Playboy's Most Popular Playmates

The girl next door

There may be many qualities that set the PLAYBOY Playmate of the Month apart from other pin-up pictures, but certainly one of the most striking is the fresh girl-next-door quality of the ladies who grace the magazine's famous foldout center section. As we observed in an early issue, "potential Playmates are all around you: the new secretary in your office, the doe-eyed beauty who sat opposite you at lunch yesterday, the girl who sells you shirts and ties at your favorite store." We discovered Barbara Cameron chatting with a salesman in a hi-fi shop, engaged her in conversation ourself (learning that she was a stewardess for United Air Lines), and eventually talked her into becoming Miss November of 1955 and one of the most popular Playmates we have published to date.

Underage Playmate

A few days after Elizabeth Ann Roberts appeared as Miss January of 1958, it was discovered that she was not yet 18 years of age. Since Elizabeth Ann's mother had approved her posing for Playboy, there would probably have been no problem, if it were not for a local newspaper columnist who criticized the featuring of a girl so young as a magazine pin-up. That was all the self-elected defenders of public morality needed, and without bothering to consider that the precocious Liz was an honor student at Chicago's Academy for Adults, was a graduate of a local modeling school, and hoped her appearance as Playmate would give her a head start in her career, they charged both the mother and the magazine with "contributing to the delinquency of a minor." A lawyer for the family pointed out that no law had been broken, that the girl had actually been helped rather than harmed by her appearance in Playboy; Elizabeth Ann was almost cited for contempt of court when she refused to testify; finally the judge dismissed all charges. The wire services picked up the story and an unprecedented amount of mail poured into Playboy's offices -- more than 100 to 1 in favor of Liz' appearance as Playmate; and the editors decided the best way to avoid such problems in the future was to check prospective Playmates' birth certificates.

Most Famous Playmate

Jayne Mansfield caused relatively little stir among readers when she first appeared in Playboy as Miss February of 1955, but she was brought to the attention of a Warner Bros. scout who signed her to a short-term contract. From there she went on to Broadway fame in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and Playboy chronicled her rise in a text-and-picture piece titled Will Success Spoil Jayne Mansfield? by Earl Wilson and photographer Hal Adams in February of 1956. Playboy readers were reacting with increasing fervor and favor by the next February when The New Jayne Mansfield described Jayne's return to Hollywood and stardom, with a long-term contract to 20th Century-Fox. In February 1958, The Nude Jayne Mansfield helped make that issue the biggest seller in Playboy's history. Though Jayne is the most famous example, several other recent Playmates have been offered opportunities in movies and television. Among the center-spread charmers who've appeared on video and cinema screens in the past few months are Lazy Linné Ahlstrand (July 1958), Country Club Cutie Lari Laine (May 1958), Ski-lovely Cheryl Kubert (February 1958), Girl-Next-Door Dolores Donlon (August 1957), Comes-The-Dawn Richard (May 1957), Ballerina Sandra Edwards (March 1957), Date-Bait Sally Todd (February 1957), and Birthday Girl June Blair (January 1957).

Most Popular Playmate

Photographer bunny yeager first spotted Lisa Winters in downtown Miami boarding a bus, missed her, and returned the next two days at the same time in the hope of seeing her there again. On the third afternoon she did and she talked the voluptuous, baby-faced blonde into posing for some test photographs. Lisa is one of those rare creatures who almost never take a bad photo and so when the first shots arrived at Playboy, the editors found each one a bit more exciting than the one before. The editors' enthusiasm was matched by the readers' when Lisa became Miss December of 1956. No single Playmate appearance has ever provoked such a favorable and overwhelming reader reaction. A picture story on shy Lisa's problems adjusting to the Hollywood scene in December of 1957 also produced a stack of reader comment, ranging from proposals of marriage to downright disbelief that any girl who posed so revealingly could be as sensitive and withdrawn as described (Bunny Yeager is a woman; Lisa has never posed for a male photographer). Though stunningly pretty, Lisa is too shy to become any sort of an actress and she turned down the half-dozen movie offers that came her way.

Our Office Playmate

Janet pilgrim was hired to manage our subscription department back when that was a two-girl operation (it now involves nearly 60) and the idea of Janet's posing as a Playmate of the Month started more as a gag than anything else. But the appearance of a Playboy staff member as Miss July of 1955 so intrigued readers that Janet was brought back as Playmate twice again (December 1955 and October 1956) and is the only girl so featured three separate times. As Janet became better known, her association with the magazine became more valuable, and she spent an ever increasing amount of time in public relations and promotional duties for Playboy: she was Guest of Honor at a state-wide Junior Chamber of Commerce convention in Atlanta, Georgia, and at an all-Playboy weekend at Dartmouth; gave out the awards to the winning sports car drivers in the races at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin; represented the magazine at three National Association of Retail Clothiers and Furnishers conventions; presented Benny Goodman with his silver Jazz Medal and Steve Allen with a special PLAYBOY award on his TV show. She has received more personal fan mail than any other girl to appear in the magazine; when we mentioned that she likes to wear men's PJ tops to bed, readers responded with dozens of pajama tops in every imaginable color. Janet is now in charge of Reader Service, the Playboy department that supplies additional information on items featured or advertised in the magazine.