Ellen Stratton

Ellen was Playmate of the Month for December 1959. Her pictorial was titled Legal Tender.

Ellen was born June 9, 1939, in Marietta, MS. Following her Playmate of the Month pictorial, she became the first “official” Playmate of the Year for 1960.

Ellen’s family worked as sharecroppers, picking cotton. When she was 10, the family moved to California, settling in the Los Angeles area. After graduating from high school, Ellen took a job as a legal secretary and took classes at Los Angeles City College.

While eating lunch at a diner near her workplace, Ellen was discovered by photographer William Graham and his wife, who asked if they could take some test shots of her, which they sent to Playboy.

Ellen’s work with Playboy took her to Chicago, where she was a Bunny at the Playboy Club and lived in the Playboy Mansion.

Ellen later moved to Canada, where she did some freelance modeling, acting as her own agent. She moved to New York in 1963, found work with several modeling agencies and spent the 1960s modeling for advertisements, both in print and television.

Ellen had a brief marriage to photographer and director Gordon Sheppard when she was 29. She then moved to California in 1969 and met her second husband, with whom she had two daughters. They divorced after 23 years of marriage.

Ellen later worked in property management, owning rental properties in the Los Angeles area, and attended Playboy events and Glamourcon conventions.

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Digital | Publicity | Later in life

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