Editing Marilyn Chambers (section)

===''Behind the Green Door''===
Upon the release of ''The Owl and the Pussycat'', Chambers was sent to [[Los Angeles]] and [[San Francisco]] on a promotional tour. After that, she did not receive any roles except for a low-budget film, writer-director-producer [[Sean S. Cunningham]]'s ''[[Together (1971 film)|Together]]'' (1971), in which she appeared nude. In 1970, she moved from Westport to San Francisco, where she held several jobs that included topless model and bottomless dancer. "I moved to San Francisco, thinking it was the entertainment capital of the world, which indeed, it is not," she said.<ref name="Insatiable DVD">{{cite video|people=Marilyn Chambers
  | title = Insatiable
  | medium = DVD
  | publisher = Dynasty
  |date=2010}}</ref>

Chambers sought work in theater and dance groups in San Francisco to no avail. In 1972, she saw an advertisement in the ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'' for a casting call for what was billed as a "major motion picture".<ref name="Hubner">John Hubner, ''Bottom Feeders'', Dell (1994), p. 166</ref> She rushed to the audition only to find it was for a [[pornographic film]], which was to be called ''[[Behind the Green Door]]''. She was about to leave when producers [[Mitchell Brothers|Artie and Jim Mitchell]] noticed her resemblance to [[Cybill Shepherd]]. They invited her upstairs to their offices and told her the film's plot. Chambers was highly dubious about accepting a role in a pornographic film, fearing it might ruin her chances at breaking into the mainstream. But she was turned on by the fantasy of the story and decided to take a chance, under the condition that she receive a hefty salary and 10 percent of the film's gross. She also insisted that each actor get tested for venereal disease. The Mitchell Brothers balked at her request for a percentage of the film's profits, but finally agreed, realizing the film needed a wholesome blonde actress.<ref name=autogenerated2>pp. 167–178</ref>

The film told the story of a wealthy San Francisco socialite, Gloria Saunders (Chambers), who is taken against her will to an elite [[North Beach, San Francisco|North Beach]] sex club and loved as she's never been loved before. Unusually, Chambers does not have a single word of dialogue in the entire film.<ref name=nytobit/> After engaging in lesbian sex with a group of six women, she then has sex with actor [[Johnnie Keyes]].<ref name=Hardcore/> This possibly makes ''Behind the Green Door'' the first U.S. feature-length [[Hardcore pornography|hardcore]] film to include an interracial sex scene.<ref>{{cite book|title=Porn studies|publisher=[[Duke University Press]]|author=Williams, Linda |year=2004|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rdWZ8JD5dkkC|isbn=0-8223-3312-0|page=299}}</ref> The porn industry and viewing public were shocked by the then-taboo spectacle of a white woman having sex with a black man. The scene with Keyes is followed by Chambers mounting a trapeze contraption suspended from the ceiling. She then engages in vaginal intercourse with one man as she performs oral sex on another and masturbates two others.

"Each sequence ''was'' a surprise to me", she said in 1987. "They never told me what was happening next. I just did it as it happened, and it worked. I've always been highly sexed. Oh, my God, I love it! Insatiable ''is'' the right word for me."<ref name="GQ">{{citation |title=Inside Marilyn Chambers |author=Pat Jordan|journal=GQ Magazine|date=September 1987}}</ref>

After filming concluded, she informed the Mitchell Brothers that she was "the [[Ivory (soap)|Ivory Snow]] Girl"; the Mitchells capitalized on this by billing her as the "99 and 44/100% impure" girl.<ref name=unknown>{{cite book |title=San Francisco: The Unknown City |publisher=[[Arsenal Pulp Press]] |first1=Helene |last1=Goupil |first2=Josh |last2=Krist |year=2005 |url=https://archive.org/details/sanfranciscounkn0000goup |url-access=registration |isbn=1-55152-188-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/sanfranciscounkn0000goup/page/238 238]–241}}</ref> Although she said at the time the film would help "sell a lot more soap", [[Procter & Gamble]] quickly dropped her after discovering her double life as an adult-film actress,<ref name=nytobit/> and the advertising industry was scandalized.<ref name=Hardcore/> The fact that Chambers's image was so well known from Ivory Snow<ref name="fi-v1-n4">{{cite news |last1=Mackay |first1=Barbara |title=Do Erotic Films Turn Women On? |url=https://archive.org/details/film-international-v-01n-04-1975-07.-mmc-team-mal-ia/page/48/mode/2up |access-date=5 December 2024 |work=Film International |publisher=Magazine Management Corp |date=July 1975 |location=NY, NY}}</ref> boosted the film's ticket sales, and led to several jokes on television talk shows.<ref name=love>{{cite book|title=Make love, not war: the sexual revolution, an unfettered history|publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]]|author=David Smith Allyn |year=2001|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NE9lfn0FBHUC|isbn=0-415-92942-3|page=235}}</ref> Nearly every adult film she made following this incident featured a cameo of her Ivory Snow box.<ref name=love/>{{rp|213–216}}

Chambers was relatively unknown prior to ''Behind the Green Door''; however, the film made her a star.<ref name=falk>{{cite book|title=The consuming body|publisher=[[SAGE Publishing|SAGE]]|author=Falk, Pasi |year=1994|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yo2Sz_9rjkQC|isbn=0-8039-8974-1|page=201}}</ref><ref name=Kelly>{{cite book|title=Handbook of organized crime in the United States|publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]]|author1=Robert J. Kelly |author2=Ko-lin Chin |author3=Rufus Schatzberg |year=1994|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CWg1Efv5C5UC|isbn=0-313-28366-4|pages=301–302}}</ref> ''Green Door'', along with ''[[Deep Throat (film)|Deep Throat]]'', released the same year, and ''[[The Devil in Miss Jones]]'', ushered in what is commonly known as the [[porno chic]] era.