Throughout the 1970s she was up for roles in several Hollywood films. Her biggest opportunity came in 1976 when it was announced in Variety that she was to star alongside Rip Torn in City Blues, a film about a young hooker defended by a seedy Lawyer. The film was to be directed by Nicholas Ray. Ray had never seen Behind the Green Door or even screen-tested Chambers. Instead the two met and Ray was impressed. "I have a camera in my head," he said, adding that Chambers would "eventually be able to handle anything that the young Katie Hepburn or Bette Davis could." However, the project never came to fruition, in large part due to Ray's alcohol and drug abuse.
Chambers was married three times. First was to Doug Chapin, whom she met while he was playing bagpipes for money on the streets of San Francisco. They married in 1971. She divorced Chapin in 1974 and married Chuck Traynor, who was recently divorced from Linda Lovelace, shortly thereafter. He also became her manager and they were together for 10 years.
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". 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 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.
Following Behind the Green Door, the Mitchell Brothers and Chambers teamed up for Resurrection of Eve, released in September 1973. Although not the runaway blockbuster that Green Door was, Eve was a hit and a well-received entry into the porno chic market. It also helped set Chambers apart from her contemporaries Linda Lovelace and Georgina Spelvin as the wholesome, all-American girl next door. Following Eve, Chambers was anxious to transition her fame into other areas of entertainment. At the time the Mitchell Brothers were still her managers. "They were always talking about some half-assed idea I knew wouldn't come off", Chambers said in 1992. "'Flakes' is a terrible word but they were, in a cute sort of way". Chambers had always considered the brothers as her own brothers but when she abruptly announced that she was leaving them to take up with Chuck Traynor, they were appalled and had a falling out with Chambers.
In 1974, she starred in the dinner theater production of The Mind With the Dirty Man in Las Vegas and received favorable reviews for her work. The play ran for 52 weeks which, at the time, was the longest-running play in Vegas history, and the mayor gave Chambers the key to the city. In 1976, she starred in a short-lived musical revue off-Broadway called Le Bellybutton. In 1977 starred in Neil Simon's Last of the Red Hot Lovers in Vegas. The one-woman show Sex Surrogate, in 1979, caused controversy in Vegas as it featured full-frontal nudity, which was banned from all casinos. In 1983, the play was spun off into a 26-part syndicated soap opera called Love Ya Florence Nightingale. It was broadcast on cable television channels such as the Playboy Channel.
Chambers wrote an autobiography, My Story, in 1975, and co-authored Xaviera Meets Marilyn Chambers with Xaviera Hollander in 1977. Both were published by Warner Communications. She also wrote a sex advice column in the mid-to-late 1970s for Genesis magazine called "Private Chambers", and one for Club magazine throughout the 1980s called "State of the Nation". In 1981 she released a book of sex positions and tips called Sensual Secrets. One of the male Models featured in the photos with Marilyn was a young Ron Jeremy. The same year, she released another sex manual called The Illustrated Kama Sutra.
Chambers had some chart success with the disco single "Benihana" in 1976, produced by Michael Zager on the Roulette Records label. Billboard magazine said "She...sings quite nicely in a sexy little voice in this catchy disco tribute to an oriental loverman." The song is played in the background of one scene in the film Rabid. In Insatiable she sang the theme song, "Shame On You," which plays over the opening credits. She did the same for the song "Still Insatiable", which was used in her comeback in the 1999 adult film of the same name. She also sang vocals in the 1983 X-rated film Up 'n' Coming, in which she plays a rising country music star. In the early 1980s, she was the lead singer of a country and western band called Haywire.
Chambers won the starring role in film Director David Cronenberg's low-budget Canadian movie Rabid, which was released in 1977. Cronenberg stated that he wanted to cast Sissy Spacek in the film lead, but the studio vetoed his choice because of her accent. Spacek's film Carrie was released during this film's production and proved to be a massive hit (and a movie poster for the film appears when the main character walks by a movie theater at 59:15). The Director says that the idea of casting Chambers came from Producer Ivan Reitman, who had heard that Chambers was looking for a mainstream role. Reitman felt that it would be easier to market the film in different territories if the well-known porn star portrayed the main character. Cronenberg stated that Chambers put in a lot of hard work on the film and that he was impressed with her. Cronenberg further states he had not seen Behind the Green Door prior to casting her.
Chambers claimed that Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel brought her in to talk about a role in the 1978 film Goin' South, then asked her for cocaine and grilled her about whether her orgasms in Behind the Green Door were real; she was angered to the point where she stormed out of the interview. She was going to be cast in the film Hardcore, opposite George C. Scott, but the casting Director took one look at her and said she was too wholesome to be cast as a porn queen. "The Hardcore people wanted a woman with orange hair who chews gum, swings a big purse, and wears stiletto heels. That's such a cliche," Chambers said years later. Season Hubley was cast instead.
In the mid-1980s Chambers was "on her way to an early grave, consuming massive amounts of alcohol and cocaine daily, when she met her husband-to-be", william Taylor, Jr., a truck driver, on a blind date. After their first date he called her to say that he could not see her because he was a recovering heroin addict. Chambers got so angry she kicked a wall and broke her leg. Taylor came to visit Chambers in the hospital, and upon her release they began a romance and Chambers entered Narcotics Anonymous. The couple were married around 1991 or 1992. They had one child, McKenna Marie Taylor, in 1992. The couple divorced in 1994. When Chambers became clean and sober during the early 1990s, her Lexus had a Vanity plate that read "LUV NA".
On February 1, 1985, while performing her nude act at the "Cine-Stage" within the Mitchell Brothers' O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, Chambers was arrested by a vice squad and charged with committing a lewd act in a public place and soliciting prostitution. It was alleged by plainclothes policemen who were in the audience that Chambers allowed audience members to touch her with their hands and mouths during her show called "Feel the Magic". She was released on $2,000 bail and the charges were later dropped. "I've never been arrested in my life for anything, ever, so this is kind of a big shock for me, not only as a performer but as a human being", Chambers said at the time. "It's a heartbreaker. This is supposed to be a hip city. I really love -- make that LOVED -- this city. These people have been my fans for years, and it's a thrill for them to touch me up close. There's nothing illegal if I'm not taking money."
"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".
"My manager had never really wanted me to do X-rated film[s]," she said in 1997. "He tried to move me out of that, but—seeing as things didn't go that way, and I wasn't getting legitimate projects—it was something that we needed to do. I was known in the X-rated Business, and it was the right time. It was a cool story and the budget was going to be a lot higher; there were going to be helicopters and Ferraris. It was going to be very classy. There were some names in it that would be good for the box office, [including John Holmes] and that was at a time when X-films were still playing in theaters."
Chambers left the pornography Business because of the increasing fear of AIDS. In 1999, Chambers returned to San Francisco to perform at the Mitchell Brothers' O'Farrell Theatre. Mayor Willie Brown proclaimed a "Marilyn Chambers Day" for her unique place in San Francisco history, and praised her for her "artistic presence", her "vision", and her "energy". That same year Chambers returned to adult features with a trio of films made for VCA Pictures called Still Insatiable (1999), Dark Chambers (2000), and Edge Play (2000), each directed by Veronica Hart.
In 2000, Tracy Hutson played Chambers in the cable television biographical film Rated X, about the Mitchell brothers' film and strip-club career.
In the 2004 United States presidential election, Chambers ran for Vice President on the Personal Choice Party ticket, a libertarian political party. She received a total of 946 votes. In the 2008 United States presidential election, she was again Charles Jay's running mate, this time as an alternate write-in candidate to his primary national Boston Tea Party running mate Thomas L. Knapp in the states of Arkansas, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah.
Born Marilyn Ann Briggs in Providence, Rhode Island, Chambers was raised in Westport, Connecticut, in a middle-class household. It is often reported that she was born in Westport; however, in a 2007 interview Chambers confirmed she was born in Providence but grew up in Westport. Her father was in advertising and her mother was a nurse. She was the youngest of three children, including a brother, Martin Briggs (keyboardist for 1960s Boston band The Remains), and a sister, Jann Smith. Chambers attended Burr Farms Elementary School, Hillspoint Elementary School, Long Lots Junior High School, and Staples High School. Her father tried to discourage her from pursuing a modeling career, citing brutal competition. "Ever since I was a little kid, I've always wanted to be an Actress," Chambers said in 1997. "I was always a performer, a junior Olympic diver, a junior Olympic Gymnast. My mother always told me I was a show-off".
On April 12, 2009, Chambers was found dead in her home near Santa Clarita, California. Documents found with her body identified her as Marilyn Ann Taylor. She was discovered by her 17-year-old daughter. The LA County Coroner's autopsy revealed Chambers died of a cerebral hemorrhage and an aneurysm related to heart disease. Chambers was ten days away from her 57th birthday. The painkiller hydrocodone and the antidepressant citalopram were found in her bloodstream, but not enough to cause death. Upon her death, the Associated Press reported she was survived by her daughter, sister and brother. Her ashes were scattered at sea.
Later that year on December 13 she was arrested during a performance at Stage Door Johnny's, a strip club in Cleveland. Police said she was nude except for her shoes and was having sexual contact with an audience member. She was charged with promoting prostitution and was held in jail until she was freed on a $1,000 bond. Chambers denied the charge, saying, "I did the same show I've been doing for the last six years. Police just happened to be in the audience." In November 2012 the mugshots from Chambers' Cleveland arrest sold on eBay for $202.50.
"When I was about 16 I learned how to write my mother’s name on notes to get out of school", she said. "And then I'd take the train into the city to go to auditions". While in high school she landed some modeling assignments and a small role in the film The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) and in which Chambers was credited as Evelyn Lang. During her early career as a model, her most prominent job was as the "Ivory Soap girl" on the Ivory Snow soap flake box, posing as a mother holding a baby under the tag line "99 & 44/100% pure".
