Did Porn Star Marilyn Chambers Appear On The Ivory Snow Box?

Before becoming an adult film star, she was a model for Ivory Snow ads.

Marilyn Chambers was born Marilyn Ann Briggs on 22 April 1952 in Providence, Rhode Island. When Procter & Gamble was casting about for an image of fresh-faced young lady to use on boxes of Ivory Snow laundry detergent in the early 1970s, they selected the now-iconic photograph of Marilyn Chambers posing as a loving young mother holding a bright-eyed, adorable baby.

That photo became synonymous with the much-touted purity of the product (99 44/100% pure, according to the company), a circumstance that proved ironically embarrassing for Procter & Gamble when they learned that the New York model whose picture now represented their product had since moved to San Francisco and turned her hand (and other assorted body parts) to the making of porn films.

She became an instant hit with her appearance in the 1972 porn classic Behind the Green Door, a film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to a standing ovation. Earlier in her fledgling career, she’d had a small part as Robert Klein’s girlfriend in the 1970 film The Owl and the Pussycat and had also appeared in a 1971’s Together. But from Behind the Green Door on, most of her onscreen work was in the adult film industry.

Though a young lady in a dirty business, Chambers proved early on she had a good head on her shoulders: she was smart enough to negotiate a contract that gave her 10% of the gross receipts for her films. This was back in the pre-VCR days, when watching a skin flick didn’t mean renting one from the local video store, but making a trip to the local sticky-floored pussycat theater.

Based on estimates of the box-office receipts for Green Door and The Resurrection of Eve, she earned more than $3 million in two years. Her life wasn’t all skittles and beer, though — she went through a few divorces and battled drug and alcohol addiction before passing away at age 56 in 2009.

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