Hi and welcome to my page. I am officially Playboy's first Playmate of the Year, PMOY 1960. I recently became involved with Playboy again when the older of my two daughters, who is a computer buff, heard of the search for lost Playmates to be interviewed for The Playmate Book. My daughter contacted Playboy via email and put author Gretchen Edgren in touch with me.

I was born on June 9, 1939 in Marietta, Mississippi, where everyone in my family worked as sharecroppers, often picking cotton. We migrated to California in 1949 with all seven of us in the car. My mother's dream was to move to California where my siblings and I could get an education. If we had stayed in the South, we wouldn't have had much of a future or so-called "opportunity." (Back in the Forties, it wasn't a law that you had to go to school in the South.) While I was growing up, we lived all over Los Angeles; my mother went into upholstery instead of farming and my father was always looking for work -- that was his career. Once a farmer, always a farmer. I finished high school in Los Angeles and started working as a legal secretary the next day. I took classes in business law and speech at Los Angeles City College until I became too busy with Playboy.

I was discovered while I was having lunch at a restaurant in Hollywood across from the law office where I worked. The photographer William Graham and his wife saw me. She approached me and asked if I would do some test shots for modeling, not nudes of course. I said yes, and you can see some of these shots here. Afterward they wanted to submit the shots to Playboy; at first I said no. I was very hesitant; after all, I was only 19 and it was the Fifties. Shortly afterward I changed my mind, not thinking anything would ever come of it -- I guess I became curious. Then when Hef called and wanted to meet with me, I was very surprised and of course excited. I agreed to meet with him to discuss becoming a Playmate and the rest is history. Afterward I held jobs as a Bunny, a model and an actress in TV commercials and soap operas. I credit Playboy for giving me the entrée to my showbiz and investment success.