She was a blond beauty from New England with aspirations of becoming a fashion model and actress, he was a handsome man from a showbiz family in Beverly Hills who also longed for legitimate fame. Ultimately, the blond beauty and the handsome man found their fame...but it was probably not what either of them had in mind originally.
Her name was
Marilyn Ann Briggs, but the world would come to know her as
Marilyn Chambers, the porn actress who became a household name due to her pre-porn stint as the model seen on boxes of Ivory Soap detergent. Once it was revealed that the
Cybil Shepard-look-a-like's face was in laundry rooms across America, Chambers hit the big time. Her porn films became must-see, screened at legitimate movie houses. A brief singing career followed as well as a staring role in
David Cronenberg's
Rabid (and frankly, Chambers was pretty damn good in it). Unfortunately, Chambers' time in the legitimate spotlight did not last long, and eventually she returned to adult entertainment. There was that stunt when she ran for vice president (with
Charles Jay) , and from time to time she'd show up on talk shows or in interviews about the so called "golden age" of skin flicks, but for the most part she was forgotten by most until her death early this year at the age of 56.
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The handsome guy was
John Robert Stillman, who'd eventually be known as
Jack Wrangler. After he'd done some legitimate stage and radio work, Wrangler found his way into the burgeoning gay porn movement of the mid 70's. Due to the fact that Wrangler could actually act, he was a breath of fresh air in skin flicks. What made him an icon was the fact that he seemed to redefine the image of what a gay man was. Wrangler's persona was of a denim wearing, blue collar, all American guy, who just happened to enjoy having sex with other men (and considering when he hit it big, gay men had very little in the way of role models;
Paul Lynde's bitchy queen persona or
Rock Hudson's closet case image were pretty much the only choices). Keeping everyone on their toes, Wrangler eventually moved on to straight porn (he reportedly claimed that he lost his virginity to a woman on screen), and then he went and married singer,
Margret Whiting (some twenty years his senior). Of course, Wrangler never claimed to go straight, nor did he disown his past which he spoke of freely. In his later years, he created a second career for himself producing and writing Broadway shows. Unlike Ms. Chambers, Wrangler seemed to have had a pretty good ride. He died this past spring at the age of 62.
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I wanted to write about Marilyn and Jack as this is the time of the year when you'll see a lot of memorials to the celebrities we've lost, and I did not want these two to be forgotten, as they were just as important to popular culture as Michael Jackson or Farrah Fawcett. And for many, they were iconic figures who helped push, for better or worse, the envelope a little further .
Rest in peace, Marilyn and Jack.
* Back in January Barack Obama became the 44th president of these United States and made history as the first African American to be elected to that office. It seemed like after eight years of mispronunciations and fiddling while America burned, we had our hope back. Of course, it remains to be seen what President Obama will ultimately achieve, but for a few minutes back on January 20th we were all basking in the glow of What Might Be...oh, and we also got to see Aretha Franklin rocking that hat!
