Playboy's first official Playmate of the Year, Ellen Stratton has two daughters -- the elder of which, fortunately for historians of the magazine, is a computer buff. Hearing of the search for lost Playmates to be interviewed for "The Playmate Book," she contacted Playboy via e-mail and put the book's author in touch with her mother, now living in Arkansas and managing her real-estate interests. 

Ellen was a legal secretary when she posed for the magazine, and she resumed that career for a time in California after having worked as a Bunny, as a model and as an actress in TV commercials and soap operas. She credits Playboy with having given her the entrée to her showbiz and investment success. 

One of the most public tributes ever paid to a Playmate appears in Tim ("Home Improvement") Allen's autobiography, "Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man." In it, he credits his first sexual awakening to his reaction on seeing Ellen's centerfold on the wall at the home of a boyhood chum. "My life has never been the same since," he writes. "Ellen Stratton was the most wonderful thing I'd ever witnessed." 

The subject of Allen's infatuation is flattered and amused: "Tim Allen owes his manhood to me!" 


PLAYBOY APPEARANCES: Centerfold, December 1959; "Playmate Review -- 1959," January 1960; "Playmate of the Year," June 1960; "Five Favorite Playmates," December 1960; "Editor's Choice," December 1963; "Silverstein's History of Playboy," March 1964; "Playmates Revisited," July 1964; "Premier Playmates Revisited," June 1971; "20 Years of Playmates," January 1974; "Past Playmates of the Year," June 1979; "Women of the Fifties," January 1989.

PLAYBOY NEWSSTAND SPECIALS: "New Holiday Album -- 1975," January 1975; "New Holiday Album -- 1981," January 1981; "Best From Playboy #9," May 1982; "Playmates: The First 15 Years," January 1983; "Best From Playboy #10," January 1983; "Playmates of the Year," November 1986.

PLAYBOY VIDEO CREDITS: "Playboy's Playmates: The Early Years" (1991).

PLAYBOY CALENDARS: 1961, 1962, 1964.