"Fair and softly goes far"--a lilting English proverb six centuries old--doubly describes DeDe Lind, our perky August Playmate. Diminutive in inches and pounds (62 and 98, respectively), DeDe has a woman's figure and a fall of bright blonde hair as alluring as Lady Godiva's. And she's soft-spoken to the point of charming shyness. "I wish I weren't quite so quiet," DeDe says. "I really do like people and wish I could meet them more easily."
DeDe's reserve helps account for the fact that she's left her native Southern California only twice in her 20 years, for visits to relatives in San Francisco (the journey is captured in the accompanying playboy photos) and in Denver. But why leave, when her Los Angeles days are filled with familiar friends and activities? Before noon on a typical day, DeDe revs up her 1959 Ford and takes off for one of her four favorite places: "It depends on my energy," Miss August says. "If I don't feel ambitious, I'll go for an easy horseback ride in Griffith Park, which is right in the city, or head in the opposite direction for a quiet afternoon on the beach at Santa Monica. But if I'm loaded with get-up-and-go and the weather's great, I do the same things on a bigger scale. My favorite horse is at a little ranch in Malibu. From there I climb up through the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. The beaches I like best are out on Catalina Island, where I go when I feel like body surfing or scuba diving. Some of the reefs are so beautiful you never want to come up."
Early in the evening, DeDe turns to the kitchen and her principal avocation, with a flair and success in cooking that does the Swedish and Italian roots of her family tree proud. "Like Mom's, my best main course is a spaghetti dish," DeDe says. "Then I switch to my father's side of the family when it comes to pastries or cakes."
To finish her upbeat day, DeDe accepts a party invitation that promises her kind of dancing: "I love rock 'n' roll," she says. "After all, when I was fourteen, Elvis had already been around for five years, so it's the music I grew up with. You go crazy for four hours and nobody cares and then you feel wonderful."
Currently in transition from an adolescence in which her pert features graced the covers of several teen-aimed magazines, Miss August has had parts recently in what she calls "two low-budget films" (like most soft-speakers, she gets to the point without garnishing it). And she's being photographed now as the girl in an ad campaign for a new hair spray. "I hope to do everything from the TV commercials to the picture wrapped around the aerosol can," says DeDe.
For a quiet miss, DeDe is not without opinions. "I don't see how we can get out," she says of the war in Vietnam. "But--perhaps because I'm a girl and young--the thought of losing our young men way over there seems awful. I just hope that it really is worth it."
The many-lensed eye of Hollywood is taking aim at DeDe Lind. Look at her, listen to her talk and you can see it all happening. But before it does, DeDe just might decide that her trip to the City by the Bay should be the start of a time for traveling. "My grandfather on Daddy's side goes back to Sweden fairly often," DeDe says, "and always asks if I want to come. If I did, I could also get to see the few relatives Mom still knows about in Italy. It's awfully tempting."
And so is DeDe, whose sentences have the force of honesty and whose fairness is bright enough to make you blink. How can DeDe not go far?
