The Shootings of Weddings, graduations, bar mitzvahs, et al., are among the more mundane aspects of the workaday world of Los Angeles photographer Bill Figge, a regular contributor to gatefolddom. But that phase of Bill's job took an exciting turn recently when, while out on a middle-aisle assignment, he struck up a conversation with one of the bridesmaids, Lisa Baker. Figge, who knows a potential Playmate when he sees one, soon had test photos of the lissome Lisa winging their way to Playboy in Chicago, where the editors echoed Bill's enthusiasm. Not only did Figge find a Playmate, he also recognized Lisa's secretarial talents, hired her to man his typewriter and telephone. Lisa, a native Texan who switched to the Golden State four years ago, commutes to the Figge studio from her suburban Culver City digs. Never at a loss for roommates back at the Baker homestead--her siblings number a lucky seven--she had surprisingly little difficulty adjusting to her first apartment apart. "You can't imagine what a kick it was," she recalls, "to have no line outside the bathroom in the mornings and a place all my own to decorate in any way I wanted." Banking on a little between-families fun before settling down, the tall (5'8") 22-year-old eschews the idea of following in her parents' progenerative footsteps. "With eight kids around, Mom and Dad could hardly keep track of our names," explains Lisa, "much less our whereabouts."
Lisa adores dining out ("If you've tasted my cooking, you know why") and prefers the company of outgoing guys who share her weakness for spicy cuisine and a glass or two of good wine to back it up with. But the quality of the man is always more important than the menu: "If I'm with the right guy, it doesn't matter if we wind up at a hot-dog stand. What I look for is someone with a sense of humor who doesn't have to be loud and clownish to show it."
Lisa, an admitted travel bug, has reserved the bulk of her Playmate booty for an extended working girl's tour of Europe next year. "I'm probably just being my old impulsive self again," she says, "but I think a trip abroad might be the perfect way for me to learn to slow down and act more mature about life in general." We can't help feeling glad that Lisa chose to follow her impulse to grace the current gatefold.
