We suspected a put-on, but December Playmate and cover girl Cynthia Myers swore she was serious when she told us, "I've known since I was 15 that I'd be a Playmate. It's almost as if this had been fated to happen." Cynthia's penchant for precognition can be traced to her early teens. "A junior high school friend of mine in Toledo," she says, "was a nut on palmistry, astrology and even reading tea leaves and crystal balls. Like most people, I thought it was just a bunch of baloney. But when I began reading about prophets like Edgar Cayce, I began to realize that there are strange spiritual forces in the world undreamed of even in The Playboy Philosophy." The alluring Ohioan's belief in psychic phenomena, and her premonitory hunch that she'd be a Playmate someday, led her to write to Playboy a few years ago, informing us that she'd like to be considered as a centerfold beauty. Assistant Picture Editor Marilyn Grabowski answered with a reminder that our Playmates must be of legal age but that Cynthia should keep in touch. She did just that. Several letters, telephone calls and birthdays later, she came to Chicago for test photos after her June graduation from Toledo's Woodward High. "I was so impressed by the people I met when I visited the Playboy Mansion," she says, "that I wanted more than ever to be a Playmate." From Chicago, Miss Myers flew south for a two-week vacation in Miami Beach, where she was spotted in a bikini by an enterprising photographer for the Miami Reporter; her 39-24-36 dimensions promptly graced that publication's first page. Before you could flash another bulb, Cynthia was contacted by the Eden Roc and Fontainebleau hotels, who wanted her for modeling and public-relations work. But she had bigger things in mind. "Those two weeks in Florida, waiting to find out if I'd been accepted by Playboy, were the longest in my life." She didn't learn the good news until she got back to Toledo. "Excited isn't the word for how I felt--and still feel. Now I hope to do promotion and modeling for the magazine for at least two years. By then, having traveled around the country meeting people on behalf of the magazine, I should be socially and mentally ready for almost any career I choose." Can our prescient Playmate predict anything about her prospects? "I'm going to be an actress," she says simply. "Notice I didn't say 'I'd like to be,' but 'I'm going to be.' I don't know how good I'll be as an actress, but I'll be one." Cynthia foresees only one handicap: "Like anything worth getting involved in, acting will take up almost all my time. I want to attend and graduate from college--I'll study anthropology--but I won't be able to get to it for several years." She hasn't styled herself after any sex star, but she'd like to have a few of the qualities of two charismatic leading ladies. "I think Faye Dunaway is terrifically talented, and I admire Raquel Welch, not for her acting but because she's worked hard to make herself a success. I'll be enrolling in an acting school soon," she says, "and when I do, I'm going to study with all the energy I have." Even so, Miss December concedes that she'll probably have to be content with walk-on roles at first, but she's sure she'll make it big eventually. Judging from her track record as a prophetess--and from her already abundant attributes--we'd like to venture a prediction of our own: Playmatehood should be just the beginning for the remarkable Miss Myers.
