Snowy Venus 1: Lenna Sjööblom

As it snows again now (we have had six days of snow on the ground; quite unusual in the south east of England) we thought we would have a snow bunny in the lissome shape of Lenna Sjööblom, Playboy's Playmate of the Month for November 1972.  

We  posted her as a Centrefold of the Month over three years ago but realise that we need to update the post as it is not as complete as our more recent efforts.  It does not include this picture, for example.

Playboy occasionally had its girls posing in the snow like this but we were never convinced that the pictures were that sexy.  We are not at all sure that naked bodies and snow is an appealing combination! Here, however, Lenna's perfect posterior almost convinces us!  Brr!

Centrefold Venus of the Month 42: Hilary Stephens/Caroline Crowther, November 1977

We haven't had a Mayfair centrefold since February 2010 so thought it was about time we had another young lady from that most British of men's magazines.  Amidst the regular articles on old cars, World War 2 exploits and such like were rather more pictorials than the likes of Penthouse and Playboy had.

This issue, like the previous one we have featured comes from 1977.  Mayfair had refused to be dragged into the competition between the other magazines (principally Men Only, Club International, Fiesta, Knave and Penthouse in the UK) to become ever more explicit from the end of 1975.  Although by 1977 there was, just occasionally, a glimpse of labia in some of their pictorials.

Mostly, however, they presented young ladies like "Hilary" here who were usually quite obviously British.  They had none of the polished sensuality of the European girls who often featured in Club International and none of the overt sexuality of the Penthouse models.  This is not to say that they were unattractive but it was a real not fantasy attractiveness; a sort of busty barmaid down at the local pub approach.

Mayfair tended to take two approaches with its description of its women: they were either secretaries or hairdressers or very posh country or Chelsea types.  The implication being, often, that they had not posed before.  This, of course, was exactly the approach Bob Guccione had taken with Penthouse, which had been launched just under a year before Mayfair's August 1966 first issue in the UK.   In Penthouse's case, however, often his girls were first timers (initially they had to be to be Pet of the Month) and many of them were quite posh, as he used to pick them up from exclusive secretarial colleges on the King's Road.  In Mayfair the girls were often (sometimes quite well known) models.  

Anyway, the editor obviously decided that Hilary was going to be one of their posh girls, working as an estate agent and living in Fulham (not quite as posh as Chelsea but nearly) who had got into jolly scrapes at her boarding school.

Whatever, Hilary was posed in typical Mayfair style on location, inside, with typically gloomy weather visible through the windows.  We can't say that we are very inspired by her clothes in this pictorial and the wrinkled stockings don't do much for her either.  A detail that Hugh Hefner would have never let get into Playboy.

She does have a nice figure although the poses that she assumes don't always show it at its best and it would have been nice to see what another photographer might have done with her.  Photographer for this pictorial was David Hinton about whom we can find nothing whatsoever.

Hilary does not seemed to have posed again for Mayfair or any other magazines and that is probably due to the fact that she was shortly about to meet the man she would marry.

Hilary Stephens is, in fact, Caroline Crowther and was the daughter of Leslie Crowther, at the time one of the biggest stars on British TV.   Crowther's TV career started in the nineteen fifties and he was a presenter, compere and, latterly, game show host whose TV shows were some of the highest rated on television, including the UK version of The Price is Right.  Leslie Crowther was in a terrible car crash in 1992 from which he never fully recovered and died in 1996.

Caroline was one of five children and her sister, Liz, is an actress who became well known for her part as a radio station receptionist in the Bristol-set detective series Shoestring from 1979 to 1980.  Caroline was working for top British rock publicist Tony Brainsby when she met Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy, who were one of Brainsby's clients.

By 1978 she was pregnant with Lynott's child and they got married on Valentine's day 1980 at which point Caroline was five months pregnant with her second child.  The wedding was in a freezing cold church in Richmond, south west London, and the reception was at the Kensington Hilton.  During his speech at the reception Caroline's father famously said "When Philip asked for my daughter's hand in marriage I said,'Why not? You've had everything else!'"  

The wedding was attended by a host of figures from the pop world including Billy Idol and members of Thin Lizzy, Motorhead, Dire Straits, Bad Company and Midge Ure, who had played in Thin Lizzy for a time before forming Ultravox.

Source: BrandNewRetro

This picture comes from the Record Mirror coverage of the wedding, the text for which was written by Paula Yates, who we have featured as a non-centrefold of the month for her 1979 Penthouse shoot.

Caroline left Lynott in 1984, with her children, as his heroin use had got increasingly out of control.  But when Lynott collapsed on Christmas Day 1985 it was Caroline who drove him to a drugs clinic but he died on January 4th  1986.  

A magnificent rear!

We think Caroline is really rather splendid and the very average presentation of her in Mayfair just adds to her girl next door allure.

Norwegian Venuses - 5 million visits

Kari Knudsen

Yesterday, which was, coincidentally, Agent Triple P's birthday, this blog passed the five million views barrier.  To celebrate, as we have done in the past, we have decided to post some young ladies from the country with the closest population to our visits total.

Kari Knudsen

Fortunately, for five million, that country is Norway, so there is no shortage of lovely girls to choose from!  Over the years Playboy has had no less than seven Norwegian Playmates so what better selection could there be to celebrate our five millionth page view than looking at these nubile Nordic nymphs.

Kari Knudsen

Playboy's first Norwegian Playmate was revealed in February 1962 in the 36-23-35 five foot four inch shape of Kari Knudsen.  Although born in the tiny hamlet of Romsdal by the time Playboy unveiled the 23 year old she was living in New York.

Unne Terjesen

Playboy's second Norwegian Playmate was only a few months later, in July 1962, in the curvy form of Unne Terjesen.  Although born in the Norwegian town of Odda the then nineteen year old former hairdresser was living in Vancouver when photographer Ken Honey spotted her working in a local department store.

Unne Terjesen

Unne had been runner up in the 1960 Miss Norway competition and has a figure that looks like it was the idealised fantasy of a pin up artist.

Unne Terjesen

In fact Unne has the largest hip measurement of any Playboy Playmate ever: a really rather magnificent, but in no way overblown, 39 inches.   39-23-39 altogether.  Outstanding!

Britt Fredriksen

It would be over six years until Playboy had another Norwegian Playmate, but in June 1968 presented Britt Fredriksen originally from near Trondheim but by then studying in Palo Alto, California.

 Britt Frederiksen

However, she had originally come to Playboy's notice when working as a Bunny in St Louis.  In her Playboy pictorial it looks like she has had just a little too much sun which makes her look even more appealingly wide-eyed and innocent.

Britt Frederiksen

Britt was 5'4" tall and 34-21.5 (!)-34 and had, as we can see, a particularly pert posterior!

Liv Lindeland

The next Norwegian Playmate appeared in January 1971 and would be the most famous of the lot: or at least her pubic hair would be as she became the very first Playmate to flash her fleece in her centrefold.  Liv's sun-kissed curls were the cause of much agonising over whether to show them or not between publisher Hugh Hefner and photographer Alexas Urba.  The hair got through and Liv's fame was assured.

 Liv Lindeland

Nearly 5'8" tall and 36-23-34 she was certainly a prototypical strapping Nordic blonde.  She became the  first Norwegian Playmate of the Year in 1972 and married Cyd Charisse's son.

Liv Lindeland

She did some films and TV in the first half of the seventies and then reappeared onscreen in a couple of Andy Sidaris' Playmate heavy B movie (although that might be being generous) thrillers in 1988 and 1990.

Sharon Johansen

Unlike all the previous Norwegian born Playmates October 1972's Sharon Johansen moved to North America at a very young age (one) rather than as an adult.  She was a dog trainer, of all things, and even trained Hugh Hefner's dog which was called, with great originality, Dog.  She became one of Hefner's many Playmate girlfriends for a time although whether that was before or after the dog training we don't know.

Sharon Johansen

What we do know is that she was an impressive 40-22-37 and 5'8" tall.  Sharon did a bit of TV and a couple of films but her roles tended to be of the "uncredited" type.

Sharon Johansen

Although Liv Lindeland had shown her pubic hair in her centrefold in January 1971 Sharon would become only the fourth Playmate to give an unobstructed view of her fur out of 22 Centrefold shots in the interim.

Lillian Müller 

Playboy's final Norwegian Playmate to date was Lillian Müller in August 1975.  She would go on to be Playmate of the year for 1976.  She moved to London from Norway at the age of twenty where she worked as a model before being discovered by Playboy.  She was also Hugh Hefner's girlfriend for a time.

Lillian Müller 

5'8" and 36-24-35 she was discovered by Suze Randall who shot some sensuous pictures of her for her Playboy pictorial, although her centrefold was photographed by Dwight Hooker as Randall was considered too inexperienced at that point.

Lillian Müller 

Lillian made a number of films and featured in Rod Stewart's Do ya think I'm sexy video.  Latterly she has been working advising women on healthy living and in 2010 was voted by PETA as the sexiest Vegan over fifty.

The big question is, of course, why no Norwegian Playmates since 1975?  Having been there a few years ago I'm sure that there are many more natural lovelies in the country who would be far superior to the silicone busted tattoo encrusted centrefolds of late.  More Norwegian girls please!

Centrefold Venus updated: Yvonne Ekman

We have updated our post on former Miss Denmark 1964 Yvonne Ekman with her pictorial from Cavalier magazine from 1967.

Centrefold Venus of the Month 41: Connie Lynn Hadden, October 1981

US

We're trying to catch up with our backlog of centrefolds so are moving swiftly on to October.  Having had three Playboy Centrefolds of the Month in a row we thought that it was best to return to Penthouse for the next one.   This is an issue that particularly resonates for Triple P, as we will discuss, not least because it was the first US edition we ever owned.

US (Sheila Kennedy, the forthcoming Pet of the Month for December 1981, on the cover)

Of the forty-one official Centrefolds of the Month we have featured so far more than half come from the nineteen seventies so we thought it was about time to have another eighties one.  We have only had one other Penthouse eighties centrefold so far (Tamara Kapitas) so it's back to October 1981 for this one.

US

As usual, while scanning these pictures we tried to find the best quality originals we could.  We have all the UK issues of Penthouse from Volume 1 Number 1 up until Volume 16 Number 11 (February 1982).  We usually go by the US issue dates for this feature but we also got out the UK Volume 16 no 9 (which was for December) to see if the pictures in that were better quality, as there is often quite a difference in brightness and tone between the two.

We were surprised to find, when we looked, that apart from the fact the two issues had different covers (which was not that unusual in this period and this cover was used in an earlier issue of the US magazine) they also had different pictures in the pictorial.  Not vastly different, in some cases but often a different version of one particular pose.  

UK

Here we can see the UK version of the US pictorial's opening shot.  Although the pose and framing are similar the UK version has been printed much more brightly.   The best thing to do here, therefore is put both shots from each magazine up together when they make a pair.  In this case Triple P thinks that he prefers the US version, mainly because the tan lines are more prominent in the greater contrast of the American issue.

UK

Before we move on into the rest of the pictorial let's just look at the UK edition centrefold.  It's very similar indeed to the US one, with the main differences being the position of Connie's left hand and tighter cropping in the US version.  Now, sometimes Penthouse in the UK used different centrefolds if they felt that the US version was more explicit than what they were happy with at the time but here there is really no difference between them so it's hard to work out why they should be different at all.

 UK

US

 UK

UK

The quality on a couple of these isn't that good because the pictures on the original page were only a few centimetres across.

US

US

Web

To be truly comprehensive we need to factor in the other versions of the pictures from the internet as well, so here is the web version.  This is the one of these which we like the best as it's all about that perky nipple squashed into her wrist.  Tactile!

UK

US

There are a number of pictures of Connie at the beach but, again, both issues use different pictures.   The one of Connie's bikini clad bottom was replaced by one of her in a completely different environment although the page layout remained the same.

Web

Finally, we have this web one which has no equivalents in either edition.  At least the sun came out for this picture!

 UK

US

Two more of her down by the seashore, this time in an enticingly see-through top.  This pictorial was shot by Pat Hill, a female photographer from Hawaii who started off as Art Kane's assistant.  This was her eighth (of nine) Penthouse pictorial.  She also shot the pictorial of Tamara Kapitas mentioned above.  She is now an award winning advertising, fashion and beauty photographer based in New York, having set up her own studio a few years after this was shot.  

UK

This lilac swimsuit only appeared in the UK edition and was a small picture.  Nice swimsuit, though!

US

This was one of a couple of very small pictures that appeared on the pages of the US edition, hence the poor quality.

US/UK

The final picture of Connie on the beach in Florida was actually the same in both editions and a very fine picture it is too.

 UK

US

The rest of Connie's pictorial is shot inside in a house in Miami and her next environment is the bath.  Both editions included pictures of her posterior in the bubbles on the first page of their pictorials.  Both highlight her tan lines, something Triple P's friend Agent DVD always appreciates!

US

UK

And here is the rest of her.  These bath pictures are some of the nicest in the pictorial.  You can't beat a foamy girl!  The orange orchid is a cute touch too.

 US

This small one from the US edition actually has her with the bubble bath.  She has certainly got quite a lot in her bath.

 UK

 UK

 US

US

Web

Web

She actually looks like she is enjoying herself in here and how nice it is to see a smile or two!

 UK

US

Again, these two are very similar and it makes you wonder what the point of having the slightly different versions was.  It's not like, as was sometimes the case, that the American edition picture is more explicit, as she is flashing her anus in both pictures.

 UK

US

The two different editions had these nicely abstracted shots of Miss Hadden in fetching garters.  We especially like the bottom one!

 Web

Web

 Web

Fortunately, some of the web pictures reveal the entirety of this outfit. It's a shame we didn't get more photographs of this one!  It's cute!

 US

UK

The next set has Connie in bed and in and out of a green dressing gown.  Here, again, the difference between the two edition's pictures is very small.

 UK

 UK

 Web

Web

UK

UK/US

In the UK Connie was soon out of her dressing gown and posing artistically on the bed whereas the US edition had her lounging in her dressing gown for a bit longer.  Both magazines actually had this same nice picture of her smiling (above).

US 

US

As we mentioned at the beginning, this issue has a particular resonance for Agent Triple P.  We were given a copy of this issue by our then new girlfriend C in our third year at college.  We had had an on off relationship with another girl for the first two years which had somewhat soured in the second year.  As a result we both went off in search of pastures new whilst still having comfort sex with each other during fallow periods.  This was not really good for our emotional state, we have to say, as the lady in question was somewhat unstable (she poured half a kettle of boiling water over our leg during one argument - we still have the scar).

US

By our third year, however, this interaction had largely ceased, primarily because we were both living out of college at opposite ends of Oxford.  Term started in early October and in the first week an old school friend asked Triple P to meet up with a friend of his who had just started as a first year in one of the few remaining all women's colleges.  We invited her over for tea through the wonderful pigeonhole powered post system - no email in those days.  She replied straight away and so duly arrived at our room in North Oxford (fortunately not far from her college) in the second week of term.

Web

We chatted about mutual acquaintances, of whom we had several, key information for freshers and, increasingly, more esoteric topics.  C was a very intelligent girl (she had won a scholarship) and although she was three years younger than Triple P obviously thought about "the meaning of life" a great deal (she was reading English which tended to engender such thoughts, we found).  We can't, after more than thirty years, remember how it happened but within a few hours we were on Triple P's (single) bed kissing passionately and indulging in what might be termed "heavy petting".  We both kept all our clothes on (our room in the third year was often cold, heated, as it was, by a single electric fan heater) but we still recall the heat emanating from between this girl's legs through her very tight striped trousers.  None of our previous partners had exhibited this phenomenon to such an extent.

Web

Web

Anyway, as we discovered within a couple of days when we made a visit to her room in college, C was a very different sexual proposition to our previous girlfriends to this point.  For a start she was very experienced (despite being only eighteen - Triple P was nearly twenty two at this time).  All of our previous partners had been virgins but C knew what she wanted and how she wanted it.  Triple P soon realised that he had been very unadventurous up until this point.  C soon had Triple P indulging in such things as doggie-style, soixante-neuf, standing up, cowgirl and reverse cowgirl for the first time.  

Web

After about a week of extremely energetic activity (on one occasion she had been so energetic that we actually didn't get any sleep that night at all.  We were found by an old school friend wandering the streets, absolutely shattered, the following morning and he had to take us to a cafe in the Covered Market to buy restorative cups of tea and toast) she turned up in our room with a present: the October 1981 edition of Penthouse!

Web

Apparently, she had seen some of our Playboy magazines on our shelves but thought that Playboy was "too prissy" so bought Triple P a Penthouse.  Interestingly, it was the US edition not the UK one, although at that time we didn't appreciate that there was a difference.  She had bought it in Soho over the weekend when she had gone to London to see a play.  She liked the picture on the front, it seems (I think she said it was in a polythene bag so she couldn't look inside).  Sadly, Sheila Kennedy, the cover girl was not inside but this was remedied  in the December issue where she appeared as Pet of the Month, which C also bought Triple P over the Christmas holidays.  Agent Triple P hadn't seen a Penthouse for about eight years and was initially surprised at the graphic nature of the pussy on display, certainly compared with Playboy and even with Men Only, which is what we had occasionally bought in our gap year.  Most UK magazines had backed away from explicit labia shots from the end of 1977.

 Web

C took it all in her stride, however, and it became clear as we looked at the magazine in bed together (which was something of a squash!) that she was responding to the pictures of Connie Lynn and the other girl in that issue in a sexual way.  The last pictorial featured two women mud wrestling and this seemed to get her really worked up.  What also attracted her attention were the Penthouse Forum letters.  Originally the Penthouse letters page had been what appeared to be genuine letters from readers about the content of the magazine, although, unlike Playboy, rarely about the pictorials.  Over time they became a series of epistles about sexual encounters.  Some may have been real but by this time they were almost certainly written by staff writers.

 Web

C sat in bed reading Triple P these letters and giving acid little commentaries on them all.   That was until she got to the one about a woman having her first lesbian encounter, having watched two other women go at it.  We soon realised that she was playing with herself as she read it to me.  Now this we found tremendously exciting as we had only seen a girl do this to herself once before.  In fact it was the on/off girlfriend who poured boiling water on us and we think she only did this in front of Triple P to taunt us.  In fact it turned out that C was not a habitual masturbator although she became one as our relationship progressed.  The act was designed to attract our interest (which worked) and she often used to get herself going if she felt that we weren't paying enough attention to her.

 Web

One strange coincidence was that Triple P had a dressing gown exactly this colour which C would wear when she was in our room (as it was often not that warm, as we have said).  Ours was plain and without patterns but she took to sprawling around in it with the front undone; clearly inspired by Miss Hadden.  Eventually she demanded we give it to her so she could write her essays in it in her college room which was much larger and warmer that Triple P's.  She was also fascinated by the picture of Connie Lynn looking at her pussy in hand mirror and said that she hadn't looked at herself like that before.  She became fascinated with her own cunt and used to get Triple P to draw it.  We wish we had kept at least one of these!  We also spent some time rigging up a mirror in her room so we could have sex in such a way that she could watch Triple P slide in and out of her (we both had to face the mirror with her sitting on Triple P's lap)

Web

She was also fascinated by the pictures where Connie Lynn flashed her anus which certainly you didn't get to see in Playboy and we remember her probing herself while looking at herself with her little hand mirror.   She really did become a delightfully abandoned girl.  This all culminated when she asked Triple P if he had ever had sex with two girls at the same time and whether he would want to.  We gave all sorts of what we hoped would be feminist friendly answers until we realised that she had a particular girl in mind.  It then turned out that she had also been pursuing this girl at the same time for a lesbian fling but she had only agreed to try it if Triple P was there too.  That, however, is another story...

UK

 US

Web

Agent Triple P and C broke up when he left university, although we have seen her a few times since then but not for around fifteen years.  She moved onto other men and, indeed women, and when last we heard of her she was living with another woman.  These pictures of Connie Lynn in her green robe always remind us of her even though they had no physical resemblance to each other.

 UK

US

Web

Web

Web

Web

Web

 Web

Web

These pictures of Connie Lynn playing with her pussy didn't appear in either magazine, which is a shame as C would have enjoyed them. It was a photograph of another model in that issue playing with herself that got her going on that front. 

 UK

 US

 UK

US

Web

The final pictures are all of Connie Lynn in black stockings and very effective they are too.   Interestingly, it was years after the fist issue in 1965 before Penthouse first showed a Pet of the Month in stockings.  They certainly weren't as ubiquitous as they are  now in men's magazines.   

 Web

 Web

Web

This is a cute outfit which is made by the little hat over Connie Lynn's engagingly messily piled-up hair. 

 UK

US

These are the two contrasting shots of the full outfit from the UK and US magazines.  The UK one is cute with a great sense of joie de vivre but doesn't have the peek-a-boo naughtiness of the US picture.

 UK

US

Both editions finished the main pictorial with very similar photos.  The UK one, however, was small on the page; covering about two thirds of a page width.   In the US one, however, this study, with Connie Lynn's anus dead centre, was spread across two pages.

The opening titles of Piranha 2

That's it for Connie Lynn Hadden.  She never reappeared in Penthouse and we haven't found any images of her from other magazines either.  It could have been different, for in 1982 she appeared, in a speaking role, in Piranha II: The Spawning.  This was the film where the special effects director, a certain James Cameron, was asked to take over directing the whole film when the original director left.

Many Pets and Playmates often get walk-on, uncredited roles in their first film to fulfill a pleasing body in the background requirement but Connie Lynne went straight to number ten in the credits.  She plays Loretta, who we first find disporting herself, topless, on a yacht.  Her Penthouse pictorial says that she was from Albany, Georgia and she certainly has a Southern accent in the film.

She is accompanied on board by another eighties Penthouse Pet of the Month, Tamara Kapitas .  What a very fine crew they make.

Connie Lynn makes the classic mistake of sitting outside on her own.  Surely she would be safe from any seaborne menace.  But of course this is a film about flying Piranhas!

What's that noise?  Oh dear!

And so, as the credits roll, Connie Lynn disappears  never to be heard from again.  Piranha II is her only film or TV credit, which is unusual for someone with a speaking role.  Agent Triple P hopes she had a good life as she and her appearance in Penthouse in 1981 certainly had a positive effect on his!