Mary Ruth Maxted (née Quilter) - who was born on November 30th, 1945, in Kenton, Middlesex, England - was an English model and pornographic actress. Quilter was born out of wedlock, growing up without her father, and had to nurse her terminally-ill mother for more than ten years; she began her porn career to pay for her mother's care. She was bullied at school due to the stigma of being 'illegitimate', and suffered from low self-esteem throughout her youth. Quilter left school at age fifteen, and married Robert Maxted in 1964. Being too short at four feet and eleven inches to be a fashion model, she became a glamour model instead, appearing in various pornographic magazines and films in the late 1960s and early '70s. In 1974, she met the adult magazine publisher David Sullivan, with whom she began an adulterous affair, and took on the stage name Mary Millington. She continued to appear in his films and magazines for the rest of the 1970s. Millington's final film appearance was in the Sex Pistols' The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, which was released in March, 1980. She had always been prone to neurosis and depression, which was exacerbated by her cocaine habit. After reaching the age of 33, Millington found herself being replaced in Sullivan's magazines by younger models, and increasingly found herself working behind the counter in her own sex shop, which was frequently raided by the police. Her mother's death in 1976 also affected her deeply, resulting in unpredictable mood swings and a breakup with Sullivan. Millington's life thereafter descended into a downward spiral of depression and drug use. A few months before her death, she received a large tax bill, which she was unable to pay, and she also became increasingly kleptomaniacal, with arrests for shoplifting in June of 1979, and another for stealing a necklace on the day before she died. On August 19th, 1979, Millington was found dead on the bed of her home in Walton-on-the-Hill, Surrey, by her husband. She had taken an overdose of the tricyclic antidepressant anafranil, paracetamol, and alcohol. Four suicide notes found near her body essentially blamed the police and the taxman for hounding her into an early grave. Mary Millington was just 33 years old.
