I read the news today oh boyAbout a lucky man who made the gradeHe blew his mind out in a car…
From those bare-all beginnings she went on to achieve a certain cult status with her often scantily clad, sometimes nude appearances in a string of lurid exploitation flicks, among them producer Roger Corman’s raunchy Roller Derby flick Unholy Rollers, Gator Bait, Group Marriage, and Deathsport, Corman’s sequel to Death Race 2000 (“Not as campy or enjoyable as the earlier film, though Claudia unclothed is a visual asset,” smirks the capsule review in Leonard Maltin’s Movie & Video Guide). She also popped up occasionally in small parts in more legitimate fare, including the glossy showbiz melodrama The Love Machine and the science-fantasy classic The Man Who Fell to Earth, as well as in guest spots on such TV shows as The Streets of San Francisco, Cannon, and The Brady Bunch. But her fame rested on her status as a diva of the drive-ins, a siren of 70s sleaze.
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I thought of Mimi last spring, during the controversy over designating part of Walton Street as Honorary Hugh Hefner Way. Then in June my friends and I learned that she was to be the subject of a documentary on E! Entertainment Television. The news came from Todd McCarthy, the only person from Mimi’s high school days who was interviewed by the E! production crew.
Indeed, Fast Life/Untimely Death: Playmate Claudia Jennings is a cautionary tale about “the lure of Hollywood and the fate of those who get mesmerized,” in the words of the narrator–who also notes that “like the oft-repeated Hollywood cliche, she lived fast and died young.” But after this sensational introduction, the show isn’t bad for tabloid TV. Brisk, straightforward, picture-packed, it chronicles Mimi’s unsatisfying movie career and turbulent personal life in Hollywood. Among the many clips from Mimi’s movies is her screen debut in McCarthy’s Mimi. With its eloquent footage of her drifting through Wilmette’s Gillson Park, her long red hair complemented by lush green trees and the green shift she’s wearing, it may be the only film to capture her sensual yet vulnerable essence. The interviewees include Deathsport costar David Carradine, Roger Corman, Sally Kirkland, and Barry Williams of The Brady Bunch.
Joan Chesterton, a retired college teacher now widowed and living in Indiana, did talk to me, however. “[Smith] sent me a tape, and it was one of the smarmiest things I’ve ever seen,” says Chesterton. “It showed some child actress dead on the floor of drugs. The only reaction you could have conceivably had was ‘yuck.’ My feeling has been there has been little interest in my daughter as a person and much interest in her as a Playmate, God save us all. We had a daughter who was just such a straight arrow until she wound up with Playboy. It was too much for an 18-year-old.”
Mimi could have done anything, but what she wanted was to become an actress. In the late 60s ETHS’s drama department was nationally admired, and she took part in it. “She was a damn sweet kid, fun to work with, always so cheerful,” says Ditton, who directed her in the title role of My Sister Eileen: a budding young actress for whom everything seems to come easily but who spends an inordinate amount of time fending off would-be suitors.
“She was a nice girl,” recalls her senior-prom date Gil Hoel, now a family therapist living in Grantsburg, Wisconsin. “But she was obviously always looking for bigger and better things. When she transferred to ETHS, she seemed to quickly hook onto what was seen by her as a popular crowd. But as soon as school was over, she moved on abruptly. She broke up with me the night of prom. On the banks of Lake Michigan she said, ‘This is it.’ Within three months she was living downtown and working for Playboy.” Mimi saw Playboy as a stepping-stone, but she also found it a glamorous, sexy way to rebel. And perhaps it was a way of saying to those adolescent lotharios who’d whistled at her in high school: “You want me? Here I am. But this is as close as you’ll get.”
