Playboy's Playmate Review # 1 (1985)

Nineteen 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