Marilyn Chambers, We Hardly Knew Ye

Apparently 70's porn queen Marilyn Chambers, star of Behind the Green Door, was found dead yesterday at the age of 56.

You might be wondering why that is relevant on this here blog. After all, there are plenty of porn hotties that I love who have died in the past few years (Anna Malle, Haley Page), both of whom I've spanked it to numerous times), that I haven't mentioned.

And it's not like Chambers is a recent porn star, I didn't even know who she was until about a year ago.

Which brings me to the point. A funny story, to help you wile away the long-ass Monday.

Last year, I was interning at a local newspaper. I was doing a story about how a theater teacher was teaching at this brand-new high school and making their drama department one of the tops in the area. The lady's name was Marilyn Skipper. Well, not really, but that will do for our purposes.

She was very nice to me, I did a big feature about their upcoming play, and how the theater department was taking off there. She gave me all sorts of behind-the-scenes access, and had the cast run through a couple of scenes solely for my benefit.

So I wrote the article, and the paper came out on a Wednesday. I come into the office that afternoon (if I'm working for free, I'm sure as fuck not coming in before noon), and say hello to my editor, and she nods back. I take my seat, which happened to be right next to her desk, and prepare for my day.

About a minute later, she casually asks me a question.

"Hey, Alex, have you, uh, have you been watching a lot of porn lately."

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows the answer to that. But my editor was a lady, so I didn't know quite how to respond. I went for the zinger.

"No. no more than usual, that is," I quipped. Nice.

Didn't get a laugh. This could be trouble.

"So what was this theater teacher's name?" she asked me.

"Skipper. Marilyn Skipper."

"Oh ok. Why don't you take a gander at page three?"

So I grab a copy of the paper, and open it. Let me tell you something about the newspaper biz. After you say someone's name once, you refer to them by last name only, unless you are doing a story featuring multiple people with the same last name.

So I actually read my story from the bottom, and I saw that the name "Skipper" was used throughout.

Then I get to my first paragraph, and I see it.

"At [High School], the play is truly the thing. Students all over the school are getting in touch with their inner thespian and drama teacher Marilyn Chambers is a big reason."

Besides the incredibly catchy lead, notice the porn star's name. Yep. Not good.

She had in fact, gone out to the store to get a copy of the paper, and that was the first thing she had seen. She didn't know who it was, but her husband did.

She wasn't upset, but she asked for us to print a retraction, which we did. I send her a long e-mail apologizing, and I never got a response.

I remember when I was writing the story, the name Marilyn Chambers was in my head. I kept changing it after typing it on the page, but I thought I had gotten them all out. I never heard of that porn star until this Little incident, and to this day, I'm not sure why the name was in my head.

Final note: While looking up the article online, so I could make sure I got the quote right, I found the article in the archive section of the newspaper's website. With the Marilyn Chambers still there.

So much for a retraction.