27 Facts About Mary Millington

Mary Ruth Maxted, known professionally as Mary Millington from 1974 onwards, was an English model, call girl and pornographic actress.

Largely growing up without her father, John William G Klein, Mary was bullied at school owing to being illegitimate, and she suffered from low self-esteem throughout her childhood and teenage years.

Mary Millington left school at age 15 in 1961, and, at age 18 in 1964, she married Robert Maxted and lived in Dorking.

Mary Millington 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.

Mary Millington had wanted to be a fashion model, but, at only 4 feet 11 inches, she was not tall enough.

Mary Millington became one of his most popular models and began appearing in 8mm hardcore pornographic film loops which sold well in Europe.

Mary Millington starred in around twenty short hardcore films for John Lindsay, although only five have so far resurfaced.

Mary Millington then returned to modelling for British pornographic magazines such as Knave and Men Only.

Mary Millington became well-known thanks to her appearances in Sullivan's pornographic magazines such as Whitehouse and Private.

Mary Millington soon became the most popular model in any of Sullivan's magazines.

Mary Millington 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.

Mary Millington continued working as a call girl, which she had done since her early modelling days in 1967.

Mary Millington then made a cameo appearance in Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair, which was a flop, and she played the title role in Queen of the Blues.

In May 1978, Mary Millington was photographed topless outside 10 Downing Street.

Mary Millington had suffered from neurosis and depression, which were exacerbated by her cocaine habit.

Mary Millington began to spend more time working in her own shop, selling illegal material.

Mary Millington's life began a downward spiral into drug use and depression following the raids on her shop.

Mary Millington's kleptomania became more pronounced in the last year of her life, with arrests for shoplifting in June 1979 and again for stealing a necklace on 18 August 1979, which was the day before her death.

Mary Millington died by suicide at age 33, by an overdose of tricyclic antidepressant anafranil, paracetamol and alcohol at her home in Walton-on-the-Hill, Surrey on 19 August 1979.

Mary Millington left four suicide notes which were found near her body.

Mary Millington was a member of the National Campaign for the Reform of the Obscene Publications Acts and encouraged her readers to demand the abolition of the Acts.

Mary Millington 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.

Mary Millington is buried in the same grave as her mother, Joan Quilter, who died in 1976.

Between 1975 and 1982, there was always at least one of Mary Millington's films playing in London's West End.

In 2004, Mary Millington's prominence was recognised by her inclusion in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Colin Matthew and Brian Harrison.

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 Mary Millington taken by Grierson at June Palmer's Strobe Studios in the early 1970s.

Mary Millington is commemorated with a blue plaque on the site of the former Moulin Cinema in Great Windmill Street, Soho for her appearance in Come Play with Me.