Respectable - The Mary Millington Story". BFI. Archived from the original on 23 February 2016 . Retrieved 3 April 2016. David Sullivan's magazines were often undated, as such the only way of dating them is by which Sullivan-produced films were being promoted inside the magazines, i.e. a Sullivan magazine which promotes Come Play With Me would be from 1976/1977, ones promoting The Playbirds would be circa 1978, and ones promoting Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair would be from 1979. See also [ edit ] Respectable: The Mary Millington Story ( 2015), an in-depth documentary chronicling her extraordinary life But as with everything, tastes change in British comedy, and they definitely did in the late-1970s. The fourth and final Confessions film was released in 1977, with the final in the original run of Carry On movies the year after. TV audiences were also huge at this point in time. People were tiring of traipsing out to the local ODEON to watch sex comedies, preferring to stay at home to watch The Benny Hill Show instead. 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 ]

In 2014, four spoken word erotic stories recorded by Millington in 1978–9 were released as a vinyl LP. [28] Come Play with Me original 1977 trailer plus the British theatrical trailer for Come Play with Me, unseen for nearly 40 years. Confessions from the David Sullivan Affair. Film producer David Sullivan chats about life with girlfriend Mary Millington, as well as exclusively revealing a self-portrait Mary gave him in 1977. The wonderful Irene Handl plays the matriarch of the establishment and there's a host of other very well-loved comedy names in attendance, such as Tommy Godfrey, Alfie Bass, Bob Todd, Henry McGee and Rita Webb. And the young actresses, like Mary Millington, are all dressed in nurses' outfits (naturally) and cavort with the old-timers. It's quite a spectacle!Mary Millington was a pretty English girl-next-door who personified the word ‘glamour’. Her meteoric rise to the top was scandalous and controversial. She became the most famous pin-up of the decade and her racy reputation could shift a million newspapers and sell the longest-running British movie of all-time. Mary’s fame brought her a lavish lifestyle and an affair with a serving Prime Minister. Her sexuality was accessible and her personality addictive, but her sexual bravado hid a darker side. Persecuted by the authorities, Mary was tortured by self-doubt and she sadly died at the height of her fame in August 1979, aged 33. Filmed on location in London and at Pinewood Studios, Simon Sheridan’s documentary reveals the truth behind an icon. I've been fascinated by Mary Millington's life and career since I was a child in the 1970s. I always recall seeing her image on cinema posters when I was very young and wondering who this beautiful blonde woman was. Even at a formative age I knew she was an 'adult actress', but couldn't quite understand how TV favourites like Diana Dors and Irene Handl were co-starring with her in naughty big-screen comedies. 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. Millington has been described as one of the "two hottest British sex film stars of the seventies", the other being Fiona Richmond. [3] Early life [ edit ]

Extras: Audio Commentary. Sam Dunn from the BFI discusses the making of Respectable with its writer/director/producer, Simon Sheridan. Twenty years after her death, the author and film historian Simon Sheridan put Millington's life into context in the biography Come Play with Me: The Life and Films of Mary Millington. Further information about her career can be found in Sheridan's follow-up book Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema, the fourth edition of which was published in April 2011. [26] Sheridan, Simon (18 March 2016). "Come Play with Mary on DVD". Mary Millington . Retrieved 12 January 2021.

Respectable: The Mary Millington Story". Regent Street Cinema. Archived from the original on 16 April 2016 . Retrieved 3 April 2016. Millington was a member of the National Campaign for the Reform of the Obscene Publications Acts (NCROPA) [19] [20] and encouraged her readers to demand the abolition of the Acts. [12] After her death, NCROPA founder David Webb wrote: "Mary was a dear, kind person and we much admired her courage in standing up to the bigotry and repression which still so pervades the establishment of this country. She obviously had tremendous pressures put on her as a result and there is no doubt in my mind that these must have contributed to this tragedy." [21] 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] 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.