Playboy's Playmate Review

Our July firecracker was Teddi Smith, who turned niftily nautical on board a cabin cruiser and thus enriched the summer scene. Joni Mattis, here in pensive mood, brightened our video screens with scene-stealing appearances on Playboy's Penthouse, and further rewarded a proper and healthy curiosity by affording us a more intimate appraisal in varied and fetching poses as Miss November.

Remembrance of things past casts a warm glow over the winter months, when, with happy New Year's resolution, we again take a backward glance at the lovelies who so beauteously held aloft the Playmate of the Month escutcheon during 1960. It was, in delightful retrospect, a great vintage year; a twelve-month in which, somehow, the girls were more exciting, more intriguing, more inviting than ever. True, we are filled with perennial pride at each January's stock-taking, but we cannot deny what our eyes ascertain to be so: on the beach, in an art museum, at work, at play, in sweet repose, the pretties who honored our past year's pages were a magnificent tour des filles. We can only hope tomorrow holds such dazzling delights in store. Here, then, in splendid profusion, are les girls – individually outstanding, collectively consummate.

Miss January, Stella Stevens, our delectable delegate from Dogpatch, was an exquisite Appassionata van Climax in the celluloid Li'l Abner. Stella's statistics made her an obvious choice to dismay Daisy Mae. One of the more breath-taking landmarks of Beverly Hills, Miss Stevens displayed abilities both stentorian and statuesque in the movie, is well on her way to becoming a Stella attraction in flickerdom. By far the most attractively packaged gift we presented to our readers this past Christmas was Carol Eden. Miss December, frolicking in the snow and thawing out while her clothes were doing the same off-camera (and the viewers were doing the same off-magazine) was unseasonably but not unreasonably alluring. Anyone for mistletoe? While we're being seasonal, Ginger Young was definitely very warm for May. Ginger has parlayed equal parts proportion (36-23-36) and acting prowess into a promising career before the TV cameras and on the boards. We wouldn't care if Ginger's thesping rated no more than a walk-on in a high school musical; we know what we like, and we like what we see. Whatever dramatic ability the magnificent Miss Young has is, as far as we're concerned, pure gravy. February's Susie Scott, we pointed out in civic appreciation, is a Chicagoan. Whether this had anything to do with the great Scott topography was not for us to say. In the shortest of months, Susie was long on looks and our own special Valentine. LP-collector Scott is, for the record, 37-23-36, which should be sweet music for even the most jaded ears. Another Windy Cityite, June's Delores Wells, appeared under an assortment of chapeaux and the milliners never had it so good. Here, hatless Delores makes us a bit light-headed as she models a couple of cushions. Hatted or not, Delores rates a doffed Stetson any time.

Leaves and readers' heads turned in October. The leaf bit is a regular autumnal occurrence and a delightful phenomenon of nature; the head-turning was occasioned by Kathy Douglas, and equally delightful natural phenomenon. Kathy, who calls Hollywood home, revealed a taste for mythology among other things. We could only envy Mr. Bulfinch Miss Douglas' devotion and regret our previous inattention to the classic. Art student Sally Sarell, our Miss March, tended toward the abstract – artistically speaking, of course. Her physical accoutrements are astoundingly real. Greenwich Villager Sarell, no beatnik she, was a one-time farmerette in Finland, happily abandoned plow for palette, Helsinki for Manhattan. Elaine Paul, August's Designing Playmate, is a Brooklyn-based fabric designer whose attributes were obviously not constructed out of whole cloth. Miss Paul made materialists of us all. Our September song was more of a long, low whistle when Ann Davis served with admirable distinction as a model for eleven – count 'em – eleven Playboy artists who were inspired in many-splendored directions by Ann's eye-catching geometry. Staff photographer Don Bronstein's artful camera gave the reader an ideal basis for comparison, and further pause for thought. We took an exhilarating spring-time gambol with April's Linda Gamble who proved conclusively that Pittsburgh produces more than steel, coal, and the Pirates. Private secretary and antique collector Gamble was the most exciting thing to happen to the pride of the Allegheny and Monongahela since Andrew Carnegie, and made a welcome addition to our own collection of American Modern.