Come Play with Mary on DVD

I’ve been asked a lot recently if my forthcoming movie about Mary will be coming to DVD. Well, the answer is yes, and it’s coming sooner than you think. On 2 May 2016 Respectable – The Mary Millington Story will be released in the UK. There’s lots of ‘special features’ on the disc; more to be revealed nearer the time. For the moment here’s a sneak peek at the front cover…

Respectable Mary Millington DVD

 Image strictly © Simon Sheridan 2016

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F is for Fake

Over the years I’ve been asked numerous times to verify signed Mary Millington items. I’m fortunate to be the custodian of several incredibly rare pieces of memorabilia – including signed photographs, private letters, magazines, books and even the notes Mary wrote on the night she died. They are all genuine articles, but if you want to be a collector of Mary ephemera it’s important to know that not all signatures purporting to be ‘real’ are actually genuine. There was, in fact, actually more than one ‘Mary Millington’ wielding a biro.

During the height of ‘Mary mania’ in the mid to late-1970s Britain’s #1 model just didn’t have the time or resources to respond to the sack-loads of fan letters which arrived each week at the headquarters of David Sullivan’s Roldvale Publishing empire. Many admirers requested signed photos or magazines, or even personal correspondence. David has told me that he regularly got his then-secretary Doreen Millington (no relation), or other staff in his office, to “sign on Mary’s behalf”. The punters were happy, since they thought they were receiving a genuine signature from their idol, and for Roldvale it made perfect business sense to keep up the pretence.

Obviously, after Mary started working in the Whitehouse Shop in Norbury (between 1975 and 1978), and then at the International Sex Centre in Tooting (from 1978 to 1979), she was happy to sign magazines face-to-face to customers who came into see her; but she never did it free-of-charge. Of course, Mary wasn’t serving in her shop every day – or even every week – and her staff often signed items in her absence. I know this to be true as they’ve confirmed it to me.

Here’s a genuine Mary Millington signature (left) compared to an example of Doreen Millington’s handiwork (right):

Mary Millington signature

The huge difference between the two handwriting styles is apparent to any budding-graphologist. They are unquestionably not the work of the same person. So if you ever spot a ‘rare Mary Millington autograph’ on an auction site for a hugely inflated price, check first, because, just like a devoted fan in 1975, you might only be buying a slice of fantasy, rather than reality.

All words strictly © Simon Sheridan 2016

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A Respectable Première on 7 April

I’m very proud to announce that the world première of Respectable – The Mary Millington Story, will take place on 7 April 2016 at the beautiful Regent Street Cinema in the heart of London’s West End. We are all very excited about finally bringing Mary back to the big screen.

Come Play with Me 2016

However, this huge celebration of Mary’s extraordinary life isn’t just going to be a film première, we have another big surprise coming too…

All words and image strictly © Simon Sheridan 2016 © Baker Street Ventures 2016

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Respectable – The Mary Millington Story is coming…

Respectable Mary Millington X cert card

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What a Good Sport!

Titbits magazine was something of a working class British institution. Launched in 1881, it ran for over 100 years, and at its peak was selling over one million copies a week. Unashamedly low-brow and populist, from the 1950s onwards it specialised in printing an increasing amount of stories about the Royal Family, TV celebrities ‘at home’, supermarket bargains, horoscope predictions, fad diets, Spanish holidays and, as one commentator noted, ‘beer, birds and bingo’. It didn’t shy away from printing photos of topless girls either, and models like Maureen Flanagan, Nicola Austine, Helli Louise, Katya Wyeth and even Mary Millington all appeared semi-clad from the early-1970s onwards.

Mary Millington Titbits 1976

In August 1974 Mary’s naked body featured prominently in a double-page spread about the release of her debut movie Eskimo Nell. She reappeared again in December 1976, in an article about ‘winter sports’, a specious piece which merely enabled the magazine to print Mary’s bare boobs. Here she is topless, brandishing a hockey stick, but superimposed into the midst of a rather less-revealing outdoor match…

Mary Millington Titbits 1976 b

All words © Simon Sheridan 2016

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A Very Mary Christmas, 1979

When Mary was busy celebrating Christmas Day in 1978 nobody had any idea what terrible – and entirely preventable – tragedy would befall her just eight months later. But Mary’s memory did not immediately fade from view after her death in August 1979; in fact, quite the opposite happened. In London’s West End Mary’s posthumous popularity soared, and screenings of her movies reached unprecedented levels. At Mary’s ‘spiritual’ home – the Moulin cinema complex in Great Windmill Street – her films continued to play to packed auditoria week after week. What’s fascinating to note is just how incredibly prolific Mary’s movies were over the Christmas period of 1979, in particular.

Mary Millington Christmas 1979

During the week of 21-28 December the Moulin was tempting cinema-goers with separate programmes of The Playbirds (1978), I’m Not Feeling Myself Tonight! (1975) and Come Play with Me (1977) each five times per day, as well as Queen of the Blues (1979) six times every day. Maths has never been my strongest point, but minus a lunchtime showing on Sunday 23rd, a Christmas Eve late-night screening and the fact that the cinema was closed on Christmas Day, that’s still a colossal tally of 118 screenings over the space of just one week in a single cinema. Elsewhere in London, Mary’s 1975 film Erotic Inferno was playing nightly at the Granada chain, and her Swedish-made drama Private Pleasures was showing every evening at the Curzon in Haringay. In total, Mary’s movies played some 130 times over a mere six days.

Looking at these statistics today it seems that the public’s fascination with X-rated material was undimmed even after Mary’s untimely death, and undiluted by December’s more traditional festivities. Christmas 1979 was an especially poignant time for Mary’s family and friends; a time of reflection and celebration, as well as bringing a close to a decade of tumultuous social change for Great Britain.

 All words strictly © Simon Sheridan 2015

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Mary Millington in Londonist

One of my favourite news and popular culture websites is Londonist. Described by comedian Frank Skinner as ‘the what’s on guide for thinking people’, Londonist unquestionably provides the quirkiest pages about life, and style, in the capital.

Mary Millington beaming

Recently, journalist Ben Venables did a feature for the website about Respectable, the forthcoming documentary on Mary’s life, and you can read all about it here.

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Teaser Trailer for ‘Respectable: The Mary Millington Story’

It’s been a very long time coming, I know… but to commemorate what would have been Mary’s 70th birthday, here’s a little teaser trailer for Respectable: The Mary Millington Story, my forthcoming documentary on the life, and death, of Britain’s most celebrated sex symbol of the 1970s. 

Teaser trailer strictly © Simon Sheridan 2015-2016 © Baker Street MM Productions 2015-2016

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A Little Respect

Mary’s nearly 70. Almost time to show some Respect

Respectable hashtag

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Mary Goes to Cannes (again)

In May 1978 Mary visited the world-famous Cannes Film Festival to promote her forthcoming movie The Playbirds. She was also there to have an initial meeting with legendary porn director Gerard Damiano, about his latest project, Love is Beautiful, due to be shot in London that autumn for British producer David Grant.

By this stage in her career Mary was somewhat reluctant to return to the world of hardcore pornography, but the prospect of being paired-up with actor Harry Reems, the charismatic male lead of 1973’s Deep Throat, and potentially breaking into the American market, persuaded her – momentarily – to change her mind. However, despite posing for some explicit photographs with Reems, and having a further meeting with Damiano when he visited London in September 1978, Love is Beautiful never saw the light of day. Mary had always had reservations about working for David Grant and she was actually rather relieved the project fell through.

MM on the beach at Cannes 1978

However, Mary’s Cannes visit of 1978 was also notable for another reason. It was at the festival where she was first introduced to actor Peter Sellers, there to promote his latest comedy, Revenge of the Pink Panther (released in July of that year). Mary – like so many starlets before her – posed topless on the beach at the resort, much to the delight of photographers. A brief snippet of grainy footage exists showing Mary emerging from the sea and posing atop a sun lounger. Her naked body caught the eye of Sellers, who invited her for dinner, and the pair enjoyed a brief sexual affair.

Mary returned to Cannes again in May 1979 to drum up interest in the soon-to-be released David Galaxy Affair (before it had adopted its cumbersome Confessions from prefix). I have a private letter Mary wrote to friends at the time, which recounts how much she had enjoyed visiting the French seaside. Tragically, it was to be final last visit.

But 36 years after Mary last graced Cannes, she returned there – in spirit, at least – last month. My movie biography of Mary’s life, entitled Respectable: The Mary Millington Story, was screened at the resort for a week and posters featuring her smiling face adorned the Promenade de la Croisette. Here’s a sneak peek at the European poster below:

Respectable Mary Millington French poster

I’m proud to announce that my film is being handled by Content Media Corp, one of the biggest theatrical, TV and digital distributors in the world, with offices based in London and Los Angeles. And next Monday – on what would’ve been Mary’s 70th birthday – we’ll be revealing the first ‘teaser’ trailer for the movie.

 All words strictly © Simon Sheridan 2015-2016

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