99 44/100% pure. Casting call for soap powder and beyond
On Ivory Snow:
Ivory soap was invented in 1879 by James Norris Gamble, the son of one of Procter & Gamble’s co-founders, and named Ivory by Harley Procter, the other founder’s son. It was the first branded product the company ever mass marketed. Its famous tagline, “99 44/100% pure,” was in use since the early 1890s. More than seventy years after Ivory soap was invented, it remained the backbone of P&G’s brand. Ivory Snow was marketed to mothers as safe and gentle enough to wash a baby’s clothes.
As the sixties drew to a close and the first wave of baby boomers came of age, the executives at P&G wanted to update the product’s branding.
‘They wanted the ‘now’ generation housewife and mother,’ Marilyn said. ‘And so they took a lot of test shots with a lot of girls and then took more shots of us holding babies.’
As a finalist, three male P&G executives took Marilyn, then just seventeen, to lunch. They impressed her with their dashing three-piece suits, clean-cut appearances, and seemingly kind manners. It’s possible, even likely, that one or all of the men made a pass at her, and one did make an inappropriate comment.
“[L]ittle did naive Marilyn know that everyone’s always trying to get into my pants,” she said later of the lunch. “I’m thinking like, ‘Oh, gee, they really like me!’”
Whether or not anything untoward happened at the lunch, it was true they liked her. She got the job as the new face of Ivory Snow. Next, P&G decision-makers had to audition infants to find one whose face would adorn the box with Marilyn’s.
‘I think I held a hundred screaming, crying, wet-diapered babies and another hundred smiling, cooing, laughing babies,’ she said. ‘I love babies…but I didn’t love them enough to enjoy sitting through all the photo sessions. Sometimes I’d begin to think my dad was right, that the world of modeling was pure insanity and masochism.’
She tried to remind herself that this was a job, she was a professional model, this was a paid gig, and she was fortunate to get this opportunity.
In the photo, which was shot in 1970, Marilyn smiles and holds a laughing baby. It was a happy-suburban-housewife version of the classic Madonna and Child image. Howard J. Morgens, the company’s CEO, remarked that Marilyn ‘looked like the Virgin Mary.’
During a moment of downtime in the shoot, the photographer, described by Marilyn as “a really old, old ancient man,” began chasing her around the studio, trying to force himself on her.
“I was running around, going, ‘What are you doing?! Get out of here!’” Later, she said, “That old Ivory Snow photographer was disgusting. It was gross—this seventy-year-old guy right on me! I couldn’t believe it. I was so disillusioned that this was what this business was all about. I was totally freaked out. Here I am posing for this 99 44/100% pure box, and what’s going on in the backroom was disgusting.”
On Behind the Green Door casting:
Marilyn checked the newspaper daily for jobs. On March 13, 1972, she spotted an advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle. It read: “Now casting for a major motion picture.”
She knew instinctively this was the moment for which she had been waiting. She phoned the number listed in the ad.
“I’m sorry, but all the roles have been cast,” said the woman who answered.
“No, wait! You haven’t seen me yet. Please let me come down and audition.” She was practically screaming into the receiver.
“OK,” said the woman. “But it probably won’t do you any good.”
Marilyn wrote down the address, thanked the woman, and hung up. She grabbed her modeling portfolio and quickly made her way out the door of her apartment.
All the unmarked warehouses on Tennessee Street looked the same, but she finally found the Stage A building. A host of people were milling about, sorting through applications, building sets, and chatting. Marilyn sensed this wouldn’t be like any other audition as she entered. Something about the vibe of the place was weird. Not in a bad way, just strange. Maybe she was just nervous.
She approached a table near the front and explained that she had spoken to a woman about an audition. She was handed a green form and asked to fill it out. She found a seat and placed her modeling portfolio beside her. The first few questions were all standard, such as name, contact information, and previous experience. Near the bottom of the form, one question startled her. It read: Balling or non-balling role? She wrote in the word ‘non-balling.’ Wait a minute. Certainly, this had to be a typo, she thought. They can’t mean what she thought they meant. They probably meant to type “bowling or non-bowling.” That had to be it. She crossed out the word ‘non,’ so it simply said ‘balling.’ She could handle a little bowling, she thought.
She returned the form to the person at the table. They scanned it and said, “So you’ll be fucking in the movie?”
“What? No!” she said. “Is that what kind of a movie this is? No way. Nudity is okay, but I’m not screwing on film.” Dejected and angry, she gathered her materials and started for the exit. The woman on the phone was right. Coming down to the audition didn’t do her any good.
Art Mitchell was sitting in the second-floor office he shared with his brother Jim. He noticed Marilyn as she was leaving. She bore such a striking resemblance to model and actress Cybill Shepherd that he did a double take. She was not like any of the other girls who came to audition for the brothers’ films. What was she doing here? At that moment, he knew the slender blonde, steps away from walking out of their lives forever, was precisely the girl they needed for their next film. He had to act fast.
“Hey! Hey, you!” he shouted after her. Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at Art’s head poking out of the office window. “The blonde girl. Wait! Don’t go. Come back!” Everyone turned to look at Marilyn.
She kept walking.
Art raced from the office, down the stairs, and started to chase her. “Hey! Come back.” She turned around. Who was this corny-looking guy? He was dressed in a Brooks Brothers sweater vest, kept a well-maintained beard, and looked like somebody from Westport, not a sleazeball who made fuck films.
“Are you here to audition?” he asked.
“I was, but I didn’t know it was that kind of movie,” she replied. “The ad in the Chronicle said nothing about the movie being X-rated.”
“C’mon upstairs,” he said gently. “My brother and I would love to talk with you. Please? Just for a few minutes. You’re exactly what we’re looking for.”
She was dubious but charmed by his demeanor. Yet there was no way she was going to do a porn movie.
“What could it hurt?” he asked. “It’ll just take a few minutes. We just want to talk to you.”
Out of all the people in the place, he was the least weird, yet it seemed he was in charge. She had to admit she had nothing else going on, just more housework and wondering when her big break would come. She agreed and followed Art upstairs, and he introduced her to Jim. The brothers dressed and looked so similar that she assumed they must be twins. She took a seat on the sofa. Jim asked to see her portfolio. She handed it to him, and he flipped through a series of professional modeling headshots. When he finished, he looked at Art. They didn’t say a word. Jim turned to face Marilyn.
“You just happen to be who we’re looking for,” Jim said.
“Oh, really? Wow!” Marilyn said.
“Marilyn, you’re the girl next door,” he continued. “You’re the face every guy dreams of shoving his cock into. But he never does because he can’t find you! You’re fresh air and apple pie.”
She was slightly startled by his candor but found it refreshing, unlike anything she’d experienced at other auditions. But the idea of having sex on camera was just too naughty. A respectable upper-middle-class girl from Connecticut didn’t do that, “hippie chick” be damned. Then again, she moved to San Francisco to escape New England’s puritanical, restive atmosphere. And these two men treated her respectfully, unlike those producers in New York who behaved like pigs.
“I don’t have anything against sex films,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “I just don’t want to be in one.”
“Listen, you’re classy, and this is going to be one classy film,” Art said. “We’re putting everything we have into it. Let us just explain the concept and tell you the story. The whole thing is a fantasy.”
He said the film was Behind the Green Door, based on an anonymous short story. She had never heard of it.
“We’ve been pretty successful making hardcore films,” Art said. “This film is our shot at breaking through to a mainstream audience. So it’s not like we’re asking you to star in a fuck film. This is going to be a real movie about real sex.”
Jared Stearns
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