“Wholly Toledo!” is the name of the article that accompanies the pictorial for the lovely and talented Cynthia Myers, Playboy’s Miss December 1968. Her wildly popular centerfold shot her to stardom among the troops in Vietnam, and a pinup of her is featured in the film Hamburger Hill. She has been a teen model, a television personality, played a lesbian songstress in one of the most famous camp films out there, and become an unwitting space cowgirl in her 60 years on this planet. Buckle up, because here we go!
Cynthia wrote to Playboy a few years ago, informing us that she’d like to be considered as a centerfold beauty. Assistant Picture Editor Marilyn Grabowski answered with a reminder that our Playmates must be of legal age but that Cynthia should keep in touch. She did just that.
Well, kind of.
The shot was in June of ’68, and Ms. Meyers was born in September of ’50, but Playboy waited until Cynthia was comfortably 18 to publish her pictorial. It had become common practice for the magazine after the scandal with Elizabeth Ann Roberts.
In fact, the most recently featured “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” playmate, the fantastic Susan Bernard, was also 17 at her photoshoot and saw her spread published after she turned 18.
Posing underage for Playboy is not the only common ground between Ms. Bernard and Ms. Myers. While Ms. Bernard was featured in Russ Meyers’ cult classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, today’s special gal starred in his 1970 film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
I promise to have a full-out Movie Moment for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls one of these days. For my friend’s recent 31st birthday, I sent him a picture of the cast of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls with him tagged as Dolly Read and me as Cynthia Myers. I explained that I originally had me as Dolly and him as Cynthia, but I switched it because it was his birthday.
You know Roger Ebert wrote it? I don’t think he ever gets to criticize a movie again.
Cynthia is pictured reading a five-year-old palmistry pamphlet about what the following year once held for her because she placed a large credulity in psychic phenomenon.
“I’ve known since I was 15 that I’d be a Playmate. It’s almost as if this had been fated to happen.” Cynthia’s penchant for precognition can be traced to her early teens.
(Ibid.)
“A junior high school friend of mine in Toledo,” she says, “was a nut on palmistry, astrology and even reading tea leaves and crystal balls. Like most people, I thought is was just a bunch of baloney. But when I began reading about prophets like Edgar Cayce, I began to realize that there are strange spiritual forces in the world undreamed of even in The Playboy Philosophy.”
(Ibid.)
Ms. Myers, I think you’d be surprised by what the Playboy philosophy can dream of.
In 1994, it was revealed that a picture from Ms. Myers’ centerfold pictorial was among several that crafty NASA jokesters have launched in to space over the years. Ms. Myers, together with Leslie Bianchini, Angela Dorian, and Reagan Wilson, was snuck in to the checklist for the Apollo 12 mission that was placed in astronauts’ suit cuff on their trip to the moon in November of 1969. Ms. Myers specifically took her space journey with astronaut Al Bean.
Don’t forget: Describe the protruberances.
Boobs : Geeks :: Horse : Carriage. I think it’s kind of funny and sweet.
And the gals didn’t just go up in the lunar landing module: they straight moon walked. The astronauts found their pictures while fulfilling their extravehicular (read: outside the module on the lunar surface) mission duties on the moon itself.
Pete Conrad got Miss September 1967, Angela Dorian, (“Seen any interesting hills and valleys?”) and Miss October 1967, Reagan Wilson (“Preferred tether partner”). Al Bean got Miss December 1968, Cynthia Myers (“Don’t forget — Describe the protuberances”), and Miss January 1969, Leslie Bianchini (“Survey — her activity”).
(“Playboy Playmates pranked into Apollo 12 mission checklists.” January 13, 2007. BoingBoing.net.)
Conrad told us in 1994: “I had no idea they were with us. It wasn’t until we actually got out on the lunar surface and were well into our first moon walk that I found them.” Bean recalled: “It was about two and a half hours into the extravehicular activity. I flipped the page over and there she was. I hopped over to where Pete was and showed him mine, and he showed me his.”
(Ibid.)
A large, color version of the shot of Cynthia that was smuggled up to the moon in the Apollo 12.
Lest we forget, the lovely and talented DeDe Lind, Miss August 1967 and, like Cynthia, one of the most popular Playmates in the magazine’s history, also rode shotgun on the Apollo 12 mission. She was in the control console, her picture labelled, “Map of a heavenly body.”
I always feel compelled when talking about the Playmate pictures and NASA to bring up the fact that my sorority’s badge is on the moon. Neil Armstrong put it there for his wife. It’s my sorority’s badge and it is on the moon. The moon that is in space. Sorry, but I get pretty cocky and excited by that. Tell a friend.
This much more recent picture of Ms. Myers just might get her kicked out of the Red Hat Society.
Can our prescient Playmate predict anything about her future? “I’m going to be an actress,” she says simply. “Notice I didn’t say ‘I’d like to be,’ but ‘I’m going to be.’ I don’t know how good I’ll be as an actress, but I’ll be one.”
(“Wholly Toledo!” Playboy. December 1968.)
Judging from her track record as a prophetess — and from her already abundant attributes — we’d like to venture a prediction of our own: Playmatehood should be just the beginning for the remarkable Miss Myers.
(Ibid.)
Tags: a confession, Al Bean, Angela Dorian, Apollo 12, baby, barely legal, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, boobs, breasts, centerfold, Cynthia Meyers, Cynthia Myers, Cynthis Myers, dede lind, Dolly Read, Edgar Cayce, Faster, images, It's Cold Outside, Leslie Bianchini, lunar landing, lunar landing module, Miss December 1968, Miss January 1969, model, models, moon, moon walk, movies, palmistry, Pete Conrad, photography, Pictures, playboy, playmate, pompeo posar, pubic hair, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, quotes, Reagan Wilson, Roger Ebert, Self-audit, space, space mission, stills, Susan Bernard, television will rot your brain, topless, tree hugging hippie crap, vietnam, vintage, Wholly Toledo, writing
December 22, 2010 at 12:26 pm |
bloody lovely
July 29, 2011 at 10:39 am |
i rem. i was in nam when this came out
November 21, 2012 at 10:15 am |
I have a copy for sale
July 5, 2015 at 7:56 am |
Me Too
November 5, 2011 at 10:42 am |
Gone today you will be missed… please come again soon.
Cynthia Myers died today at 61.
December 22, 2012 at 9:50 am |
This is shocking. I wrote a screenplay around her: http://bit.ly/WEDY6S Years ago I contacted her to see if she would play herself, and she agreed. She sent me an autographed picture. She was an inspiration in so many ways. I’m so saddened. Too young to go so early.
December 24, 2011 at 8:08 am |
E,
Another girl from ’68, a forgotten one named Michelle Hamilton (real name: Roxanna Platt) became a medical doctor in later life. I don’t think there are too many playmates who went on to such impressive educational and professional accomplishments after their modeling days were over. Most of ’em try for some sort of show biz career, or they just settle for marriage & kids. That Ms. Platt took such a different path in life sort of amazes me. And to top it all off, she also had some of the nicest tits in Playboy history. You should do a post on her.
December 26, 2011 at 3:08 pm |
[…] hearing about this now… […]
January 2, 2012 at 4:44 pm |
my fav playmate forever..God blessed me to see her on film.
never will forget BVD & the Carrie Nations. We’re the same
age-she sept, me oct, got a picture from the website with a
sweet written response from the lady. She left the world a
better place and us guys lovestruck.
January 3, 2012 at 4:00 pm |
[…] Myers (61- undisclosed): Extremely sexy Playboy playmate.of 1968. Brunette. 39 D. All woman! She also appeared in Beyond The Valley of the […]
February 13, 2012 at 9:29 pm |
Always wanted to get my hands on those warm globes, smother myself in those lovely pillows. Let the world go By I’d be happy sleeping in those puppies!
March 13, 2012 at 10:57 am |
I was in Viet Nam when I saw her in that issuet. She is my all time favorite because to me, she epitomizes the ultimate Playboy Bunny. She would have been a perfect real-life model for that little cartoon tart that used to be alongside the jokes on the back of the centerfold. I still have that same Playboy foldout. It is the only one I have ever kept.
April 19, 2012 at 7:08 am |
Cynthia was the most Beautiful woman of all time.I also sensed a sensitive soul.Henry Briceno an admirer since December 1968
May 19, 2012 at 11:29 am |
If there were another woman as lovely as Cythia Myers, I’m confident I would have found her by now.
May 30, 2012 at 2:13 pm |
GOT… DAMN THOSE TITTIES ARE HUGE & VERY NICE I’D DEFINITELY. PUT’EM IN MY MOUTH!!!
June 13, 2012 at 4:28 pm |
[…] photos in Bean’s cuff checklist were of Cynthia Myers, Miss December 1968 (“DON’T FORGET – DESCRIBE THE PROTUBERANCES”) and Leslie Bianchini, Miss […]
August 9, 2012 at 2:37 pm |
I was a big fan of Cynthia most of my life. She was my favorite playmate by far. My condolences to her family as her loss a tremendous heartbreak. Many loved her.
Azar
November 6, 2012 at 3:23 am |
Too young. A beautiful woman. December of 68 was the worse time of my life. A least there was one good thing about it.
November 15, 2012 at 10:14 am |
I would like to express my deepest heartfelt sympathies to Cynthia’s family. She truly was an American Beauty! Cynthia will be greatly missed, but never, ever forgotten!
November 15, 2012 at 10:21 am |
I would like to express my deepest heartfelt sympathies to Cynthia’s family. She truly was an American Beauty! Cynthia will be greatly missed but never, ever, ever forgotten!
January 15, 2013 at 9:11 pm |
Cynthia Myers … simply one of the best Playmates of all-time. Her natural beauty is timeless.
In my opinion, she was The Doll in the Russ Meyer cult classic film “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”. (By the way, The Carrie Nations absolutely rocked!)
Rest in peace, lovely Cynthia.
April 5, 2013 at 1:10 pm |
Boy I was 16 years old and she was and still is my favorite playmate, everything I loved in a woman, she had.
May 3, 2013 at 6:25 pm |
This lovely adorned my Clifton HS locker door for my entire senior year in 1970. A sight for sore eyes just before Modern European History class.
September 21, 2013 at 11:24 pm |
Cynthia Myers: Legendary Playmate.
Without question, she is an eternal beauty. RIP.
November 10, 2013 at 10:32 pm |
Simply a magnificent person as well as an icon !
November 11, 2013 at 10:08 pm |
If there were another woman as lovely as Cythia Myers, I’m confident I would have found her by now. Ditto that comment..
December 23, 2013 at 1:43 pm |
So sorry to hear of Cynthia’s passing. She will always be my favorite playmate. I can still remember seeing her centerfold for the first time back in 1968 and being speechless for a moment. Then all I could say was “Awesome!” I still think that is just as true today.
January 10, 2014 at 5:54 pm |
cynthia-i have loved you since i saw you in dec.68 playboy,and have been searching for you ever since-!!-you are one of the first girls that i ever remember jacking off to,and you have the most memorable,and sexiest set off tits,that i ever saw-!! john
February 21, 2014 at 4:29 pm |
I met and talked with her a number of times at L.A. Glamourcon conventions. She was most certainly one of the Playmates I wanted to meet the most when I first learned about that series of conventions in the 90’s. On one of those first occasions, we met in the hotel lobby while she had a smoke. She seemed a bit distracted at the time, so I can’t say it was a nice encounter. A few shows later I had her sign a periodical in which she gave a lengthy interview. For some reason she was especially attentive to me that day. I was looking and smelling my best that day, so perhaps the adage about clothes make the man is true. She signed the cover “To sexy (real name), Love, Cynthia”
June 14, 2014 at 1:01 pm |
She was the first and the last, they don’t make em like that anymore, and they never will again, all pale in her comparison she was the Cadillac of all and should have bore her name Mercedes Wow baby you are and will always be the best from all the rest and yes though you’re gone you will always be the brightest shining star who could ever replace you no one and you will always come out big on top sweet angel love and peace always Paul K.
June 28, 2014 at 12:45 am |
One of my favorite playmates : she was so beautiful. And wow, those boobs !
January 4, 2015 at 8:53 pm |
She was only a week younger than me.
RIP, Young lady
September 1, 2015 at 10:30 am |
My very favorite Playmate ever. Got the jig saw puzzle, put it together, and kept in plain view on top of a bureau. Even with all her beauty and fame, she was still nice enough to keep in touch with her fans. She was on my side of Atlanta and she had sent me a message where she would be on a certain date. Actually we chatted on the chat section of her website and told me where and when she would be here. I don’t know how it happened, but some way I missed meeting her. That was my loss. I wish I had gotten to meet the most beautiful and caring person in the world. Such a great woman. Loved by millions and I was one of them. A great loss when she passed on. I’ll never forget
October 3, 2015 at 7:17 am |
We were friends in High School. RIP Cindy.