Playboy's Playmate Review

It used to be that our Playmates were all girl-next-door types--innocent, unassuming and always available for interviews. Now we tend to get more professional young ladies--actresses, models, etc.--and we have to catch them between gigs. Which is all to the good, we think Because these worldly young women--one of whom will be Playmate of the Year (we welcome your nomination)--still have many of the qualities you'd hope to find in the girl next door; it's just that the girl next door is growing up.

Miss February

Francine Parks has kept busy working for one of L.A.'s top publicity firms, interviewing and writing releases on a variety of stars such as The Supremes, Wilt Chamberlain and Merv Griffin. She also helped promote some charity functions and took part in a telethon in New Mexico. But Fran continues to study voice, acting and dance, and, much as she likes public-relations work, she's ready to pack it in if show business beckons. "I've come a long way in the last year," she admits, "but it's going to get a lot better."

Miss January

Nancy Cameron is still in Pittsburgh, where she's been "modeling like crazy" and doing a lot of swimming in the new back-yard pool she and friend Paul, the rock impresario--he's producing records now, instead of concerts--had installed. Nancy hopes to keep her schedule as busy as possible ("If this were L.A. instead of Pittsburgh, you'd get a better interview"). She reports, incidentally, that her pet Shih Tzu--given to her by members of our Photo Department--is about to be mated. Hurray!

Miss September

Kristine Hanson was in Alabama on a Playboy promotional assignment when we caught up with her. She'd been busy: studying TV, radio and theater arts at Sacramento State, performing at the California State Fair (she played vaudeville queen Irene Castle), broadcasting news on her college station and serving as Race Queen for San Francisco's offshore power-boat races. And Kristine was about to begin an internship at a Sacramento TV station. We have a feeling that you'll be seeing lots of her.

Miss October

Ester Cordet (right)--who, when we checked, was still with a California airline--found that soon after her Playmate story appeared, a lot of passengers would ask, "Are you Ester?" and then hit her up for autographs. "It was embarrassing," she laughs (sounding flattered in spite of herself). But she'd also caught the attention of a few fashion photographers and movie producers, and at presstime she had several important meetings on her calendar. We've no doubts about her ability to make them count.

Miss June

Sandy Johnson still sells cosmetics, and she's got so much business that she now has a staff to help her. But she continues to study, both acting--she's done several TV commercials and had a lead role in a movie called The Surfer Girls--and, at Santa Monica Community College, gourmet cooking (baked chicken in wine sauce, avec grapes, is one of her specialties). When she does have a little free time, Sandy can usually be found on the beach, tossing around a Frisbee. It is, she adds, a damned good life.

Miss August

Jean Manson (far right) returned our call to Madrid from Roma, where she'd been living after a brief stay with her parents in Spain. She was putting her career--and life--into a new gear; and her first movie assignment in Italy was coming up soon. Not that Jean, who earlier in the year had made a film in Spain and acted in some stage plays back in Los Angeles, had lost interest in Hollywood: "I just decided there were places I had to go and things I had to do. Everything is temporary; nothing lasts forever." Amen.

Miss July

Carol Vitale we found in New York, where she'd flown to shop at Gucci's and other favorite haunts. She'd been having fun traveling, playing tennis and spending her Playmate money (on, among other things, a white convertible, which she'd wanted for a long time). Carol had also done a successful singing engagement at a friend's night club--she sounded hoarse, but it was from a cold--and when she got back to Miami, she would start looking for the right musicians to fill out her own combo. May we play?

Miss November

Bebe Buell, after doing a lot of thinking and trying to get herself "sorted out"--and, of course, modeling for a couple of issues of Cosmopolitan--had decided to head for London, Paris and Milan, where she'd already contacted some of the best agents. Not that she wasn't still in love with rock star Todd Rundgren--but she needed to do some things on her own. And since Todd was about to embark on a concert tour, it was a perfect time for Bebe to take on the fashion-modeling establishment of Europe.

Miss December

Janice Raymond had just enough time, between our December and January deadlines, to complete her two weeks of training as a Jet Bunny: "It was more interesting than I'd expected--learning how to get out of the plane in the event of a crash, and so forth." At presstime, she was awaiting the call to make her first flight ("Hope I don't have to put that emergency knowledge to use") and looking forward to some free time in which to go skiing (she's recreation-oriented--just like us).

Miss April

Marlene Morrow had 15 minutes, when we called, before she had to leave for the airport--there to catch a plane for Canada, where she had a promotional assignment. After completing a film early in the year, she traveled awhile in Europe and America, then decided to leave London, where she'd been modeling for two years, and move to the States. So for the past two months she'd been Americanizing her portfolio and getting to know the right people in L.A. Which shouldn't take her long at all.

Miss May

Marilyn Lange was going through and packing her stuff; the next day she'd be leaving Hawaii for Aspen, Colorado, where she was hoping to make a living without doing the kind of steady waitressing gig she had in Honolulu--she'd sub for other girls, maybe, and thus be free to do her own thing. Her piano-playing Honolulu boyfriend, Kip, meanwhile, was headed in a different direction: to Tahiti, where his band had a three-month engagement. Would they be getting back together? Only time will tell.

Miss March

Pam Zinszer was enjoying the bucolic early-morning atmosphere of her family's Topanga home ("You can't see anybody for miles, just horses, donkeys and chickens"). It was a far cry from the bustle of Los Angeles, where she'd been studying acting and dance. She'd also been talking to an agent about making commercials. And she was going back to Pierce College, in Woodland Hills, to get some in-theater experience with live audiences: "My L.A. teacher is camera-oriented." So, just for the record, are we.