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Each spring, in what has become an annual event,
Playboy founder-publisher Hugh M. Hefner presents the Playmate of the Year.
It is enough for a playmate of the month to be just beautiful, Hugh Hefner once wrote.
In a 75,000 word article.
He must also have something else.
Hefner described it as something else as it.
It, a playmate, he wrote, either has it or she doesn't.
And if she doesn't have it, I don't want her screwing up my magazine.
I'm here tonight, I'm supposed to introduce the Playmate of the Year.
When they told this to me, I was surprised.
I thought that I wasn't going to introduce her.
I thought I was it.
The Playmate of the Year, she's really something.
One award, she ought to get two.
Let's do a little song here to warm everybody up.
Good night, little girl, let's try that because the Playmate's in the air.
Good night, little girl, good night.
I hope that you get home all right.
The martinis were fine and your kiss is divine.
But I thought by midnight you'd surely be mine.
I was wrong, little girl, I was wrong.
Run along, little girl, run along.
If I couldn't win you with all the gin that's in you, good night isn't a good song.
Thank you very much.
Now, would you like to meet the Playmate of the Year?
Would you?
Oh, would you like to hear me sing another song?
You don't have to.
Would you like to hear me sing another song?
You don't answer that.
To do this will be you, Hefner, is much younger than I am.
You?
Thank you very much.
It gives me a great deal of pleasure to introduce to you a very, very special lady.
Join us for a retrospective look at the best of the best.
Let's begin with India Allen.
India kicked up her heels for Playboy in 1988.
Born in Portsmouth, Virginia, she was encouraged by her mother to pose for Playboy and went on to become Playmate of the Year.
I like life.
A lot.
It's good to me.
Most of all, I guess right now I like being Playmate of the Year.
And I like my big figure.
I like it now anyway.
I didn't used to like it.
I like it a lot now.
I didn't like it before because I think I used to intimidate men and kind of made me short on dates.
Rubenesque.
Full figure.
Which is okay.
I guess I can accept that now.
Suits me just fine.
You know, if I eat a cookie, I have to run straight to the gym.
It's a good thing I like working out.
1981 brought beautiful blonde Terry Wells to the pages of Playboy magazine.
A native Californian, she grew up on the beaches of Santa Monica.
Her love of travel led Terry to become a flight attendant.
It was on a chance visit to the Playboy Mansion that she was discovered.
It gives me a great deal of pleasure to introduce to you a very, very special lady.
Our Playmate of the Year for 1981, Ms. Terry Wells.
There are a few people that I want to thank.
My husband, Charlie, and the whole Playboy organization, of which the people individually would be too numerous to name at this time.
But they all know who they are and they all know how much thanks, from the bottom of my heart, that I give to all of them.
And last but definitely not least, help for being a friend.
Let's get started.
In 1984, a stunning brunette, Barbara Edwards reigned supreme.
A talented artist while attending college, she subsequently won a scholarship to study commercial art, proving there's more to Barbara than meets the eye.
I want to show you a few little things here on the board so that as we work, you'll be able to see what it is that I'm after for you.
I didn't care that much for school until I discovered art.
It was the first time I felt that I had any special talent.
By now, I feel that I have enough talent to have a real chance at a career in commercial art, and I'm very ambitious to succeed at it.
In the meantime, I've been modeling, trying to get into acting and commercials.
When I approached Playboy Modeling Agency, I went there for one reason, to get into the modeling agency.
I never ever imagined doing the centerfold of Playboy.
But when I went up there, they asked me, would you like to test for a playmate?
And I said, can I think about this?
I don't know, I think my parents will kill me.
That's it, hold it. Great.
Once you have signed your centerfold, your confidence is so high, you become a lot more mature.
You have so many responsibilities that you have to mature, and you're representing one of the best companies in the world.
And you have to be proud of it, and you have to love it. And I do.
Nice, good. Great.
Yeah.
Kathy Schauer, the single mother of two young daughters, became the first playmate over the age of 30.
A native of Brookville, Ohio, Kathy was a small town girl who followed her dream of acting to Hollywood.
Her career got a lift when she was named Playmate of the Year in 1986.
Anyone who wants to be in show business as an actress or an actor, any type of performer, has to be totally dedicated.
Going on a lot of interviews, a lot of calls, classes, running yourself ragged at times.
Dance has been a major part of my life. I've been dancing since the age of seven.
Dancing is a therapy for me. It always has been.
Yeah.
I am from a small town in Brookville, Ohio, and baseball is very big in small towns.
But I've been playing since I was a little girl, actually.
I was introduced to Playboy by a girlfriend who was a makeup artist.
I worked for Playboy herself, and I, being a model, she wanted to use my face in order to submit her work.
And I agreed. She submitted her pictures.
Playboy saw the photographs, and not only did they like her makeup, but they liked my photographs.
So she just called me and asked me if I would be interested in working for Playboy.
I finally reached an age where I look forward to each upcoming day with anticipation.
I like what I'm doing. I'm proud of who I am, and I feel I'm ready for any challenge that may arise.
In 1987, a lovely southern belle from Greensboro, North Carolina bounced into the world of Playboy.
Although she had never modeled professionally before, Donna Edmondson was a natural and became Playmate of the Year.
I wish the good times would move slower.
Sometimes I think I haven't changed at all, just grown bigger.
I still feel and act like a kid. Is that good or bad?
I got my real estate license because I love houses. I love being at home.
It's the place where you can really get away from everything and be yourself.
Wow!
If someone would have told me what this past year was going to be like for me before it all happened, I never would have believed them.
If all this is a dream, that's okay, because it's a really great dream.
Henshaw.
In 1980, Dorothy Stratton, a stunningly beautiful blue-eyed blonde from Vancouver, Canada, was named Playmate of the Year.
She was sweet, fresh, charming, and endearingly vulnerable. Those who knew her loved her. A tribute to Dorothy Stratton.
Oh, look. Becoming a Playmate.
I just graduated from high school. My mother was in Europe, and there was nobody for me to turn to. I didn't know who to ask.
So I took some pictures with Ken. It was a Wednesday that he took the pictures, a Thursday that he sent them up, a Friday that they received him, and Sunday I was in L.A.
By then, my mother was back, and I was afraid to call her. Nobody knew where I was, what I was doing.
But maybe two months before my magazine came out, I told her I was going to be a Playmate.
There you go. A little more time.
Okay, you're good. Okay. Lean onto the couch, Dorothy. Lean on the couch.
I love working with the camera. I enjoy working in stills or in motion picture. I feel very natural with the camera. I treat it as another person. I have so much fun also.
Yeah.
Boom.
My issue came out, and my mother became one hell of a proud mother. People were calling her and congratulating her. She said, I honestly hope you win Playmate of the Year.
It should be mentioned that Dorothy has begun what promises to be a rather special film career, and she is quite a lady, as you can see, but there's a lot more than what you see here. She's also a very talented lady.
Yeah.
Mary Ann Gravat, shy and delicate, blossomed for Playboy's cameras and became the Playmate of the Year in 1983.
Yeah.
I grew up in Arcadia. That's a small town in Southern California. My father's a produce buyer for a grocery store, so he got me my first job bagging groceries. That's what I was doing, bagging groceries, just until a few months before I got the chance to shoot for Playboy.
Shooting for Playboy helped me to come out of my shyness.
When we started out, her shyness was a bit of a problem. She'd never done nude pictures before in her life. She agreed to do it. She saw some beautiful pictures of herself and decided, well, let's do a Playboy layout.
You could work with her all day, maybe never hear 10 words back from Mary Ann, but working together was just a kind of a magical thing.
Posing without my clothes on for the first time was the hardest thing I ever did.
And he let me go real slow, which helped.
And then there came a point when I realized he was just doing his job. He was just trying to get the best he could get.
That's when I decided to start trying to do the best I could do.
If we could work together, things would work out good.
Tall, blonde, Canadian fashion model Shannon Tweed was chosen Playmate of the Year in 1982.
Shannon had always dreamed of being a Playmate and became a dream come true for the readers as well.
I was born in a small province on the east coast of Canada.
They say that you can take the girl from the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the girl. And I think that's true to a certain degree.
I started modeling full time in Ottawa, where it was good to make my mistakes and move on to something bigger.
I went to Montreal and started in high fashion there.
When I moved to Toronto, it only took me a year to become one of the top working and top paid models in Canada.
I'll never forget the unique way in which I was introduced to Playboy.
It was via a TV show in Toronto called Thrill of a Lifetime.
It's a game type show about making people's dreams come true.
Well, the show sent a videotape to Playboy of several girls who wanted to become Playmates, and I was one of them.
And Playboy picked me.
My friends all asked me why I wanted to become a Playmate.
When I told them, I thought the women of Playboy were the epitome of beauty, class, taste, femininity.
Those are all qualities in a woman that are very important to me.
And I wanted to have them and be that.
1985 brought gorgeous and sultry Karen Velez from Miami,
Florida to the pages of Playboy.
My girlfriends and I usually on the weekends would just go out to the beach,
take our books and lay out in the sun. The sun's always shining, it's gorgeous.
I love the Keys, it's really unique. Since I'm such an outdoor person,
it's the place that I've always liked to go to get away. My girlfriends and I usually just
pack up a bag and throw it in the car and take a drive down to the Keys and just have a swing in
time. My sister lives in Key West, so I love going to visit her. We're very, very close.
Everyone that goes down there throws on a t-shirt, pair of shorts, flip-flops. That's how you go eat,
that's how you go to restaurants, bars. You don't see anyone dressed up when you're down in the
Keys. It's a real funky town. There's little shops all over the place. There's a lot of history in
Key West. Hemingway read a lot of his books there. It's always attracted a lot of artistic people,
and I guess that's what makes it a very special place.
One of the most fascinating things about Key West is the Victorian homes that are down there.
They're beautiful, and I love to fantasize about what it must have been like to be a
southern belle, wear those pretty white dresses. And I can always imagine myself strolling through
the gardens, real romantic, fantasizing about being in that era.
A statuesque beauty, Kimberly Conrad highlighted a decade of Playboy's best as the 1989 Playmate
of the Year. It changed everything for her and for Playboy's Playboy. Kimberly Conrad, take one.
Hi. Hi there, I'm Kimberly Conrad.
During high school, I was discovered by John Casablancas and modeled in Vancouver with the
Lee Agency. I mostly did magazines, catalogs, newspapers, and fashion shows.
I modeled and modeled and modeled from age 17 to 24, and the whole time this Canadian
photographer kept trying to get me to test for Playboy magazine. He was persistent,
but I said no for seven straight years. I was perfectly happy being where I was and doing what
I was doing. I finally did say yes to Playboy, so with mom threatening to call out the Malanese,
I went to LA and tested for Playboy. And well, what can I say? It turned out to be the most
wonderful kind of experience you can imagine.
When I did my centerfold, they had me stay at the Playboy Mansion in LA. It was absolutely
beautiful. The redwood trees, quiet water. It was a little piece of the country in the middle of a
big city. Oh, and the animals. I loved all of them. Little did I know I'd fall in love with the Lord
of the Manor. Hef and I, we have a lot of fun together. We communicate. We trust each other.
I just love everything about him. We have a lot of fun. Yeah, laugh a lot.
Why, Miss Conrad, you're beautiful.
That's how the character looks.
Well, welcome to all of you. And I have stood here on a number of occasions like this one.
Over the last decade. But very obviously for obvious reasons.
Tonight is very, very special to me. And I'm happy that all of you are here to share it with
all of us. I hope it is obvious how very special she is. And this is a lady I care
a great deal about. So I think probably without further ado, I would like to introduce you to
our 1989 Playmate of the Year, Kimberly Conrad.
When I think about what's happened to me all in this past year, it really is a Cinderella story.
The nicest thing about having a dream come true is waking up to reality.
And so this is my Cinderella story. I think the only way to find love and happiness is to
always keep yourself open to it and ready for it. I never once thought that I would ever be this happy,
but I am very happy, very much in love and very thankful.
And so, like all good fairy tales, Cinderella and Prince Charming lived happily ever after.
Playmates of the Year, the 80s. Dorothy Stratton was well on her way to movie stardom when she was
murdered by her estranged husband. She was 20 years old.
Terry Wells married hockey great Charlie Zimmer. They're living in Vancouver with a
two-year-old. Shannon Tweed continues to pursue her successful acting career.
She and rock star Gene Simmons are the parents of a baby boy.
Mary Ann Gravat is a fashion model and lives in Orange County with her two sons.
Barbara Edwards is married with a baby daughter and has resumed her modeling career.
Karen Velez married the six million dollar man.
Lee Majors. They're living in Malibu and are parents of a baby girl.
Kathy Schauer combines her two careers as super mom to her daughters and as a working actress.
Donna Edmondson is living in her hometown of Greensboro,
North Carolina where she's a real estate agent.
India Allen married USA Today newscaster Bill McAtee whom she met on a Playmate of the Year tour.
They had their first child, a daughter, in 1989.
And Kimberly Conrad married the boss, Hugh Marston Hefner on July 20th.
And Kimberly Conrad married the boss, Hugh Marston Hefner on July 1st, 1989.
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