"I've been lost, found, lost again and now refound," exclaims Dolores Del Monte, who as Miss March 1954 was Playboy's fourth Playmate of the Month. 

Like several other 1954 centerfolds whose pictures were purchased by Hefner from the files of the Baumgarth Calendar Company of Melrose Park, Illinois, Dolores was not aware at the time that she had appeared in Playboy. 

"I was born and brought up in Spokane, Washington, and when I had my high-school graduation pictures taken, the photographer -- a man named Bailey -- encouraged me to go into modeling. I had an aunt and uncle who lived in Los Angeles, so after graduation I moved down there and began to model. 

"My first job was with Bruno Bernard -- Bernard of Hollywood. I was not really prepared to pose nude, but, coming from a small town like Spokane, I didn't want to appear naïve. I wanted to behave as if I were worldly, even though 'worldly' was probably not even in my vocabulary then. I didn't really even know what 'figure modeling' meant, but I found out quickly enough. Who knew that the picture Mr. Bernard took of me on that blue settee was going to be used in Playboy magazine?" 

Not until 1979, in fact, did Dolores learn she had been featured as a centerfold. 

"I do recall that while I was pregnant with my first son, who was born in 1954, a letter came to the house asking my permission to publish my picture in Playboy. Well, I didn't know anything about Playboy, and in my mind I thought the picture they were talking about was some pin-up in which I was wearing a leopard print bathing suit. So I signed it, but I never saw the magazine." 

In 1979, miniature centerfolds of all of Playboy's Playmates to date were published in the magazine's 25th Anniversary Issue, and Hefner hosted a Playmate Reunion at Playboy Mansion West. 

"I got a phone call from my second son -- who at that time was a student at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey -- saying, 'Mom, I have some news about your past.' He remembered that I'd told the kids that I had done some modeling for a couple of years under the name Dolores Del Monte, and he told me that I had been Playboy's Miss March 1954. 

"I was disappointed that I'd missed the Playmate Reunion," Dolores continues. "So I sent in a letter with a current photo of myself, and the magazine published it under the headline 'Missing Playmates Bureau' in the October 1980 issue." 

At that time Dolores was living with her second husband in Beaverton, Oregon, but after his death she moved to the Los Angeles area and forgot to send Playboy a forwarding address. So by the time "The Playmate Book" was published in 1996, Playboy had once more lost track of its fourth centerfold. 

This time it was her older son who put Dolores back in touch with the magazine. 

"All three of my kids think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread that I appeared in Playboy," she notes. "This past December, my son's fiancé surprised me with the news that she'd written to Playboy about me. So I decided to contact Playboy's offices out here in California." That resulted in an invitation to Victoria Silvstedt's Playmate of the Year luncheon at Playboy Mansion West this May. 

"When Mr. Hefner introduced me as Miss March 1954, he made a big thing about it," Dolores recalls. "That was my 15 minutes of fame. Now, with all this newfound recognition, it's as if I have an extended family through Playboy, and I'm getting very excited about it. Some of the Playmates I remember -- I posed with Mara Corday and Joanne Arnold back in the Fifties -- and I'd like to meet more of them." She's considering attending Glamourcon events. 

In the years since she gave up modeling in 1952, when she first married, Dolores has been not only a wife and mother but also has been active in the public-relations field. 

"When I lived in Spokane, in the late Sixties, I traveled all over Western Canada as a supervisor for fashion accessory promotions. I hired and trained models to demonstrate how to wear a scarf with the aid of a scarf clip. Probably the biggest highlight of my career came in 1974, when I was the senior guide supervisor in the U.S. pavilion during Expo 74 in Spokane. Then they moved me to the U.S. commissioner general's office, where I greeted all the visiting dignitaries and VIPs." 

Since moving to California, Dolores has hosted celebrity tennis tournaments as well as parties and dances for singles. 

"I'm now helping to promote a brand-new line of body-care products -- lotions, body washes, glycerine soaps and what have you -- that my daughter has out, called Body Affair. I like the looks of her logo: It's two nude bodies hugging each other."


PLAYBOY APPEARANCES: Centerfold, March 1954; "First 24 Playmates," January 1956; "Playmate Revisited," February 1964.

PLAYBOY NEWSSTAND SPECIALS: "Playmates: The First 15 Years," January 1983.