Our fair lady

her name is lee ann michelle and, by george!, we think she's got it

The First Thing that strikes you about Lee Ann Michelle (well, maybe the second or third) is that she'd be perfect for the role of Eliza Doolittle in G. B. Shaw's Pygmalion. First of all, she's English, born and raised in Surrey, and her accent has a lilting, lyrical intonation that could charm even the most hardened Anglophobe. And second, she's got a certain versatility of expression--one moment she'll mimic a London street urchin and the next she's as polished and elegant as British royalty. The fitting paradox to all this is that most people who meet her just sort of naturally fall into the Henry Higgins role. "It's a funny thing," she says, smiling impishly, "but when people first meet me, they have this incredible urge to educate me. I don't know why, I don't look innocent." And, indeed, Lee Ann hardly needs to be educated--at the ripe old age of 18, she has already had more than her share of experience. Two years ago, she left school in England to seek her fortune. "I went naïvely looking about for a job," she says, "but no one would hire me, because they said I didn't have any experience. So I took to modeling. Since I looked older than my age at the time, I became a page-three girl for the London papers." (Page-three girls are models who appear topless in London's tabloids, notably on page three of The Sun. See "Playboy's Roving Eye," January.) Reactions to Lee Ann's page-three debut were mixed: "None of my girlfriends at school would talk to me. They thought it was disgusting, but all my grandmother's friends thought it was wonderful. Odd, isn't it?" At 17, a calendar shooting for British Leyland Motors took her to Hollywood, where she was discovered by both Playboy and Motown Productions. The people at Motown were so taken by Lee Ann they've decided to film their next movie, a Paramount release, around her. Naturally, she'll star. "It's called The Golden Goose," she tells us, "and it's about an English singer who thinks she's making it on talent but discovers that her voice has been dubbed all along and it's the hype that made her a star. She's been sort of manufactured, you see. It's emotional and funny and very musical." Sounds, as the English put it, like a jolly good show.

Playmate Data Sheet

Name: Lee Ann Michelle

Bust: 35

Waist: 23

Hips: 35

Height: 5'4

Weight: 107

Sign: Pisces

Birth Date: 3.17.60

Birthplace: Surrey, England

Goals: To be a successful actress

Turn-ons: Kissing + cuddling. Posing for the camera, perfume, fast cans, fairgrounds, swimming in the nude, travelling.

Turn-offs: Spidens, being told to look sexy.

Fantasies: Being Cleopatra's maid, + Henry the Eighth's last wife.

Favorite Sorts: Tennis, hockey and soccer.

Heroes: Hans Christian Anderser, because of his enchanting fairy tables. Leonardo da Vinci.

Favorite Drinks: Champagne + Natural Spring Water.

Favorite Foods: Chicken, Sashimi, Sushi, Torteshire Pudding + Roast Beef.

Hobbies: Playing with my pets. Dressing up. Collecting rings from all over the world.

"I'm very intuitive," says Lee Ann, "and I love being touched. My whole body is very, very sensitive to touch, especially my hair."

"When I was a page-three girl" Lee Ann recalls, "I used to get lots of silly phone calls. Men would call up and ask me what color knickers I had on. Silly things like that."

"What sort of men attract me? Men with strong hands, men with small, tight bums. I always look at a man's eyes to see what he's really saying. Oh, and I love a nice pair of legs on a man, too."

"I've always had a fantasy about being shipwrecked on an island with a bunch of boys I really liked. When I was very young, I fantasized about being a mermaid, but that's an impossible fantasy, isn't it?"

"I look as much on the inside of a man as I do on the outside, unless I am overwhelmed by a man's sex appeal, and then I don't care. I'm not frequently overwhelmed by a man's sex appeal, though."

"I love London's buses," says Lee Ann. "When we shot these photos, though, the conductors kept telling me to sit down."