Centrefold Venus of the Month 1: July - Yvette Vickers

A hip cat

From 50 years ago comes Yvette Vickers in a centrefold pose considered so risque at the time that Hugh Hefner's lawyers tried to talk him out of publishing it.

Fortunately for us, Hefner took no notice of them and Yvette appeared as Playmate in the July 1958 issue.

At this time in Playboy the only coloured photograph in the Playmate pictorial was the centrefold itself.

Indeed, it was the only nude picture as well, the other photographs being there to illustrate the Playmate's girl next door life.

Someone has posted a comment saying that they are the gentleman second from the right in this phorograph, next to the lovely Yvette herself.

Triple P always likes these "normal life" photographs as it reinforces part of the real strength of featuring real girls rather than models.  Anyway, even if they were models or dancers it's nice to see them as you might have seen them on the street.  It somehow makes their decision to take their clothes off for us that much more precious, in some way.  This is particularly true of the fifties girls when this sort of thing was much more unusual and daring.

The picture, photographed by exploitation film director Russ Meyer, and accompanying article were part of Playboy's conscious attempt to court the "beat generation".

Yvette with Paul Newman in Hud

Yvette, already a minor actress, rode the fame her centrefold generated and went on to be a reasonably successful B-movie and TV actress, although much of her part in the Paul Newman film Hud (1963) was cut as Newman's wife Joanne Woodward, didn't like the look of the all too apparent on-screen chemistry.

Flattened by the 5o foot tall woman

One of her most famous films was Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) where her character was killed by the eponymous monster female.

She modelled for other men's magazines at the time as well. More recently she made a jazz record and appeared on the cult film convention circuit.

Agent Triple P thinks her centrefold is one of the finest from the 1950's and it is interesting to see that this alternative pose has nothing like the slutty abandonment of the chosen image