Pure

Marilyn Chambers was the woman every man desired and every woman desired to be. She embodied the free-spirited Seventies and became a counterculture figure in the conservative Eighties. She was an unappreciated talent whose work in adult films overshadowed her life and the rest of her surprisingly varied, three-decade career in show business. Now you can read her remarkable, untold story in Pure: The Sexual Revolutions of Marilyn Chambers.

Raised in an affluent Connecticut suburb, Marilyn catapulted to international fame when it emerged that not only had she starred in the 1972 groundbreaking X-rated film, Behind the Green Door but was also the wholesome model on the box of Ivory Snow laundry detergent. (The product's famous tagline was "99 44/100% Pure.") Green Door raked in $30 million at the box office (nearly $100 million when adjusted for inflation) and became a cult film.

Marilyn was the first woman known primarily for her work in adult films to cross over to mainstream entertainment. As a woman in show business, her notorious claim to fame often drew the ire of misogynistic, sexist critics and much public consternation. In the process, Marilyn Chambers drove difficult and complex conversations about sex, sexuality, women, race, obscenity, and First Amendment rights. Ultimately, her success in adult films also proved to be her undoing.

Pure takes you behind the scenes of Marilyn's bold quest to become a leading lady in Hollywood. She came close to fulfilling her Hollywood dream a few times--including a role in a film by celebrated auteur Nicholas Ray--but it wasn't meant to be. Still, she displayed her versatility as an entertainer in plays, including Neil Simon's Last of the Red Hot Lovers and Jules Tasca's Mind with the Dirty Man; movies such as David Cronenberg's horror classic Rabid and The Owl and the Pussycat starring Barbra Streisand; a Broadway musical revue; a risqu one-woman show that was banned in Las Vegas and had a successful run in London; a dramatic television series; three books; a country music band; and even a disco single. And yet, all roads led back to adult films.

Marred by a violent relationship with her abusive husband-manager, Chuck Traynor, Marilyn developed the persona of a twenty-four-hour-a-day sex star. In the process, she lost her sense of self and spent much of her life searching for her true identity. Pure is the probing study of an ambitious woman whose dreams were derailed because she appeared in an X-rated film.