Girls of Summer: Heather Ryan, Miss July 1967

Photographed by Bill Figge and Ed de Long.

So, it’s still in the 80’s in my little pocket of the universe— that’s around 30 to you metric friendohs — and I say that calls for one last Girl of Summer. (Don’t call it an Indian Summer; call it Global Warming’s Brief and Only Benefit.)

The lovely and talented Heather Ryan was Playboy‘s Miss July 1967. She is an all-around smashing girl and I’m super-psyched to finally finish the write-up on her. Whatch’all know about unusal pets? Cause this strawberry blonde here’s ’bout to change the game.

Says Heather, I don’t think there’s anything unusual about owning an ocelot, but people always stare when we go walking together.”

(“Call of the Wild.” Playboy, July 1967.)

Not so sure it’s the ocelot they’re double-taking on.

[Heather] currently resides at her family’s Glendale home, on the brink of the canyon: “It’s pretty desolate out there, but we’re lucky that we have no close neighbors, because the ocelot often screams at night.”

(Ibid.)

No couch potatoes looking for a BJ and a Blockbuster night need apply:

“I am,” she says, “fascinated by adventure, and I suppose it pervades most of my tastes. I like actors like Paul Newman, Charlton Heston and Steve McQueen, because they usually portray men who are as untamed as my ocelot.”

(Ibid.)

Speed-loving Heather admits to driving her 1966 Mustang faster on occasion than the law prescribes.

(Ibid.)

Attagirl. Speaking of which, the most terrible Mustang experience befell me this week.

I was running a bit late on my way to work. I headed on to the freeway with a newish Mustang ahead of me. The guy crawled down the ramp and inched his way through the merge, then continued to torture me by poking around in the middle lane, keeping me from getting in to the leftmost, fastest lane.

I was totally shocked. You’re in a Mustang, man! You do not drive a Mustang in the middle lane! Somewhere in Germany, the Cappy just felt a pang in his heart and shook his head, and he didn’t know why: now you know, brother. A guy was driving a Mustang in the middle lane at about 60 mph. I know. It was a scandal.

Though she hasn’t had much exposure to the psychedelics-freedom-love movement currently the kick among West Coast youth, Heather recently witnessed a mass “love-in” at Elysian Park.

(Ibid.)

“I’d never seen such a crew — everybody walking about and presenting the most unlikely gifts, like fruits and flowers, to each other.”

(Ibid.)

But she was not much in to the hippie scene, particularly the men —

TURN-OFFS: Men with long hair, and the unnaturalness of women today.

(“Playmate Data Sheet.” Playboy. July 1967.)

Totally agree. I don’t like long hair on men … sorry long-haired friends, it’s just a personal preference. No long hair, no skinny jeans. Spread the word.

As for Ms. Ryan’s dislike of the “unnaturalness” of women, who can argue with that? Besides girdles and foam butts, there was already plastic surgery and ubiquitous hairpieces. Of course, the problem has only gotten worse. I can only imagine what Ms. Ryan thinks of some of today’s Playboy centerfolds.

Number one favorite shot with a bullet.

AMBITIONS: A legal secretary or model, or perhaps I’ll enter a biological institute and become a laboratory assistant and transcriber.

(Ibid.)

Ms. Ryan did not fulfill those ambitions …

…Because she totally exceeded them. Get it, girl! A wildlife biologist, Ms. Ryan is a published author and has lead all-female eco-tours. Taxidermy is her hobby. In the Playboy article, she mentions enjoying hunting quail and rabbit, so it’s kind of a natural progression.

Ms. Ryan also mentions, when asked what she thinks is a great read, Something Wicked This Way Comes. Bradbury’s little masterpiece is one of my top favoritest books of all time, too. I just re-read it last weekend, as I like to read it every year around Halloween. Synchronicity! One of these years when I’ve sufficiently expiated my sins of ignorance to Mr. Auden, I will have to have a “Something Wicked” October.

There are many books I read at special times of year, but Something Wicked is one which I never fail to get toe-curling excited about in my anticipation. The descriptions are gorgeous, the writing crackles and terrifies and moves you — I adore all Bradbury, but I put Something Wicked in the most special, highest place.

Click above to scope the original Playboy article scans; there are pictures included in the spread that are not in this post, so give those a spin!

Cover model Venita Wolfe was photographed by Mario Casilli, who shot the following month’s centerfold: the lovely and talented sweetheart DeDe Lind.

The Girls of Summer: Kelly Burke, Miss July 1966

Photographed by William Figge.

Kelly prefers making most of her natatorial plunges in the neighbors’ back-yard pool. “Besides the pool, they own two darling dogs,” she explains. “One’s a $700 pedigreed toy poodle named Suzie; the other’s a mongrel puppy that they rescued from the local dog pound for only five dollars. He’s named Toy Tiger and, needless to say, I’m in love with the mutt.”

(“Freckle-Face.” Playboy, June 1966.)

Good choice!

I’m an across-the-board mutt guy from Way Back: dogs, cats — men. Actually, I think I’m genuinely allergic to so-called “well-bred” dudes without debt. I’ve tried to date them and their leather car coats and confident wine-awareness makes my skin crawl. On the other hand, if you got a busted grill and drive a ’92 Honda Prelude with one broken headlight that won’t raise, know the difference between a single- and a double-wide, and front a ZZ Top cover band? I’m all yours.

Actual example: my friend J-Mys once tried to set me up on a double date with her and her boyfriend and a mortgage broker Senor R knew from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Polly Wolly Doodle All Day. J-Mys and Senor R cut out early and I was stuck with the mortgage broker, who was clearly not in to me either but was still talking some kind of folklore about variable rates and baloney sauce that I was not at all listening to because I was watching Clue in my head due to my crushing boredom, when I got up to get another pint of beer.

At the bar, this guy in a very dated No Fear t-shirt and battered, unironic John Deere ballcap saw I had actual folding money and asked me for change for the jukebox. We picked out a couple songs — I believe we went with Tom Waits, the Beatles, and “Thriller,” for novelty shits and giggles — and I told the boring mortgage broker that I was planning on going to the bathroom and going home.

I insisted we split the bill because I felt a few compunctions of guilt for wasting the early part of his Friday evening, even if I had in no way lead him to think the night had any kind of sexytimes in its future. Then I made sure the broker actually left, slipped out of the bathroom, and bullshitted with the ballcap guy on the porch about Quantum Leap and camping ’til my beer was done. Went home much happier than I’d been an hour earlier. Sneaky I guess but so much better.

As for the rest of the purple prose in that excerpt, I got hung up on “natatorial.” Really? Natatorial? Come on. That is some rich fertilizer right there. Talk about a needless fifty dollar word.

natatorial: (adj.) of, characterized by, or adapted for swimming.

Aww. Seems that some low-paid Playboy scribbler had a crush on his thesaurus.

That shot is freaking awesome. Hats off to Mr. Figge. “Natatorial” photography at its best? The reflection, the symmetry, the attention to every tile of the composition (rule of thirds) having something interesting in it — awesome sauce. Bill Figge is the shit.

As a medical buyer for one of California’s largest pharmaceutical cooperatives, Miss June has spent the past three years helping to supervise the selection of drugs destined to become shelf stock in hospitals and pharmacies throughout the Greater Glendale area.

(Ibid.)

Another stunning composition. The light-play is brilliant.

“My job can be fairly cut and dried one minute,” says the 21-year-old brunette, “and then, in typical Ben Casey fashion, a nearby hospital phones in an emergency order and I’m suddenly off and running all over the place to find the required medicines.”

(Ibid.)

The Ben Casey to which Ms. Burke refers was a popular television series which ran from the early- to mid-1960’s. The Bing Crosby-produced medical drama was filmed at Desilu Studios and starred Vince Edwards (Space Raiders, Return to Horror High*) as the titular surgeon Dr. Benjamin Casey. The opening sequence is famous for its serious, ominous overtones: this deep voice says, “Man — woman — birth — death — infinity.” Heavy shit, right?

*Yes, I deliberately picked the cheesiest, schlockiest, campiest of Edwards’ many legitimate credits to use as his two paranthetical citations, like those obscure B flicks would somehow make you say, “Oh, him!” I wanted to be funny. Vince Edwards is actually a talented and well-recognized actor who was very popular in his time: I am just a goofy rake.

Kelly now sports her own 1965 Oldsmobile convertible, in which she commutes daily from her new bachelorette bungalow in suburban Sylmar.

(Ibid.)

Just five months after Ms. Burke’s gatefold appearance, the Loop Fire wiped out huge swaths of the boundary between her new hometown of Sylmar and the Angeles Forest. The fatally unpredictable Loop Fire is still covered in firefighting course textbooks today as an example of the necessity for developing strong communication strategy to contain a dry canyon fire affected by high winds.

The Loop Fire began on November 1, 1966, at 5:19 am, on the edge of the Angeles National Forest. The El Cariso Interregional Fire Crew, which consisted of city and county firefighters, along with the El Cariso “Hot Shots,” a USDA-Forest crew of firefighters, sprang in to action to contain the blaze.

Tragically, a flare-up jumped from the forest to a canyon at the outer edges of Sylmar and created a wall of flame around it. A group from the Hot Shots crew was trapped inside, cut off from the rest of the firemen in a narrow and dry canyon of steep rock walls which, despite having no natural accelerants to move the fire along, still increases the energy of the fire because it functions as a “natural chimney,” creating tremendous heat and pressure.

Ten firefighters burned to death on site within minutes, while twelve others were injured, one critically.

Helicopter Pilot Troy Cook began rescue operations within 10 minutes after the men were burned. The diamond shaped area was still surrounded by fire when Pilot Cook hovered and picked up the first survivor.

(THE LOOP FIRE DISASTER – ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST – CALIFORNIA REGION: “A BRIEF OF THE REPORT OF THE GROUP ASSIGNED TO ANALYZE THE LOOP FIRE ACCIDENT.” US. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service. 1967: Washington, D.C.)

Pilot Roland Barton and his helicopter soon joined him and rescue operations continued with great courage and skill until all of the injured men were evacuated to the Los Angeles County Command Post on the Pacoima. From there the injured men were taken by auto to the hospital.

(Ibid.)

One of these injured men died at the LA County General Hospital November 6, but the rest survived thanks to the rescue efforts of the rest of the interregional team. A committee was formed by the Forest Service in conjunction with firefighting officials to use the tragic Loop Fire to improve fire prediction and containment methods, along with task force recommendations for the strengthening of safety and communication regulations.

The highly localized decisions and actions which resulted in the tragedy points to the need of:

(1) more specific direction on safe practices in similar topography; (2) specific control of helicopter attack; (3) scheduling of more complete inter- and intra-crew communication; and (4) adequate scouting to keep sector bosses currently informed when working in critical and possibly critical situations.

(Ibid.)

[We need to] make crystal clear in firefighting training that a “chimney,” “narrow box canyon,” or similar topographic feature is a Hazard Area even if devoid of fuel.

(Ibid.)

The El Cariso Regional Park on Hubbard in Sylmar is a memorial to the aforementioned El Cariso “Hot Shots,” the local United States Department of Agriculture – Forestry boys who were killed during their battle to keep the flames from entering the town.

That was kind of bummer stuff, so sorry, but an interesting slice of history. Wildfires in California are far more devastating than the earthquakes with which the rest of the country generally associates the state, and as a result, fire science in California is often at the cutting edge of research and methods for saving lives in the future.

But back to sunny Ms. Burke.

“I’ve become a real flower bug,” she reports, “since Mom and Dad bought a retail nursery in Yucaipa last year. Each time I visit them, I load up the back seat of the Olds with so much greenery before heading home that it winds up looking just like some sort of window box on wheels.”

(Ibid.)

That’s cute.

Weekends, June’s bantam (5′) beauty heads for the sun-drenched beaches of Santa Monica, equipped with an over-sized straw hat and nylon sailing parka. “My freckles still show no matter what I try!”

a) Yay for little lookers! Rock on with your pocket rocket self.
b) Why do freckled people always desire to hide them? Freckles are so unbelievably cute. I don’t get it.
c) It looks like she is Thumbelina laying in an orange peel. What the what is that stuff?

PEOPLE I ADMIRE: Albert Einstein, Dr. John Rock and Dr. Francis Kelsey, beause of their outstanding medical contributions.

MY IDEAL EVENING: Have cocktails and dinner, take in a movie, and then have a pizza.

(Playmate data sheet.)

Right on to Einstein, pizza, mutts, and having a serious job while attending Cal Poly Pomona during her appearance as a Playmate. Ms. Burke is the exception and not the rule of pretentious brandy-snifter marlarkey we went over earlier this week. Fun final fact: her sister-in-law, Allison Parks, was the 1966 Playmate of the Year.

Oh, and I guess a really fun final fact is that Ms. Burke was pregnant during this shoot. BOMBSHELL! Maybe that is why she is so adorably radiant. As you probably noticed, it’s another Cowboy Kate-influenced cover, I assume to reflect the “Girls of Texas” story. R.I.P., Sam Haskins.

The Girls of Summer: Elaine Morton, Miss June 1970

The lovely and talented Elaine Morton was Miss June 1970.

Photographed by William and Mel Figge. You have seen Bill’s billing on here before, but usually partnered with Ed DeLong. This time he worked with his wife, whose full name is Melba.

Ms. Morton got in a little late on the original Summer of Love action (barely missed it), but she was still feeling the reverbations of the first flower children and was all for being a free spirit.

People would profit from a bit more “live-and-let-live” logic, says blonde Elaine Morton, who wishes that “everybody would just butt out of everybody else’s business — as long as that business isn’t harming anyone.” Following her own recommendation, our June Playmate recently abandoned the comfortable confines of the family home in Burbank, California, and moved into her own bachelorette apartment across town.

(“Tuned-in Dropout.” Playboy, June 1970.)

Just a year ago, she was working part time as a salesgirl in a Glendale flower shop and full time as a home-economics major at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. “I was all hung up in establishment modes of living,” she says. “Then I decided to stop striving for those goals and find my own.”

(Ibid.)

Totally the best shot. Holy geez, what brain-asplodin’ cuteness.

Since that decision, Miss June has dropped out of Southern California’s “straight” life and, with her boyfriend’s help, converted a milk truck into a mobile pad and made the west coast of Baja California her home away from home. Traveling on her savings, she simply drives onto any unoccupied stretch of Baja beach facing the Pacific Ocean and camps there until the scenery gets “predictable,” then drives on to a new location.

(Ibid.)

That sounds pretty all right to me. I was just telling the infinitely great Mr. Salisbury last week in the comments that I would quit the rat race but they don’t let you camp on the beach anymore. I also love the idea that she was in a converted milk truck. It’s cool because by the 70’s milk delivery was archaic in the wake of supermarkets, so it was kind of a renaissance for the vehicle itself. I like the idea of a thing outliving one sort of usefulness and being repurposed in a fun way.

TURN-ONS: Crazy-looking clothes, things that are different.
IN MY SPARE TIME: I study, shop, swim — anything at all but be bored.
AMBITIONS: To work as an airline stewardess, and have a happy and interesting life.

(Official Playmate data sheet.)

According to Marxz on the vintage erotica forums, who I consider an infallible authority on Playmates past, Ms. Morton did not become an air hostess but rather returned to college and pursued a baccalaureate, followed by a teaching credential. She became an educator right here in California, which we all know is the noblest, sexiest, most thoughtful career anyone can ever take up, and that only the most very attractive and magnetic people choose this great state for it. Well done, Ms. M! Such a head on this one’s sweet shoulders!

Dig that grooving cover. Such great hip art, all slick with a smoky black backdrop and purple neon, etc, yes? Love it. The PMOY for 1970 was my beloved, super-duper-darlingest-dearest-departed Claudia Jennings, so now I’m bummed just thinking about her and all that.

Final much more upbeat note. Elaine’s cousin Karen Elaine Morton (not pictured above, that is still Elaine herself) was Miss July 1978, and, like the lovely and talented baseball wife and present-day reality star Jeana Tomasino Keough (Miss November 1980), Karen played a Vestal Virgin in Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part I. Pretty cool, yes?

Valentine Vixen — Lorrie Menconi, Miss February 1969

Happy birthday to a very special Valentine Vixen, the lovely and talented Lorrie Menconi, Miss February 1969!

Photographed by Bill Figge and Ed De Long.

Tomorrow is brain-asplodin’ly cute Ms. Menconi’s 62nd birthday. Felicitazioni, bella!

The write-up which accompanied Ms. Menconi’s centerfold, titled “Tuesday’s Child,” focused on her birthday and the implications of her Pisces nativity. You know how I feel about zodiac-quackery (unless what I’m reading is painful, scathing, and insulting, I am highly skeptical), but how can I resist an Italian sister in pigtails? Flap-flap, quack-quack — let’s discuss the zodiac.

Astrologically speaking, Lorrie Menconi has her pretty head in the stars. “I was born on Tuesday,” our valentine Playmate told us, “February 24th 1948. That makes me a Pisces, so I think it’s perfect to appear in the February issue — it just has to be good luck. I guess you could call me a zodiac nut. But so many Piscean characteristics are true of me that it’s hard not to believe in it!” (“Tuesday’s Child,” Playboy, February 1969.)

Exhibiting a prime Piscean trait — talkativeness — Lorrie goes on: “Pisces is a water sign, which may explain why I’m so crazy about living in California. We moved to San Diego when I was very young, so I don’t know what it’s like to live away from the water.”(Ibid.)

“The beach scene here is terrific. But the mountains in northern California are great, too.” (Ibid.)

Damned skippy, they are.

When Lorrie isn’t involved in the aquatic life, she indulges another Piscean fancy — a love of animals. Lorrie attributes some of her fondness for fauna to her mother, who wrote a children’s book called The Pony Who Lost Her Neigh. (Ibid.)

The Pony Who Lost Her Neigh must be out of print now, because all the traces that remain on a fairly deep search are Lee Menconi-Bandh’s copyright claims, first from 1965, renewed in 1993. Bummer. I’ll keep looking.

“All the animals in the story,” Lorrie explains, “were based on our family: my father, my three sisters and me. There was billy goat Harry, pony Susie, porky Marilyn and duck Rosane. I was a turkey — you know, ‘gobble, gobble’ — because I talk so much; there’s that Pisces again.”

Along with her sisters, she works part time at the House of Rattan, a shop managed by her mother. “We sell just about anything you can imagine that’s made of rattan,” Lorrie says.

Ms. Menconi, I can imagine many, many things. That you “sell anything you can imagine” made of rattan is a dangerous thing to say to a person who opens my eyes in the shower because I’m positive that, in the time it took me to suds up my hair, a shark has swum up the drain and is a centimeter from sinking his rows of razor sharp teeth into my foot (yes, I grasp physics and biology and am aware on an intellectual level of the impossibility of such a thing; no, that doesn’t stop me from opening my eyes and getting soap in them).

Rattan flyswatters, minivans, and light bulbs; rattan bikini bottoms; rattan file cabinets; rattan noodle soup; rattan statues of Ra, the Sun God; rattan Audubon guides to bird-watching and rattan flatware to compliment an ornate set of rattan china — all of these, you sold at your mother’s shop, Ms. Menconi? No? Then I cry fie and false advertising! “House of Rattan,” indeed. More like “Shack” or “Porta-Potty of Rattan.” Even “Junk Drawer of Unimaginative Rattan,” maybe. Pfft.

I kid. She was totally cute and is still completely beautiful; further, her family sounds very supportive. Ms. Menconi travels on the convention circuit, and also maintains an official website, where you can purchase autographed copies of prints from her justifiably popular Playboy spread.

A recent, striking picture. Italian ladies got it goin’ on: accept it!

Besides her looks, her adorable enthusiasm for her hometown of San Diego has also clearly held.

“You know, San Diego is called the place where California began, because the Spanish padres founded their first mission here in 1769. So this year, we’re celebrating our 200th birthday. I’m really proud of this city — it’s sunny and warm and beautiful.” (Ibid.)

Her official site is sponsored by the San Diego Beachlife Press.

Again, supersonic birthday wishes and eskimo kisses to the lovely and talented Ms. Menconi, and many, many happy returns!

NSFW November: Lisa Baker, Miss November 1966

The lovely and talented Lisa Baker, Playboy’s Miss November 1966 enjoys jazz, cheese-tasting, and a refreshingly open-minded take on afternoon snacking attire.

Photographed by either Bill Figge or Ed DeLong

Cheese looks like simple red-rind edam, alcohol looks like some kind of dessert wine, I am going to say Sauternes because I could drink that by the bottle and think it pairs well with cheese.

I like to order a cheese plate, where they give you the whole range from mild to sharp, with a glass of Sauternes at a fancy place when I feel like being hoity-toity and/or want to die from eating cheese, as I am viciously lactose intolerant and never remember to carry any kind of medicine with me. Read: if in some distant future, I am out with you, and I order a cheese plate, sex is not even remotely on my mind. The spirit may be willing thanks to the wine, but the flesh? Weak doesn’t begin to cover it.

Stomach swelling and projectile vomit notwithstanding, I am not the only girl who gets ga-ga over cute little cheese samples and suchlike. Sauternes and a cheese plate with nuts and triangle slices of that quince stuff have mellowed many a lady’s mind and made her look at her date more charitably. All the elements of a cheese-tasting spread are honestly easy to procure, and look super-posh. Believe me. Take this to the bank. We women go bananas for that kind of shit. Dessert wine, cheese varieties, almonds, and quince: write that down.

Records visible in the centerfold photo are Trini Lopez’s “Trini Lopez at PJ’s,” a live recording from 1963; the 1960 album “Hello Love” by Ella Fitzgerald; and “Playboy Presents: Once In A Blue Moon” by Johnny Janis (nice plug by the magazine).

Get it: the skis make her bunny ears. That’s kind of clever, right?

Anyway, I’ve blathered all this time about cheese and wine and LP’s mainly because I got all these pictures but very little info about Ms. Baker, other than that she was Playmate of the Year in 1967. Outside of that, her credits kind of died down around the late ’70s and they were all Playboy projects. I actually found more about her present doings than I did her past. She is currently still an active spokesmodel for products and print model available for photoshoots, appearing at conventions around the United States.

l to r: DeDe Lind (Miss August 1967), Helena Antonaccio (Miss June 1969), and Lisa Baker at Glamourcon 2006, from Helena’s official website.

Interestingly, according to the wiki, Ms. Baker now lives in Florida and rooms with fellow retired Playmate DeDe Lind, who is alleged to be one of the most popular Playmates ever, garnering the most bags of mail ever received in the magazine’s history up until the time of her appearance in August, 1967. The two travel to conventions together and appear at local events.

You keep on keepin’ on, girls. God bless ’em!

Photographed by Patrick “Patman” Sun, DragonCon 1998. Judging from her expression and her grip on that alien, I think Ms. Lind may have been over-served at the hotel bar.