I was a Playboy centerfold, Miss March 1967 by
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(5 Stories)

Prompted By Magazines
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Me, not airbrushed, with Miss March

It was a nice morning in March, 1967.  I walked in the front door of Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland, and heard someone say, “There she is.”  I looked up to see the stairs on each side of the entrance and the balcony above filled with boys, all grinning, laughing, nudging each other and all of them looking at me.  I glanced around to see if there was anyone else they could be looking at, but no, I was the only one there at the moment.  I had no idea what was going on so I just proceeded to homeroom feeling puzzled.  All morning long, boys were staring at me in the hallways and laughing, exchanging comments with each other, but no one would tell me what it was about.  Finally at lunch time, feeling totally perplexed and a bit angry, I cornered a friend of mine and demanded to know what the hell was going on.  He looked around cautiously and then pulled something out of his book bag.  It was a Playboy magazine.  Now I was really puzzled. I had no idea where this was going until he opened it to the centerfold and showed me the top part of it.  I gasped and my eyes bugged out.  I thought I was looking in a mirror.  Miss March was a dead ringer for me!  At the time I always wore glasses and Miss March was wearing glasses almost identical to mine.  How many centerfold models wore glasses???  I was completely stunned, but insisted on seeing the rest of the centerfold.  Poor Miss March had the BIGGEST pair of breasts I had ever seen, so big it is a wonder she could walk upright, and this was before silicone!  Just my luck. The absurdity of the whole thing hit me, and my friend and I sat on the floor laughing our heads off.

My friend was the yearbook and school newspaper photographer and he had a fun idea.  Miss March wore her hair piled up on her head, so he suggested that I should pin up my hair and he would take a photo of me holding up the centerfold, just the top part, next to my face.  I assumed the photo would be just for him and me.  I thought it would be hilarious, so the next day I arrived at school with my hair pinned up.  Naturally this set off another near riot.  My friend took the photo, then proceeded to print up dozens of them which he sold for a buck apiece.  Oh well.  I have a good sense of humor so I proceeded to autograph the photos for the guys saying things like, “Dear Tom, I will never forget the night we spent together. Love, Fran.”  (Fran was her name.)
*
After that first day in school, I did a terrible thing to my mother.  I bought a copy of the magazine and when I got home, I put on a shaky voice and said, “Mom, I have something to tell you.  You’d better sit down.”  She looked very upset, and I don’t even want to imagine what she thought I was going to say.  I hemmed and hawed as if I were afraid to tell her and then said in a plaintive voice, “I did it just for a lark.  I never dreamed they would use the pictures.”  Then I handed her the Playboy and opened it to the centerfold.  She looked at the photo in horror and said, “Oh Cindy, what have you done??”  She was absolutely convinced it was me.  She was in such agony that I couldn’t let her suffer for too long, so I opened up the centerfold so she could see all of it.  Somehow, she realized it wasn’t me…
*
My friend is now a film editor in Hollywood.  He did Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, all of Sean Penn’s movies as well as Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, A Star is Born and Into the Wild.  He has two academy award nominations, and he still has the negative of this photo in his files.

Fran

My time as a Playboy centerfold
Profile photo of Cynthia Blanton Cynthia Blanton
Walter Johnson HS, Harvard undergrad, Harvard MBA, corporate strategy consultant, bank VP, jewelry designer, photographer, retired. Lived on a farm in Oklahoma; Granada Hills, CA; Bethesda, MD; Cambridge and Boston area; San Francisco and Bay Area; Incline Village, NV at Lake Tahoe; Westport, CT; Pelham Manor, NY; Toronto and Oakville, Ontario, Canada, and now I live in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico! (Photo: at lunch on rooftop restaurant in 2021)

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Tags: humor, magazine, playboy, centerfold
Characterizations: funny, well written

Comments

  1. Betsy Pfau says:
    June 13, 2020 at 6:20 am

    Great story and yes, you are a dead ringer for “Fran”. If you read my story (about reading Newsweek on Tuesdays), you will find that I am quite friendly with Christie Hefner. I’ve been to the Playboy Mansion and met some real Center Folds. The ones that I met were other-worldly beautiful (this was after the “girl next door” period), but dim bulbs.

    I absolutely loved the films your friend worked on…a great body of work to be proud of! Thanks for sharing this wonderful story.

  2. Suzy says:
    June 13, 2020 at 9:44 am

    Cynthia, I loved your story so much that I made it the Featured Story without even consulting my co-administrators. (Sorry, co-administrators.) Just a perfect story! I’m so glad you decided to share it with us on Retrospect. Hope we will see many more stories from you on other prompts.

    Enjoyed reading your bio too, with all the places you have lived. And what a wonderful Great Gatsby photo — I’m sure Fran would have approved if she were still with us.

  3. Tom Steenburg says:
    June 13, 2020 at 10:44 am

    Hi Cynthia
    Welcome. Liked your story even more on a second read.

  4. Barbara Buckles says:
    June 13, 2020 at 11:18 am

    Welcome to Retrospect, Cynthia! And wow, you sure started things off with a bang with such a fun story! The similarity between you as a teen and Fran is just uncanny, and I have to tell you, since you hadn’t written here before, at first I thought we might have been spoofed. So, I looked up Fran and sure enough there she was (!). Sadly, she died at just 37 and a mystery still surrounds her life.

    Thanks for joining us…I’m looking forward to reading more of your stories!

  5. John Shutkin says:
    June 13, 2020 at 11:25 am

    Just a terrific story, Cynthia. Thanks for sharing it. And, more broadly, delighted that you are on Retro!

    The resemblance really is remarkable. As you note, that was obviously one of Playboy’s “intellectual” phases. And, coincidentally, I had a very similar experience when Burt Reynolds was the centerfold in Playgirl. OK; I kid.

  6. Marian says:
    June 13, 2020 at 11:33 am

    That’s an amazing likeness, Cynthia. Glad you didn’t let your mom suffer too much and that Fran’s “distinctive” features proved that it really wasn’t you.

  7. Laurie Levy says:
    June 14, 2020 at 6:45 am

    I loved this story, Cynthia. It was truly funny and you were a dead ringer for Miss March. I hope you will share more about all of the places you have lived. Welcome to Retrospect.

  8. Dana Susan Lehrman says:
    June 15, 2020 at 10:08 pm

    Wow Cindy, little did we know this week’s Magazines prompt would bring us a Playboy story – and what a story!
    Welcome to Retrospect and here’s to many more great reads from our Playgirl!

  9. John Zussman says:
    June 21, 2020 at 11:22 am

    Great story and so glad you were comfortable enough with the situation to laugh at it. I loved the joke you played on your mother, too! Welcome to Retrospect.

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