Playmate Roommates

When we first heard that three of our favorite Playmates--Sondra Theodore, Candy Loving and Terri Welles--were sharing an apartment in Los Angeles, we knew it was something worth looking into. Maybe they needed a houseboy. Maybe there was an apartment available in their building. For years we've extolled the beauty of the girl next door, but this was too good to be true. Surely, there was a zoning ordinance against such a congregation of comely young women. The arrangement sounded like a television spin-off of Three's Company and Charlie's Angels. When we sat down with this unique set of roommates, we discovered that truth is frequently more fascinating than TV programing. For one thing, it's live, and infinitely lovelier in person. How did it happen? Well, in the beginning, there was Sondra, a former Sunday-school teacher from San Bernardino, who arrived in Los Angeles (text concluded on page 198) (continued from page 133) in the summer of 1976 with aspirations of establishing a career in show business. She met Hugh Hefner at a party at Playboy Mansion West that summer and decided to try out for Playmate of the Month. She became Hef's constant companion soon after he and longtime girlfriend Barbi Benton parted. The rest is history, and inspired a couple of paragraphs in People magazine, where she was originally identified as singer Donna Theodore and, more recently, pictured celebrating the fourth anniversary of their romance with an enthusiastic kiss for a male stripper at Chippendale's. A glance at the story that accompanied Sondra's July 1977 Playmate pictorial reveals that the diamond necklace she wore--spelling the enigmatic words Baby Blue--refers to the name of a Barry White tune that was being played the first time she danced with Hef. Several small parts in films and television followed Sondra's Playmate appearance and she decided to rent an unfurnished five-room apartment off Sunset Boulevard, near the sprawling UCLA campus, and conveniently close to the Mansion. She loved the fireplace in the living room--and all the space that the five rooms afforded her--but she knew she needed a roommate. "I was never there," she confesses. "I would come home and the place just wouldn't feel lived in. I needed someone to water my plants, to confide in and hang out with when I wasn't away on a Playmate promotion or doing a movie [she spent most of the summer of 1977 in St. Louis, shooting Stingray] or spending time with Hef."

Sondra took her time decorating the apartment and looking for the right person with whom to share it. Her first choice was an aspiring singer from England who was working as a waitress in a local restaurant, waiting to be discovered. She was, but soon after her Hollywood singing debut, she went on the road--returning only long enough to announce that she had fallen in love and was moving to New York to get married.

Enter Candy Loving. Candy was a student at the University of Oklahoma when Playboy discovered her during the Great Playmate Hunt conducted for our 25th Anniversary Issue. She and Sondra became friends while Candy was shooting her centerfold on the West Coast. Candy had been married but was separated from her husband. When she was chosen as the Silver Anniversary Playmate (January 1979), she decided to move to Hollywood and moved in with Sondra. (Many of Playboy's centerfold choices have become close friends while working for the magazine over the years, and two other Playmates discovered during the Great Playmate Hunt--Missy Cleveland (April 1979) and Michele Drake (May 1979)--are currently living as roommates in Los Angeles.)

Candy had intended to try Hollywood for a year and return to the University of Oklahoma for her degree (she was a senior, majoring in public relations) if things didn't go well for her, but they did. "I got more practical experience in public relations in my first year with Playboy doing Playmate promotions than I did in three years at the university," she now concedes. But she is quick to add, "I think they're both important--a formal education and practical experience. I'm glad I had the opportunity to get both." Candy's Playmate promotions have taken her across the country, to Canada and Japan, but she has also found time to try acting (a small part in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories and a major role on TV's Sheriff Lobo), television commercials, talk shows (Merv Griffin) and modeling (Johnny Casablancas of Elite--one of the top model agencies in the country--saw and promptly signed her). Sondra and Candy hadn't intended to invite a third roommate to share the apartment until they met Terri.

Enter Terri Welles. Terri grew up in San Diego, where she dated--from time to time--a building designer-developer, who happened to be Sondra's older brother. Terri was a flight attendant, first for PSA and then for United Airlines. When Playboy's editors went looking for an appropriate cover girl for our May 1980 issue, featuring the well-remembered pictorial on airline stewardesses, Terri seemed the perfect choice. Terri turned in her flight attendant's wings, became a Playboy Model, and then decided to become a Playmate (December 1980, for any of you who haven't been paying attention). When Terri moved to Los Angeles and needed a place to stay, Sondra offered her room with her and Candy. Well, it sure beat putting up at the Y.W.C.A.

With Terri, that actually meant five in the apartment: three Playmates and two small dogs--lovingly referred to as The Lady and The Tramp. The Lady is Terri's pedigree Yorki, Bridgette. The Tramp is Sondra's shaggy terrier, of uncertain lineage, named Alex--saved from doggy heaven when Sondra purchased him from the local dog pound for $11. When we arrived to shoot this roommates pictorial, our Playmates insisted that Bridgette and Alex sign model releases, too. They dipped their paws in ink and pressed them on the forms, which are on file in our West Coast photo studio.

How does the situation work out? "Sometimes I just suffer people shock," says Sondra. "Then I head for the apartment, settle back and become human again. With Terri and Candy, I have a peer group, a family. We have the same problems, the same friends. We know how to laugh together. We know when someone needs a hug. It's like being in the same school, sitting with the same people at lunch. We know what we like, what's right for us."

The girls constantly compare notes on their careers. Before Candy went out on her first promotional tour as our 25th Anniversary Playmate, she asked Sondra's advice on how to handle the too-friendly fans when signing autographs. When Terri was preparing for her first Playmate promotion, she had two seasoned veterans to turn to for advice. The girls tend to deal with their problems with humor, poking fun at one another until their concerns turn into laughter. It is unusual for three such beautiful women to become such close friends, but Playmates belong to a special sorority. They have a sense of sisterhood. When Sondra helped put together the Singing Playmates, a newly formed pop vocal group composed entirely of centerfold models from the pages of Playboy, Terri had to be a part of it--though she had no previous vocal training. Within a few weeks, she had become a real showstopper. "Terri is a natural talent," says Sondra. "Singing, dancing, acting--she's great at whatever she tries. She can be a star--if she wants it badly enough." Terri laughs, but she also knows that Blondie's Deborah Harry was once a Bunny in the New York Playboy Club.

For all the glamor of their lives--the parties at the Mansion, the lunches at Le Dome, the dates with Hollywood celebrities--the girls are amazingly down-home. They are just as likely to be found curled up in front of the TV, watching a Flintstones special, waiting for the pizza to arrive. The three recount tales of piling into Sondra's VW in jeans, T-shirts and sunglasses, driving up to L.A.'s famous Renaissance Faire and spending the day sitting in a haystack, watching the citizens dressed in medieval garb. Now career opportunities may be breaking up the trio. Candy is considering going to New York in the spring for another round of modeling assignments for Elite. "But only for a little while," she says. Terri is working in a new Michael Crichton film, The Looker--her first attempt at acting. Crichton also thinks she's a "natural." Sondra spends her days in rehearsal and recording with the Singing Playmates. But for now, they are just three girls, sharing the rent while trying to make it in Hollywood.

"'With Terri and Candy, I have a peer group, a family. We have the same problems, the same friends.'"