After a downward spiral of drug addiction, shoplifting and debt, she died at home of an overdose of medicine and vodka, aged 33.

[5][6] Largely growing up without her father, John William G. Klein (1899–1973),[3] Mary was bullied at school owing to being illegitimate, and she suffered from low self-esteem throughout her childhood and teenage years.

[4] Miss Bohrloch won the Golden Phallus Award at the Wet Dream Festival held in November 1970 in Amsterdam.

[9] She starred in around twenty short hardcore films for John Lindsay,[10] although only five (Miss Bohrloch, Oral Connection, Betrayed, Oh Nurse and Special Assignment) have so far resurfaced.

[citation needed] In February 1974, Maureen O’Malley, her co-star in Sex is My Business, introduced her to adult magazine publisher David Sullivan.

[13] She had a small part in Sullivan's 1977 softcore sex comedy Come Play with Me, alongside Alfie Bass and Irene Handl.

[14] She made many public appearances at this time, promoting her films in regional cinemas, opening shops and restaurants, and raising money for the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals.

[3] She then made a cameo appearance in Confessions from the David Galaxy Affair (1979), which was a flop,[3] and she played the title role in Queen of the Blues (1979).

This surprised the people present, including Suzy Mandel, Whitehouse photographer George Richardson (who took the picture), and the policeman (who tried to confiscate the film).

She played Mary in the Sex Pistols film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, directed by Julien Temple, which was released theatrically in March 1980.

[3] Mary Millington was an advocate for the legalisation of pornography, campaigned for the abolition of the Obscene Publications Act and promoted sexual openness and equality.

[3] Her mother's death at age 62 on 17 May 1976, after over 10 years with cancer, also affected her deeply, and her behaviour became unpredictable, which led to her breaking up with Sullivan.

[23] Her kleptomania became more pronounced in the last year of her life, with arrests for shoplifting in June 1979 and again for stealing a necklace on 18 August 1979, which was the day before her death.

[23] Millington died by suicide at age 33, by an overdose of tricyclic antidepressant anafranil, paracetamol and alcohol at her home in Walton-on-the-Hill, Surrey on 19 August 1979.

[13] After her death, NCROPA founder David Webb wrote: "Mary was a dear, kind person and we much admired her courage in standing up to the bigotry and repression which still so pervades the establishment of this country.

"[27] Millington was buried at St Mary Magdalene Church, in South Holmwood, Surrey, marked by a grey granite tombstone which bears her married name.

[30] In 1996, Channel Four screened a tribute to her entitled Sex and Fame: The Mary Millington Story, featuring an interview with David Sullivan.

Further information about her career can be found in Sheridan's follow-up book Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema, the fourth edition of which was published in April 2011.

[32] In 2004, Millington's prominence was recognised by her inclusion in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,[33] edited by Colin Matthew and Brian Harrison.

[citation needed] In late 2009, an 8 mm copy of one of her early John Lindsay short films Special Assignment resurfaced.

Written, directed and produced by Millington's biographer Simon Sheridan, the film mixes archive footage, previously unseen photographs and interviews with Millington's family, friends and co-stars, including David Sullivan, Pat Astley, Dudley Sutton, Linzi Drew and Maureen Flanagan.