Valentine Vixens: Inaugural edition featuring Margaret Scott

Today, instead of crawling back in to bed, I am forcing myself to find a new project that will hopefully start me writing every day again. You know me and the playmates: spoonfuls of sugar help the medicine go down! With that idea, twenty-nine rays of sunshine to light up your lonelyhearted February are headed your way: a Valentine Vixen a day. Beginning right … now.

Photographed by Baumgarth Calendar Co and purchased by Hef in 1953.

Another of Hefner’s fortunate discoveries from the well-filled files of the John Baumgarth Calendar Company in Melrose Park, Illinois was pretty-in-pink Miss February, Margaret Scott. Miss Scott’s shapely figure and ultrafeminine dressing-room set apparently made her an instant hit with the readers who purchased the third issue of Hef’s infant magazine: she became an extremely popular Playmate, drawing stacks of letters from the legions of her enthusiastic supporters. There’s even a chance that Margaret posed again under another name. See Miss April 1954. (The Playmate Book, 1996)

In April 1954, Margaret appeared as the “gatefold” model under the name Marilyn Waltz, again in a picture purchased by Hef from Baumgarth Calendar Company (rest assured, I am chasing that lead down to see more pictures or my name is not Cheesecake McVintagepants).

Photographed by Baumgarth Calendar Co.

For her first official Playboy shoot, the lovely and talented Wisconsin-born model posed again as Marilyn Waltz the following April, in 1955, as the Playmate of the Month. Why, look at that, I already have that one saved due to the fact that I was planning a thingy on vintage centerfolds in tacky capri pants — there are laughably plenty.

Photographed by Hal Adams.

Thanks to her caginess and Hugh Hefner using nudie calendar photography during the fledgling years of the magazine Marilyn/Margaret can lay claim to being one of only two women who are three-time Playmates, giving them the most appearances as centerfolds of any women to ever be featured in the magazine. (The other is Janet Pilgrim, Miss July and December 1955, and Miss October 1956.) But Marilyn did not reveal her multiple appearances for over forty years.

After Hef broadly speculated as to the similarities between Marilyn Waltz and Margaret Scott in 1996’s The Playmate Book, Marilyn contacted Playboy and confirmed that both models were her: she had posed for Baumgarth Calendar Co. as Margaret Scott when she was younger, but had posed under her real name subsequently.

Waltz received more fan mail — ironically, for her Margaret Scott appearance — than any other Playmate in 1954. Her February 1954 Margaret Scott centerfold appearance is seen as a classic. (the wiki)

Marilyn Arduth Waltz Jordan died December 23, 2006, in Medford, Oregon. She was 76.

NSFW November: Month-long spoonfuls of sugar for EVERYONE!

November is my least favorite month. Well, I’m not high on January, either, actually. They are both just such drags, coming off of the high of October and December, respectively. Bleah. You may remember that I have a philosophy about dealing with downers, vis a vis boobs and their efficacious curing powers therein.

‘Naked November’ by Gabrielle Chiapparini on flickr

I’ve decided to put that theory in to large play all this month, while exploring ideas about changing views of women’s sexuality, including mine. So welcome to NSFW November! Every day this month, I’ll be spotlighting Miss Novembers of Playboys past; it’s easier than searching out autumny-fancy-pants amateurs and, since I felt compelled to go commercial on this idea, part of pursuing that will be to explore the compulsion.

(Farewell, artistic free-spirited amateur nudes; I am switching over to commercial bullshit for the month. FOR SCIENCE.)

Maybe the interesting stuff to come out of this will be ideas about the photographs’ compositions, thoughts on the lady in question’s body shape, details of the model’s later contributions to society, or even factoids about the magazine itself at that time. We’ll see, yes?

Let’s start …. now.