Mary Millington

Mary Ruth Maxted (née Quilter; 30 November 1945 – 19 August 1979), known professionally as Mary Millington from 1974 onwards, was an English model, call girl and pornographic actress. Her appearance in the short softcore film Sex is My Business led to her meeting magazine publisher David Sullivan, who promoted her widely as a model and featured her in the 1977 softcore comedy Come Play With Me, which ran for a record-breaking four years at the same cinema.

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 medicine and vodka, aged 33.

Millington has been described as one of the "two hottest British sex film stars of the seventies", the other being Fiona Richmond.

Mary Ruth Quilter was born out of wedlock on 30 November 1945, and brought up by her single mother, Joan Quilter (1914–1976), initially in the London suburb of Willesden, before Joan and Mary moved to Mid Holmwood near Dorking, Surrey, in 1959, when Mary was 13. Largely growing up without her father, John William G. Klein (1899–1973), Mary was bullied at school owing to being illegitimate, and she suffered from low self-esteem throughout her childhood and teenage years. She left school at age 15 in 1961, and, at age 18 in 1964, she married Robert Maxted and lived in Dorking. She had to nurse her terminally ill mother for more than ten years, and she began her pornography career to pay for her mother's care. She had wanted to be a fashion model, but at 4 feet 11 inches she was not tall enough. Instead, she became a glamour model in the late 1960s.

Soon after starting work as a glamour model, she met the glamour photographer and pornographer John Jesnor Lindsay, who offered to photograph her for softcore magazines. She became one of his most popular models and began appearing in 8mm hardcore pornographic film loops which sold well in Europe. One of her first films was Miss Bohrloch (1970) which won the Golden Phallus Award at the Wet Dream Festival held in November 1970 in Amsterdam. She starred in around twenty short hardcore films for Lindsay, although only five (Miss Bohrloch, Oral Connection, Betrayed, Oh Nurse and Special Assignment) have so far resurfaced. She then returned to modelling for British pornographic magazines such as Knave and Men Only. She also appeared in softcore short films by Russell Gay (Response, 1974), Mountain Films (Love Games, Wild Lovers) and Harrison Marks (Sex is My Business, c.1974).

Sex is My Business was shot late on a Saturday night at a sex shop on London's Coventry Street. The storyline concerned a powerful aphrodisiac being dropped by a customer, the potency of which renders the shop's staff and customers sex crazy. Mary, dressed in a short see-through dress, is the film's main focus of attention, playing a member of staff who drags a customer into the back room for some multi-position sex, thoughtfully turning on the shop's CCTV camera so others can watch. Sex is My Business was considered something of a lost film until a Super 8 print was located and privately transferred to DVD in 2008. The film subsequently made its internet debut on 26 July 2008 at the (now defunct) site ZDD Visual Explosion. In 2010, Sex is My Business was included as a special feature on the DVD re-release of Come Play With Me.^{[citation needed]}

In February 1974, Maureen O’Malley, her co-star in Sex is My Business, introduced her to adult magazine publisher David Sullivan. Although she was still married, the pair became lovers. Mary had used various stage names and aliases during her pornography career until 1974, when Sullivan rebranded her as Mary Millington. In her first appearance in Sullivan's Whitehouse magazine, he claimed that she was the bisexual nymphomaniac sister of the magazine's editor Doreen Millington, which led Mary to her new stage name. She became well-known thanks to her appearances in Sullivan's pornographic magazines such as Whitehouse and Private. She soon became the most popular model in any of Sullivan's magazines. In November 1977, magistrates acquitted her and Sullivan following prosecution under the Obscene Publications Acts.

She had a small part in Sullivan's 1977 softcore sex comedy Come Play with Me, alongside Alfie Bass and Irene Handl. Although critically panned, the film was highly successful, running continuously for four years at one London cinema. It then became one of the first British films to sell in large numbers on the new VHS format. This was followed by a larger role in The Playbirds (1978), in which she was cast as a policewoman working undercover as a nude model. Although her lack of acting training was evident, The Playbirds was a commercial success. Like Come Play with Me, it was extensively trailed in Sullivan's magazines. She made many public appearances at this time, promoting her films in regional cinemas, opening shops and restaurants, and raising money for the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals. At the height of her fame, she was also working behind the counter in Sullivan's sex shops from 1974 to 1978, mainly in the Whitehouse shop in Norbury, South London. She continued working as a call girl, which she had done since her early modelling days in 1967. She then made a cameo appearance in Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair (1979), which was a flop, and she played the title role in Queen of the Blues (1979). She appeared in other sex movies such as Eskimo Nell (1975), Intimate Games (1976) and Derek Ford's What's Up Superdoc! (1978).