 8mm copy of one of her early John Lindsay short films Special Assignment resurfaced. Unseen since the early 1970s, it was subsequently transferred to DVD. Two years later in 2011, Wild Lovers, another 8mm film starring Millington, was also traced and transferred from 8mm to DVD. [ citation needed] NEW Mary Millington’s True Blue Confessions – audio commentary by biographer Simon Sheridan and executive producer David Sullivan. In 2008, an exhibition of the work of the late glamour photographer Fred Grierson was held in London, which included several little-seen pictures of Millington taken by Grierson at June Palmer's Strobe Studios in the early 1970s. [ citation needed]