Playboys Playmate Review

It's time once again to reintroduce you to the gatefold girls of the year just ended. It began beautifully with a Bunny turned PR girl, London's Marilyn Cole, and finished stylishly with a fashion designer turned Bunny, Hollywood's Mercy Rooney. Everything in between, as we think you'll agree after a long look at these pages, was--and is--equally easy on the eye.

miss August

Linda Summers (above) has left her job at one of her stepfather's health-food stores in favor of a new vocation: She's learning to become a real-estate escrow officer for a firm in Chula Vista, California, just south of San Diego. "I'm still eating natural foods, though," she hastens to add. Besides on-the-job training in her new position--for which she applied on the advice of a boyfriend in the realty business--Linda is taking night classes at the Union Bank in San Diego. "I love my new work," she told us, "though I do miss the store. We certainly got a lot of traffic through there after my Playmate story appeared in the magazine. The customers were curious--but nice."

miss April

Vicki Peters (right) reports that she's sharpening her photographic skills: "I've just bought a new electric Nikon and I'm doing a lot of shooting." She prefers people as subjects: "In all honesty," she claims, "I think I'd be good at doing nudes." While in Florida on a Playmate promotion, Vicki photographed the Sebring race, where "people kept taking pictures of me taking pictures; then they sent them to me from all over the country. It was really a kick." An added bonus of her centerfold appearance: "Opportunities are opening up in acting. But I'm going to be picky about what I do. If I can't make quality films, I'd rather keep on working behind the camera."

miss july

Carol O'Neal (opposite) has abandoned her duties as a receptionist in Chicago's Playboy Center to return to college. At Indiana University in Bloom-ington, where she's completing her sophomore year, she's majoring in liberal arts. "I'm also taking one drama course, in advanced acting," she says. "If my Playmate-appearance schedule permits, I'd like to try out for some campus productions. In high school I was always cast as an ingénue; maybe here I can broaden my scope."

miss june

Debbie Davis (left) wanted to get away from Los Angeles, so she headed for Hawaii--to the island of Maui, far from the tourist scene. "I'm staying with a girlfriend here, in a marvelously ramshackle building in the former colonial capital, Lahaina," she says. "It's like being on another planet." In California, Debbie's thing was powerboats; in the islands, she grooves on sailing and going to the movies. "There's only one theater here, but they change the show every night."

miss november

Lenna Sjööblom (right)--pronounced "whi-bloom," in case you've been wondering--is planning to use her Playmate modeling fee to finance a reverse migration to Europe, not to her native Sweden but to Holland. "I've met a number of Dutch people here in Chicago," she explains, "and found them very easy to get along with. If I live in Rotterdam, I'll have my independence but still be only a day's journey from my parents' home, which is near Stockholm."

miss December

Mercy Rooney (opposite) is busy working as a Bunny in the Los Angeles Playboy Club and, twice weekly, attending three-hour classes at the Film Actors' Workshop on the Warner Bros. lot. "I'm really serious about developing whatever dramatic talent I have," she says, "so I'm taking courses in camera technique and acting." She's also testing for television commercials and was seen last month in women's-magazine ads for a national line of bathing suits.

miss October

Sharon Johansen (above) has a new pupil in her canine obedience school: a collie belonging to singer Eddie Fisher. Since gracing Playboy's gatefold, Sharon has also gone camping in Yosemite, landed TV roles (Columbo, Love American Style) to follow up on her film part as a beach girl in Your Three Minutes Are Up with Ron Leibman and Beau Bridges, and she has accumulated several pets. "I have a tree house in my apartment where my Siamese, Slinky, my poodle, Coco, and my new gray-striped cat, Onassis, play. The other night a date came over for the first time, took one look at my animals, turned and left, saying, 'This is too much for me.' " Silly man.

miss march

Ellen Michaels (right), having won her associate in arts degree from Queensborough Community College, has postponed her plans to go on for a B. A. in elementary education. "I'll probably end up teaching, but right now I'm encouraged by my progress in modeling here in New York City," she says. "I've had jobs in the cosmetics, fashion and catalog fields, and I hope to land some TV commercials." Ellen has crisscrossed the continent from Texas to Canada on behalf of Playboy--signing autographs and meeting the press. "It's fun being a Playmate," she reports. "The only unnerving thing, to me, has been the proposals of marriage I sometimes get from seventh graders."

miss September

Susan Miller (left) disappeared from view for some weeks after her debut on Playboy's centerfold. "I've been enjoying myself," our 6'1" Playmate told us when we finally located her back at her West Los Angeles home. "Been doing a lot of traveling, strictly first-class--in jets, seaplanes, helicopters, chauffeured limousines," she says enigmatically. Eventually, she expects to resume posing as a professional model--although she talks of learning to be a photo stylist. Perhaps because she's been modeling since her early teens, when she was discovered sunning on the beach by an agent, Susan rejects the pressure of a full-time job. "That," she says, "just isn't my bag."

miss may

Deanna Baker's dream--of buying some property in the mountains and going back to nature--is in the process of coming true, thanks to the money she earned as a Playmate and as a Bunny in the Denver Playboy Club, a career she has now forsaken. "It's just too far to commute to the city from here," she told us over the telephone from her house on an acre near the continental divide, northwest of the Colorado capital. Deanna has an option to buy the land, and she and some friends have established the Space City Custom Furniture Company, which manufactures hand-tooled pine tables, chairs and water-bed frames--stuff she describes as "funky rustic."

miss february

P. J. Lansing (right), unlike Deanna, has chucked Colorado and opted for the urban scene--in her case, Chicago, where she's employed as a Bunny at the new Playboy Club. "I really enjoy living in Chicago," P. J. says. "There's such a variety of things to do, so many places to go. I particularly enjoy the wide selection of French restaurants." When she's not Bunny hopping in the Club, P. J. makes personal appearances for Playboy--and has enrolled in a photography course.

miss january

Marilyn Cole (opposite) has taken up a new hobby: riding. "I've just gotten this big white gelding, Seamus," she told us. "After I become sure enough as an equestrienne, I want to try riding to hounds." Since her Playboy appearance, Marilyn has been much in demand as a model in and around London; she's also been able to indulge her fondness for travel, via trips to the United States, brief vacations in Greece and Morocco and a winter skiing holiday in the Swiss Alps.