Mary Mendum was born on February 21, 1952. She grew up in a poor family
outside of Chicago. She began her acting career in the early '70s in
stage productions of her then boyfriend Michael Butler such as "Hair" and "Lenny". Mendum started
appearing in movies with small parts in adult pictures for director
Chuck Vincent and posed for nude layouts in a few prominent men's
magazines. She achieved her greatest enduring cult cinema popularity
with her outstanding portrayal of Anne in
Radley Metzger's movie
The Image (1975).
Mary excelled in starring roles as often frustrated characters
in several excellent
Joseph W. Sarno softcore gems in the mid-1970s like
Confessions of a Young American Housewife (1974),
Laura's Toys (1975) and
Abigail Lesley Is Back in Town (1975). She further demonstrated
her remarkable range and talent as an actress with her delightful comic
turn as both meek and repressed chemist Dr. Shirley Jekyll and her more
uninhibited and sexually aggressive alter ego Sherry Hyde in the
amusing tongue-in-cheek romp
The Switch or How to Alter Your Ego (1974).
Outside of acting, Mary was a gifted cook and seamstress. Alas, Mary Mendum
called it a day as an actress in 1977.
On July 17, 2012, she died in Boca Raton, FL, of an accidental drowning due to a fall.