Centrefold Venus of the Month 33: Justine Greiner, February 1984

So, in our sadly delayed state, it is on to February's Centrefold Venus and it's another eighties one in the fine form of Miss Justine Greiner from Playboy's February 1984 issue.

We have featured Justine before in one of our looks at the best Playboy centrefolds from individual months where she easily topped our February selection, not least as she is a somewhat atypical looking Playmate.

The process of selecting which of the thousands of centrefolds we have pictures of to feature in this blog is done with some care.   We keep a log of which ones we have used, the magazine they are from and the decade they represent.  It would be very easy, otherwise, just to feature endless girls from the seventies (although nothing wrong with that).  

We firstly go through all of the pictures we have in our hard drive looking at, for example, every Playboy Playmate and Penthouse Pet from February.  We have at least the digital image of all the Playboy centrefolds (as well as the splendid Chronicle Books edition of them all).  Noting any possibles we put images into another file. Next we look at other magazines we might have from a selection that includes Men Only, Mayfair, Club International and a scattering of examples from Club (US), Hustler, Galley, Genesis and others.  

We prefer not to use other people's scans unless they have been done by someone reliable, such as S in Canada, who knows the importance of putting a sheet of black paper behind the magazine page to be scanned.  So, once we have identified a number of candidates we check on our master index to see if we have the relevant magazine so that we can scan it.  

We own every issue of UK Penthouse for the first fifteen years and around 150 copies of the US version (taking up where our UK issues finish). We have pretty much all of the seventies and early eighties Oui magazines and most of the seventies Men Only and Club Internationals too.  We have over 550 issues of Playboy and all the others digitally so we have a good range to choose from.

Finally, we look at our shortlist and find out if they have done anything else of interest such as modelling for other magazines or acting on TV or film.   The research for this can take some time, which is why we have built up a backlog at present.  

So, the final choice is based on how we respond to the lady's looks, which magazine they were in, what decade they appeared and whether there is an interesting story about them with other available pictures. 

So, given that we had a Penthouse girl last month then Playboy seemed a natural starting point.  We actually started looking at nineties girls for a change but kept coming back to Justine.  

Justine doesn't, in fact, fulfill one of our key criteria in that we have been able to find out almost nothing else about her.  Essentially, she did this one shoot for Playboy and then never appeared again, although other photos taken at the time have shown up elsewhere.

As we mentioned on our previous post her photo shoot was done in 1982 for a scheduled November 1982 appearance but her Playmate appearance was delayed, for some reason, until February 1984.  Whatever, she left the Playboy camp, sadly.  This perfect and saucy posterior shot shows us what we missed due to her lack of further shoots.

We do know that Greiner was her real name as she has a sister who is an award winning poet.  The family name was Swiss although she was born in Boston in November 1963 but moved to California when she was ten.

She was a strapping 5'9" tall and measured an impressive 36-25-35.  She started studying at University in Kansas but missed the ocean so returned to California.  The last Playboy heard of her she was working in a shop in Beverley Hills.

The glory of her pictorial, of which these are the final ones from the magazine itself, is this trio of Justine writhing on a fur, her hands delving into her simple but effective knickers.  These are the images Triple P remembered from this pictorial as he bought the original magazine when it came out.

Fortunately, there are some other photographs from this sequence which appeared in foreign editions of the magazine or in some of the Newsstand Specials which were just starting to appear.

Shortly before this issue came out Triple P's girlfriend was living at home with her very conservative parents.  She was too shy to buy the more exotic lingerie she wanted, or wear stockings, because of what her mother would think.

However, we went on a weekend away and she bought some new knickers which were exactly like these, with a very narrow band around the sides.  They were quite sheer as well, even though they were cotton.  Whilst not exactly pushing the boundaries of boudoir exotica in lingerie, for this particular young lady they were a bold and sexy statement

Moreover, she first modelled these for us in our cozy attic hotel room in Bristol.  In fact it was so cozy that Triple P had trouble standing upright without hitting his head of the beams.  Our young lady pointed out that it didn't matter as we were going to spend all our time horizontal anyway.  We do remember that it was the first time we had paid for a hotel room and were appalled at the £60 a night cost.

It was worth it, however, to see the young lady resplendent in her tight, new knickers and baby doll nightie squirming around artistically on the double bed.  It was the first time we had had a double bed to as all our previous activity had taken place on sofa's, the floor or outside.

She had always said that the only way she could get herself excited on her own was by pulling her knickers tightly up between her legs and wriggling about.  Obviously feeling the effect of the new underwear she gave us a very graphic demonstration of this and even, as Justine does her, slipped a hand inside her knickers although she was usually very shy about such displays in front of Triple P.

We think the reason that we respond so positively to Justine's pictorial is due to the memory of that lady wriggling about for us in her nice new knickers.  We are pretty sure this happened just before this issue came out.  It might have been just afterwards but certainly the two have become inextricably linked in our mind!

We do remember leaving our dressing gown belt in the hotel room as we had been using it to tie the lady to the headboard and forgot about it.  She was the first girl we had met who liked being tied up and it took some time before Triple P could overcome his feminist upbringing and comply with her S&M fantasies!

These three are from Playboy's Japanese edition which did not permit the depiction of pubic hair so that alternative groin concealing poses had to be shot.

There are quite a few of Justine in this lacy top.  Some of the outdoor photos from her magazine pictorial were shot at June Lake, Mammoth, California and these pictures look like they were taken in that Playboy staple, the ski chalet.

This one (above) is the rather different opening spread from Playboy Germany where Justine appeared as Miss October 1984.

It could well be a set of course, rather than a real chalet but Ken Marcus has captured the appropriate candle lit and roaring fire feeling.

Well, there was at least a real log cabin used for some of the exteriors as Justine demonstrates by posing delightfully on the deck.  She looks rather to well coiffed to have just fallen out of bed after a night of passion but we suppose that is the intention of having the orange juice in the pictures.

Here she is in country style checks in front of what does look like a real fireplace, we have to say.   It's nice to see a smile!

In this one her figure actually reminds Triple P of his girlfriend after the wriggling knickers one but that is a story for another time.  Two more reasons to like Justine!

Two more from Playboy Japan amongst this next set of her in stockings including her "covered-up" centrefold.

This one from Playboy Germany has been flipped compared with the others.

Some nice tactile looking squashiness going on in this one (above)

These two demonstrate gravity doing wonderful things to her bust.

Here are a few of her posing on the very rustic looking bed.  There would certainly be many opportunities for tying someone up on this one!

Here she is looking all apres ski in an ethnic looking waistcoat.

Here are a few more outdoors ones.  We thought she was being very brave standing thigh deep in the water in the snow but apparently, these are hot springs.  Still, the rest of her must be a bit nippy!

Another one from inside the chalet with another top which only features in this one picture.

These one obviously weren't taken in the chalet but, from the anonymous looking background, in a studio.

Here we have a selection of one-off photos.  We wonder whether the delay in her becoming a Playmate may have had something to do with Hugh Hefner rejecting some initial shoots and them having to be re-done. which was not uncommon.

Here is Justine as Miss November in the 1985 Playboy calendar.  Even though there were no new shoots with her they continued to re-use images for years to come.  She was also one of the few 1984 Playmates who didn't feature in a Playboy video.

For reasons to do with our girlfriends at this time we respond to Miss Griener more than many of the eighties Playmates, although we have to say that 1984 was something of a vintage year with some of our all time favourites appearing.

Justine, like most of 1984's girls was dark-haired which we always respond to.  Ironically, the two girlfriends we mentioned here were not.  The first was a very natural blonde and the second a dyed blonde who was actually a red-head underneath.

Justine's final pictures were pretty bold for the first half of the eighties, the final one, in particular, being very sensuous.  It's a shame she didn't do more for Playboy but we hope she went on to have an enjoyable life!

B Movie Venuses: the films of Andy Sidaris

We were Skyping to our particular friend S in Vancouver a week or so ago and bemoaning the fact that we were short on trashy films to watch at the end of a hard day with a bottle of Rioja, some slices of chorizo, cheese and a few olives.  We have quite a lot of  films to watch, some good TV (we are enjoying Fringe, which Agent DVD gave us for our birthday) but nothing really engagingly moronic (although, that said, we did enjoy the recent The Three Musketeers, much to our surprise) for when we want to switch off almost completely.

Mr Sidaris realises that his second career choice was a good one

Well, today what should arrive from the land of the frozen moose but a boxed set of films by Andy Sidaris.  A former Emmy award winning TV sports director he changed tack and made a host of B-movie (and that's being genererous, it seems), low budget action films in the eighties and nineties featuring a whole bevy of classic Playboy playmates.  This set features all twelve of these films and the Playmate cast list features some of Triple P's all time favourites from the eighties.  S says that she has watched them with girlfriends and they have to drink a shot of vodka every time an actress appears gratuitously topless and, as a result, they get completely drunk and out of control.  We can imagine!

McArthur

Michaels

Wiesmeier

Edwards

We have heard of these films but have never seen any of them as they had been out of production for some time. S tells me that the acting is terrible, the production values are laughable and the action scenes unconvincing.  However, she thinks we will enjoy them as the photography is nice (many of them were filmed in Hawaii) and they are "full of Playmates with big, bouncy tits." There are, we have to say, worse recommendations. So we are looking forward to watching Malibu Express later tonight and will report on this epic later.  According to IMDB it features Playmates Kimberly McArthur (January 1982), Lynda Wiesmeier (July 1982), Barbara Edwards (September 1983 and one of our favourites) and Lorraine Michaels (April 1981).  Also featuring B movie queen Sybil Danning, there should be plenty to look at at least and we are happily anticipating watching these ladies in motion!

We have some nice pink Rioja, some chorizo, olives, sundried tomatoes and some hot cheddar with chilli.  Perfect!

Non-Centrefold Venus of the Month 5: Susan Backlinie, January 1973

We are running behind a bit on our magazine girlies so will attempt to catch up over the next week or so. We realised that we haven't even done January's non-centrefold of the month let alone February or March's yet.

So let's go back over forty years to Penthouse's January 1973 issue where she featured in a pictorial by Ralph Nelson called The Lady and the Lion.

Well, and that is exactly what the pictorial is about, Susan cavorting with a lion.  She was an animal trainer at the Africa USA safari park in California (where the TV show Daktari, which Triple P remembers from his childhood, was filmed).

Apparently, for $1,000 (a lot of money at the time, she would hire herself out for film stunts involving lions, although she refused to work with any lion older than two years as they were too unpredictable.

Certainly it takes some nerve to strip off and pose with a lion like this.   On the picture at the top she is actually lying on it for heaven's sake!

Fortunately, she remained safe and was not attacked by the animal, a fate which would, of course, befall her in only a few years.  But not by a lion.

Away from her furry friend she poses effectively on a stripey hammock and shows off her 5' 8" and 37-25-37 figure.

Susan is in possession of an all over tan, quite unusual for American girls at this time but claims in the accompanying article that she prefers nudity and only wears clothes when absolutely necessary.  Quite right too!

The text claims she is a 23 year old from Washington DC but actually she was born as Susan Jane Swindall in Ventura, California in September 1946, which would have made her 26 when this pictorial appeared.

Susan would achieve worldwide recognition two years later when she stripped off for a skinny dip and became the first victim in Steven Spielberg's breakthrough blockbuster, Jaws (1975).

Her distraught look in the scene (which took nine days to shoot) was enhanced by director Spielberg not telling her when a diver was going to grab her leg in simulation of the shark attack.  It remains one of the most iconic screen deaths ever put on celluloid.  When she was recording the screams to be dubbed over the film Spielberg had her tilt her head back and poured water down her throat whilst she screamed.  Nasty!

Susan in the Mermaid Follies in 1966

Backlinie had been a champion swimmer in her teens and later became a professional swimmer at Florida's long running Paradise Mermaid Follies show.

Susan in 1941

She spoofed her Jaws scene in Spielberg's disastrous "comedy" 1941 (1979) where she skinny dipped once more only to find herself underneath a surfacing Japanese submarine and clinging on to the periscope in probably the only good scene in the film.

She appeared in a few other films usually either swimming or with animals but her iconic appearance in Jaws meant that magazines were still keen to run pictures of her if they could find them.  Here she is stripping off by the sea again in February 1977's Mayfair, which featured the famous pictorial of Linda Lusardi.  

Susan was over thirty when these pictures appeared in Mayfair so it may be that they were taken earlier.

The text accompanying the pictorial said that she was living in a 30 foot cabin cruiser and still doing a lot of diving.

She makes a splendid sea nymph!

Susan now lives in her birthplace of Ventura and is an accountant but can be seen attending conventions and autograph signings based on her Jaws fame.

Oldest Venus: The Venus of Hohle Fels

As it's International Women's Day today we thought it only right that we post a picture of the oldest representation of a woman yet discovered: the Venus of Hohle Fels.  It was found in a cave with a bone flute which is the oldest known musical instrument.

Discovered fairly recently (in September 2008, so after this blog first appeared, but around the time of our post on the Venus of Dolni Vestonic) in the Swabian Alps in Germany the small (6cm) figure is carved out of Mammoth tusk. It has been dated to some 35,000 to 40,000 years old.

The figure has the usual large bust and pregnant looking belly of other prehistoric carvings but also an unusually anatomically rendered vulva.  It has a ring instead of a head so could well have been worn as an amulet.

It is intriguing to wonder whether this was based on a real woman...