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Front Cover
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Playmate Review # 1 (1985) Magazine
Number 1 TABLE OF CONTENTSNineteen eighty-four was a very good year for PLAYBOY. We were busy observing
our 30th Anniversary, a celebration that had actually started several months earlier
with a truly amazing response to our 30th Anniversary Playmate Search. Miss January
1984, Penny Baker, was the winner of that contest, but she had tough competition
from 6,999 other entrants from New England to Hawaii. Before the year was out,
six other women uncovered during the Search had appeared on the centerfold: Misses
March, April, May, July, October and December of 1984. Proving that last is definitely
not least, December Playmate Karen Velez was chosen Playmate of the Year for 1985;
she's also the center attraction on the cover of this volume.
This wasn't the first time PLAYBOY had sent its photographers on the road in search
of new gatefold possibilities. In 1978, getting ready to celebrate the magazine's
Silver Anniversary with the January 1979 issue, PLAYBOY sent five photographic
teams to 28 cities and snapped Polaroids of more than 3000 women. In 1983, seven
roving photographers and their assistants visited 30 cities in, the United States
and one in Canada. They were deluged by 7000 applicants, twice as many as had
ben expected. When we were able to take time out from shutter-snapping, we began
to muse on th,,e possible reasons for this increased turnout, more than doubled
in five years. Associate Photography Editor Michael Ann Sullivan came to the conclusion
that it was a result of the fitness movement: "There are a lot more women
with great bodies-even those women in their 30s and 40s-than ever before."
The oldest applicant, in fact, was 76; another was a grandmother of three. These
two were not among the many hopefuls who arrived with their mothers, a development
Senior Photography Editor Jeff Cohen found surprising. "In 1978, most women
came to the interview sessions unaccompanied," he said. "This time,
many mothers, especially in the South, brought their daughters. And when we asked
whose idea it was, most of the time it was the mother's."
We don't have a Playmate Search every year, and even when we do, it's obvious
that Playmates come to us from other sources. Historically, many have been Playboy
Club Bunnies. Others are recommended by agents or by boyfriends. Or PLAYBOY photographers
may discover them in the course of another assignment. Roberta Vasquez, for example,
had so knocked readers out as a karate-trained security guard in our February
1984 Women of Steel pictorial that she moved inexorably to the November centerfold.
But enough talk. As you peruse the pages of this, our first Playmate Review in
book form, you'll see an extraordinary selection of Playmates.
Models
Penny Baker
Justine Greiner
Dona Speir
Lesa Ann Pedriana
Patty Duffek
Tricia Lange
Liz Stewart
Suzi Schott
Kimberly Evenson
Debi Johnson
Roberta Vasquez
Karen Velez |
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