Mary Millington / The British Sex Symbol Who Believed In What She Did

anonymous asked:
how about some mary millington?

---

Mary Millington
1945—1979

“The only really uninhibited, natural sex symbol that Britain ever produced and who believed in what she did."—David Sullivan

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Millington was bullied at school due to being born illegitimately, and suffered from low self-esteem throughout her childhood and teenage years. She left school at 15. She had to nurse her terminally ill mother for more than ten years, and began her porn career to pay for her care. In her first Whitehouse appearance adult magazine publisher David Sullivan claimed that she was the bisexual nymphomaniac sister of the magazine’s editor Doreen Millington, and so gave Mary her new stage name. She soon became the most popular model in any of Sullivan’s magazines.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

At the height of her fame she was also working behind the counter in Sullivan’s sex shops, mainly in the Whitehouse shop in Norbury. She continued working as a call girl, which she had done since her early modelling days.

Millington’s final appearance was in the Sex Pistols film Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, directed by Julien Temple, which was released theatrically in March 1980. However, neither she nor her punk rock co-star Sid Vicious lived to see the completion of the movie.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

In 1978 she turned 33, and found herself being replaced by younger models in Sullivan’s magazines. She opened her own sex shop, Mary Millington’s International Sex Centre, selling illegal material. The shop was raided by the police on numerous occasions, and she claimed the police threatened her and forced her to pay protection money. In the past she had publicly criticized police raids on sex shops and published the addresses and telephone numbers of Scotland Yard and Members of Parliament in her magazines.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

She had always been prone to neurosis and depression, which was exacerbated by her cocaine habit. Her mother’s death in 1976 also affected her deeply, and her behavior became unpredictable. Her life had begun a downward spiral into drug use and depression following the raids on her shop. Her kleptomania became more pronounced in the last year of her life.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

Millington committed suicide at age 33, by an overdose of tricyclic antidepressant anafranil, paracetamol and alcohol at her home. Her husband found her dead in her bed on 19 August 1979. She left four suicide notes which were found near her body.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

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. A feature-length documentary chronicling Millington’s life, entitled Respectable – The Mary Millington Story, was produced in 2015.
Source: Wikipedia