Honor Thy Playmate

Dan Stiffler calendar-girls@mindspring.com
Thu, 15 May 2003 01:17:14 -0400


I recently posted a brief statement on the PML that occasioned a private
response from Dianne Chandler, Miss September 1966.  I suggested to her that
this forum might be interested in her story, and she asked me to pass it
along.  Just in case some of the readers here do not read the PML or missed
my original post, I will recap and then share Dianne's information.

I had commented on the fact that, in the early days, PLAYBOY would send
playmates to college campuses to do promotions (Janet Pilgrim at Dartmouth
was my example) and that nowadays PLAYBOY seems more interested in sending
its playmates to talk shows like Howard Stern's where the playmate can be
humiliated by insulting questions.

Dianne then remembered her experiences as a playmate in the mid-sixties:

In a lot of ways, Playboy is not nearly as well received on campuses now as
it was back then.  I attended Playboy "promotions" at virtually every major
campus in the Midwest and many schools in the South and even in Canada.
Usually these were "sponsored" by a fraternity, but often by a men's
clothing store or new car-dealership opening, or sometimes as a guest on a
TV or radio station.  I'd fly into the town, be met & picked up by a couple
of people and taken to my hotel to freshen up.  Then I would go sign
autographs all day.....and the lines were long.  I'd almost never get a
lunch break.  Then change for dinner and/or a frat party, give several TV &
newspaper interviews and then go have a few beers and dance with all the
guys at the frat house.  The fans were always cool and respectful, but fun,
too.  Of course there was the occasional drunk or rude person, but these
were rare.  In just my own little promotional background, I went to: U of
Ind., U of Nebraska (where I rode in a convertible, holding a huge bouquet
of red roses & was driven around the football stadium before the game), U of
Oklahoma, U of Kansas, LSU, U of Toronto in Winnipeg, Ohio State, Roanoke
College, U of Tenn, Tenn State, Miami of Ohio, Ball State U, U of Missouri,
Indiana State, Northern Ill. U., Wisconsin State U., Lawrence U., Southern
Ill. U., and lots of others which I can no longer remember.  (I had to look
on my little charm-bracelet to get the names above, and I didn't get a charm
from every school.)

I was always welcomed generously, with lots of TV & news press (I have a
scrapbook) and never, ever would I be sent to anything like Howard Stern.
The questions I received were polite and friendly, of the usual sort: How
did you get involved with Playboy, what did your family say, etc.

I guess the salient point here is that, back then, everybody knew we were
just cute girls, more pin-ups than porn stars.  I have several newspaper
articles in which there's a photo of me or my Cover, and the headlines read
"Playboy Playmate in Town; Says Playboy Represents Wholesome Sex".  That's
it in a nutshell.  We **weren't** 15-sec celebs, muscle queens, TV
reality-show rejects, or semi-porn bimbos.  We were portrayed as wholesome
(to used the rather worn-out phrase) girls next door.  So they treated us as
such.  Clearly, Playboy respected us, so the public did too.

And now for a few further comments:

I know that there are people out there who will say this is a different
world, who will say that Howard Stern has a huge listening audience, who
will say that those golden days of Dianne's sixties are gone.  To those
people I say, yes, those days are gone, but that does not mean that the
concept of respect has vanished with them.  Unfortunately, today's playmate
is treated with far less respect than was yesterday's--by PLAYBOY and,
thusly, by the general public.

I find it ironic that PLAYBOY will today troll the college campuses for its
"Girls of..." issues, but playmates are no longer regularly sent to campuses
as ambassadors for the magazine.  Just think about the places that Dianne
visited; just think about all the college guys who, to this day, remember
dancing with a playmate!  Dianne's issue was the first to break the 4
million mark in circulation.  By the end of the following year, PLAYBOY was
circulating 5 million.

PLAYBOY was doing a lot of things right in the sixties.  One of the things
they have lost sight of recently is just how important the playmate is to
the vitality of the magazine.  She is, in fact, the magazine's lifeblood,
and she should be respected as such.

regards,

Dan Stiffler