According to her Web site, Samples was approached while in Marina Del Rey, California to do pin-up modeling. During the course of the 1960s, she appeared in numerous black and white magazines in "cheesecake" poses.

Over the years, Samples performed as an exotic dancer. She appeared in numerous men's soft-core publications, including Juggs and Gent.

In addition to appearing in pornographic movies, she also appeared in some B-movie campy roles, including the leader of the Amazonian lesbians in the 1974 science fiction spoof Flesh Gordon. She also appeared in the action spoof Superchick (1973), the Russ Meyer sexploitation films Up! (1976) and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979), and the Australian softcore film Fantasm Comes Again (1977). She was often billed as Mary Gavin.

In 1979, she performed with John Holmes, Johnny Keyes, Serena, Uschi Digard, Kitten Natividad, and Kelly Stewart in the pornographic film John Holmes and the All-Star Sex Queens from Zane Entertainment Group. In those same years, she also took part in some "sexy wrestling" short-footage films, too, mainly for Triumph Studios and Ron Dvorkin's Bellstone.