Janet Pilgrim

Janet was Playmate of the Month for July 1955, December 1955 and October 1956. She one of only two women to be a three-time Playmate.

Janet was born Charlaine Edith Karalus on June 13, 1934, in Wheaton, IL.

Karalus was employed in Playboy’s corporate office when she became Playmate of the Month in July 1955. Playboy was in its second year of production and had previously used professional models as Playmates. Karalus worked in the subscription department and agreed to pose for a new Addressograph for the office. Hugh Hefner reportedly chose the pseudonym Janet Pilgrim to make fun of sexual puritanism.

“Posing for the centerfold was a big step for me to take,” she said later in life in a Daily Star newspaper story. “The pictures are very modest by today’s standards, but back then they weren’t.”

Janet appeared topless with a tuxedo-clad man in the background, reported to be Hefner. Readers sent letters asking for more of Janet. Despite getting offers to model for outside agencies, Janet chose to pose twice more for Playmate pictorials. She was listed on Playboy magazine’s masthead as head of the reader services department for the next 10 years.

Janet is said to be the prototype for the “girl next door” approach to Playmates from that time onward.

Janet went to to marry, have two children and settle in Connecticut. In the early 1980s, she attended college to become a registered nurse, and worked in geriatrics.

Janet died May 1, 2017, in Norwalk, CT, at age 82.

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Digital | Video |Later in life

Playboy appearances:

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NSS:

Foreign:

Other publications:

Television:

  • Showtime special, Playboy’s Playmate Reunion (1982)
  • E! True Hollywood Story (2006) in the episode “Hugh Hefner: Girlfriends, Wives and Centerfolds

Playboy videos: