Peggy

don't try to pronounce her home town—penetanguishene. just get to know miss january as

One look at her—the spectacular blonde with the quick step, hot-pink lipstick and incendiary eyes, turning heads on Sunset Boulevard—and you know this is the savviest of big-city women. Wrong. Savvy, yes, but not big-city. She comes from Penetanguishene, Ontario, a town with nearly as many letters in its name as names in its phone book. "Good fishing country," she says. "Not so good for night life." And while Miss January has been known to dance a few nights away in Hollywood, her new home, she is still no wild thing. "I love to fish and cook and clean house. I'm a girl you could take home to your mother." A Christian girl whose phone-machine message ends "God bless" and whose lingerie drawer is full of enticing lace and chiffon—a combination guaranteed to please every mother and every mother's son. That's Peggy McIntaggart. Back home in Penetanguishene, Peggy used to pull trout and bass out of Georgian Bay, an arm of Lake Huron. In winter, she had a speedier pursuit—motocross races on the frozen bay. Her dad worked as a cook on the cargo ships that traversed the Great Lakes, her mother as a dietician in a hospital in nearby Midland. Money came and went. Mostly went. Peggy remembers cooking and cleaning for her four brothers and her cousins, with whom the McIntaggarts shared a house in bad times. She disliked school because, dressed in her cousins' hand-me-downs, and slow to develop the figure seen here—"I was a late bloomer"—she felt ugly. She had barely begun blooming when her mom persuaded her to enter the Miss Midland Centennial beauty pageant. Peggy won. "I was shocked." That night, she decided that Peggy McIntaggart might not be so bad-looking, after all. A few modeling gigs in Midland led her to Japan, where she was known as "The Tokyo Kid," the Canadian beauty who appeared on TV ads and magazine covers and sang in the night club Neo Japanesque. She now speaks fluent Japanese. She came home, bought a house, caught a few trout and looked around. Midland was now a bit sedate for the Tokyo torch. She sold the house and moved to Los Angeles, where she had heard there might be work for an ex–ugly duckling who had bloomed into a spectacular international beauty. Peggy lives in North Hollywood. She drives a pristine yellow-and-white '59 Ford Fairlane, which she restored herself—Penetanguishene girls know how to do things for themselves. She studies acting and singing—Peggy landed roles in videos by Julian Lennon and Cheap Trick and is currently assisting music meister Herbie Hancock in his L.A. studio; Hancock composed the sound track for the Eddie Murphy vehicle Harlem Nights. She played small parts in films ranging from Beverly Hills Cop II to Tommy Chong's upcoming Far Out, Man and stars in a home-video offering called Lady Avenger, in which our unorthodox Playmate of the Month undoes evildoers using bullets and a baseball bat. More romantic roles are yet to come. "I've enjoyed everything so far," says Peggy, but she is looking forward to playing parts that fit her private persona. "I am a romantic and a homebody," she says. "I'm old-fashioned. Hip to everything that's happening, but old-fashioned. My perfect evening? I wear silk and lace. I put a dab of perfume on the light bulbs and settle down by the fireplace with my man, and what happens next you might not tell your mother." Good night, Peggy.

Playmate Data Sheet

Name: Peggy McIntaggart

Bust: 36

Waist: 23

Hips: 35

Height: 5'7"

Weight: 115

Birth Date: 9/6/61

Birthplace: Midland, Ontario

Ambitions: To act, sing and work with underprivileged kids.

Turn-Ons: Cleanliness, children, animals, Christianity, talented people & white roses.

Turn-Offs: Cigarettes, dirty houses, traffic, dishonesty and judgmental people.

Favorite Sports: Fishing, tennis, water & snow skiing, baseball and bicycling.

Favorite Musicians: Willie Nelson, Herbie Hancock

My Man Is: Genuine, kindhearted, spiritual, outdoorsy, talented, family man & sends me white roses.

Things I Love: One-on-One Gym in Sherman Oaks, my horse Shannon & unconditional Love

My Dream: Be happily married and have 17 outdoorsy, loving kids