Janet Pilgrim, Playmate of the Month July 1955, December 1955 and October 1956, pictured in NSS Pocket Playmates 6, 1997
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Janet in NSS Pocket Playmates 6
Janet Pilgrim, Playmate of the Month July 1955, December 1955 and October 1956, pictured in October 1956 Playmate of the Month pictorial, Janet’s Date at Dartmouth. The text with the pictorial read:
Janet’s Date at Dartmouth
An ivy weekend with Playboy’s office Playmate
What happens to an attractive young office girl when she suddenly becomes a favorite pin-up of several hundred thousand men across the country?
Janet Pilgrim, our subscription manager, found out soon after her Playmate appearances in the July and December issues of Playboy last year. There were a number of professional modeling offers, two TV proposals and a chance at a Broadway show, but these were easy to turn down because Janet likes her job at Playboy. More difficult to decline were the dozens of invitations from college men across the country to various dances, hops, balls, carnivals, beer-busts and other assorted formal and informal student functions. Janet couldn’t accept them all, so one school was selected to represent the many.
Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, is one of the oldest colleges in the country, steeped in tradition, with a history dating back to pre-revolutionary days. It is the winter sports center of the Ivy League, famous for its annual Winter Carnival that served as background for Budd Schulberg’s novel, The Disenchanted. When this stately institution requested permission to build a campus show around a Playboy theme, we were flattered and, in granting the request, waggishly inquired if Janet Pilgrim might not be valuable as a supervisor of the proceedings. The Dartmouth men called our bluff and responded with a ringing Yes!
With a movie star or Broadway celebrity, this eagerness might have been expected, but when such campus commotion was caused by the anticipated arrival of a Chicago office girl, this was news – and Life decided they’d better cover the event, assigning a photographer and correspondent to stay with the young lady throughout the trip.
It had been decided in Hanover that Janet should have a student escort, so the college paper, The Dartmouth, ran an “I Would Like Janet Pilgrim For My Playmate Because” contest. Leonard J. Clark, president of the local chapter of Beta Theta Pi, won the honor – not by completing the sentence in 25 whistles or less, but by painting a Cole-like picture of himself plucking the petals from a daisy. The simple caption: “Pilgrim … because.”
Janet arrived early Friday and was escorted first to a press conference in the offices of the school paper, where a corps of some 50 “correspondents” had gathered. They asked about her job. Yes, she really was subscription manager of the magazine. Had she ever done any professional modeling before becoming a Playmate? No, she’d never been interested. Did Playboy raise her salary when she started becoming famous? She received a raise, but only because her subscription job had grown; she had a single girl working for her when she posed for her first Playmate picture and now there were 18 women in her department. Janet discovered that The Dartmouth had been printing stories and pictures of her on the front page all week, and now they wanted a photograph of her being kissed by her date. She obliged.
Janet was hustled from the press conference to a lecture hall where English 96 was scheduled. The hall was a large one, with a gallery in addition to a sizeable main floor, but for some strange reason it was completely filled. An instructor, Severn DuVall, stepped forward to dismiss the class because the scheduled lecturer was ill, but changed his mind and introduced Janet as a guest lecturer instead. She talked about the operation of her subscription department – a dry topic, one might think, but almost everything she said was greeted with wild cheers: when she confessed she had never quite “made” college, the walls shook with laughter. Instructor DuVall remarked that Professor Robinson was certainly going to be sorry he missed class.
On Friday afternoon a brief rehearsal of the variety show was held and that evening Janet and her escort ate in Thayer Hall, the freshman dining room. Janet was practically mobbed when she entered – students cheered and stood on their chairs for a better view. One presented her with a gift: the top half of his pajamas (a Playboy article on Janet had mentioned she likes to wear men’s PJ tops to bed). After dinner, she was guest of honor at a meeting of a senior secret society, The Casque and Gauntlet, where a strict rule against picture-taking on the premises was understandably, relaxed. At 11:30 p.m. Janet was interviewed on WGDS, the college radio station, and read the midnight news from the UP wire service.
The next morning, Len Clark took Janet shopping and bought her one of the ankle length green-and-white scarves Dartmouth men traditionally give their dates. Lunch followed, then a session of Playmate autographing, more rehearsals, and a faculty tea at which Janet met faculty members, their wives and the Dean.
After a quick cocktail and dinner, she dressed for the variety show, appropriately titled The Playboy Playbill. Janet was introduced and thunderous pandemonium reigned. She apologized for not being able to sing or dance and doubted that anyone would care to watch her enter subscriptions on the stage. She said she had brought along some Party Jokes submitted by Dartmouth students, however. These were all too off-color for publication, but if the audience wanted her to, she would read some aloud. Len Clark then hustled her off stage, but she returned to clown with the show’s m.c., Jack Upham (a young man who looks and talks incredibly like the late Fred Allen), help two magicians with their act and be serenaded while sitting atop a grand piano. For the finale, an elephant pulled a Dartmouth banner from her sweater, she produced another, and they both waved them while the band played a campus favorite, Dartmouth’s in Town Again.
As the weekend came to a close, the Dean remarked that he had never met anyone “from the outside” who had comported herself more creditably or better represented her organization than our girl Janet. It was a mighty milestone in Pilgrim’s progress: one that Janet – and a lot of guys – will never forget.
Ellen Stratton, Playmate of the Month December 1959, pictured in Playmate of the Year pictorial, June 1960
Jonnie Nicely, Playmate of the Month August 1956, pictured in Playmate of the Month pictorial, Command Performance. The text accompanying the photos read:
COMMAND PERFORMANCE
A near Miss makes a curvy comeback
Playboy readers are a strongly partisan bunch, quick to tell us when they like something – or when they don’t. Last October, we were faced with the delightful dilemma of choosing between two potential Playmates, each lovely in her own way. We hemmed, hawed, made our choice; and in addition to the Playmate proper, we printed photos of the girl who didn’t quite make it. The result was a deluge of letters telling us we were blind as the well-known bat and should have picked the other girl. The other girl’s name was, and is, Jonnie Nicely. She’s Miss August, and we’re glad. It grieved us to turn her down before.
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Cheryl in Stare
Cheryl Kubert, Playmate of the Month February 1958, pictured in Stare magazine, December 1958
Cheryl Kubert, Playmate of the Month February 1958, pictured in Playmate of the Month pictorial, Playmate on Skis. The text accompanying the photos read:
PLAYMATE ON SKIS
Miss February schusses her way into our hearts
It is really immaterial whether Cheryl Kubert, the disarming skier you see here, is a snow bunny (beginner) or a schussboomer (terror of the slopes); whether she is given to geländeschprungen (dazzling leaps) or snowplowing (tyro tactics). All that really matters is that she makes the cutest sitzmarks we’ve seen on any ski slope, a talent which must surely cause kindly old Ullr, Schützpatron der skifahrer (the patron saint of skiers) to look upon her with the same approval as we mere mortals. This seems an excellent opportunity to remind everyone that the correct, original Scandinavian pronunciation of “ski” is she. And what sweeter reminder could you wish for than Cheryl?
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Marianne in Glamorgirl Photography
Marianne Gaba, Playmate of the Month September 1959, featured in Glamorgirl Photography magazine, December 1959
Marianne Gaba, Playmate of the Month September 1959, pictured in Playmate of the Month pictorial, A Cover Girl Uncovers.
The text with the pictorial read:
A Cover Girl Uncovers
Her face is her fortune, but there’s hidden treasure too
If the face is familiar, it is because Marianne Gaba’s cute countenance has appeared on countless magazine covers across the country, especially the romance and movie fan publications which chronicled, in considerable detail, her recent “going steady” with teenage heart-throb Ricky Nelson. Marianne is a starlet in Hollywood, concentrating on what she hopes will be a successful movie career, with just enough spare time to satisfy the lensmen who shoot those magazine cover portraits, but up till now insufficient attention has been given to the rest of the Gaba goodies. This may seem peculiar, too, since it was surely the sum total of Marianne that won for her the Miss Illinois title in the Miss Universe contest two years ago and first took her to Hollywood, but it can be explained by Marianne’s reluctance to be typed as “just another bathing beauty” and her corresponding refusal to pose for any of the West Coast’s hundreds of pin-up photographers. She has made an exception for Playboy, however, for which we’re mighty grateful, and so we proudly present something more of Marianne Gaba than has ever graced a magazine before, in the fetching form of Miss September.
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Judy in unidentified photo set
I’m not sure where this series on Judy Lee Tomerlin, Playmate of the Month June 1958, is from. The images are higher quality versions of the ones that were published in her Playmate of the Month pictorial, Photographing Your Own Playmate.
Judy Lee Tomerlin, Playmate of the Month June 1958, pictured in Playmate of the Month pictorial, Photographing Your Own Playmate.
The text with the pictorial read:
Photographing Your Own Playmate
One of our office girls helps us show you how to take a prize pin-up photo
Ever since Nicéphore Niepce took the first photo back in the 1820s, photographing pretty girls has been a popular pastime; and in recent years, about the most popular photographs of pretty girls have appeared in Playboy as Playmates. With the idea of giving you a few pointed pointers on shooting a Playmate of your own, here’s the way Playboy goes about it:
The first thing you don’t need is a professional model. There’s an extra added attraction to the the fact that your fair subject is a secretary or a clerk in the book store where you picked up a copy of Burton’s British Mammals yesterweek. We, for instance, find our Playmates in lingerie shops, airplanes, country clubs – and in our own offices.
Judy Lee Tomerlin, 18, is a receptionist on the fourth floor of the Playboy Building: she is attractive, personable, and fresh from Tennessee, having been with us just under half-a-dozen months at the time we began thinking about her as a Playmate. Modeling experience, professional or amateur: none. Perfect for our purpose. We broached the subject. Judy Lee was aware of our previous office Playmate, Janet Pilgrim, and we considered enlisting Janet’s aid in the friendly persuasion, but we didn’t want to make things too easy for ourself. Judy Lee did the proper amount of hemming and hawing for a couple of days; then, finally, she said “Yes” (we’ve discovered, incidentally, that there is a direct relationship between how shapely a girl is and her willingness to show that shape: it is easier to talk a well-stacked girl into removing her clothes for the camera than a dumpy one). The shooting session was scheduled for the very next Saturday afternoon, right here in Playboy’s executive offices. A step-by-step photo-and-caption account of how things went occupies these pages. Technical tips? Coming right up:
Recommended for Playmate photography is any good twin-lens reflex camera (that’s what we used). You’ll want to load the box with a fast color film, like Super Ansochrome Tungsten. Lighting should be kept sweet and simple: a pair of speed lights – or, lacking these, photofloods – bounced off the ceiling, will give you a flattering, diffused light. Place your keylight (main source) above the lady, directed down upon her at a 45° angle, from an approximate distance of six feet. About eight feet from her, set up your fill-in light, a foot or so to the side of the camera, slightly above the lens. Try 500-watt 3200K lamps in 12-inch reflectors. Using these and the suggested film, your exposure should be around 1/30 second at f/5.6 – fast enough to freeze slight movements and sharp enough to allow for small deviations from the prefocused point between shutter-snappings.
Photographing a Playmate, however, whether it’s done by a professional photographer or a hobbyist, is something more than a lot of 45° angles and 3200K lamps. It’s the most fascinating kind of photography there is – in short, it’s fun. We express the hope that you have as much fun – and also as much good luck – shooting your Playmate as we had shooting ours. When the film came back from processing, we were pleased with the results, and so was Judy Lee. So pleased she thought she might like to give professional posing a whirl. We wish our comely coworker well in the modeling field, but harbor the hope that her new career doesn’t take her from our midst too soon, for the fourth floor of the Playboy plant would be a bit less bright without her.
Pipe and PJs: The Fifties 