My card that Playboy saw in Miami

I appeared in an ad that was featured
in the April 1996 issue of Playboy.
Photo by Arny Freytag

Me on the cover of Playboy's
Great Model Search, 1994

An outtake from my Playmate pictorial.
This was one of the snow photos!
Photo by Arny Freytag

My Playboy promotional head shot

Adjusting to America was really easy. I instantly got an agent who paid for my working papers and helped me get a green card, and I started booking jobs in New York, Miami and Chicago. By that time I had already been living in California for three years, and during the winter I'd go to Miami because there was always a lot of work for me there. It was in Miami that Playboy discovered me. They were in the middle of their search for the 40th anniversary issue Playmate and were also shooting a pictorial on the women who frequent Miami's very hip modeling scene. While searching for models, the Playboy scouts found a composite of mine and proceeded to track me down. I was flattered with what they offered me, but wasn't interested because I was a "fashion model" and not a "nude model" -- or so I thought. After everybody I knew (including my own mother!) said I was out of my mind not to take on this opportunity, I went and saw Marilyn Grabowski, Playboy's West Coast Photo Editor in LA. Still not completely convinced that I wanted to do this, I took off for Australia. When Playboy tracked me down there and asked me to come back and please shoot the pictorial, I agreed! Hey, Marilyn Monroe did it 40 years earlier -- I was obviously in pretty good company.

I thought I was going to lose most of my fashion modeling clients -- which I did -- but I also gained some new ones, so it all evened out in the end. The first test I did was with a fashion photographer I knew. It was his first time shooting nudity as well, so we were both a little shy about it. I loved his pictures, but Marilyn also wanted me to test with Arny Freytag, who ended up shooting my pictorial. He was a seasoned pro used to dealing with nude models, and he definitely put me at ease. To see some of the fantastic unpublished photos from my Playmate pictorial, join the Playboy Cyber Club.

Because it was the 40th anniversary issue and because I was paid more than the average Playmate, they wanted to shoot me for a whole month! This photo shoot was the most challenging thing I'd ever done as a model. Most photographers live by the motto, “the more you move, the better." Not so with Playboy, where I had to hold poses perfectly still for long periods of time. I swear, there were times when I would have no feeling in my legs and arms anymore! We also went to Big Bear to shoot some pictures, and most of those were eventually used for Playboy's Special Editions. We had to use fake snow (it was summertime) but Marilyn must have either believed it really snowed all year long in Big Bear or forgot that we had had to use fake snow in the mountains, because when I got back she said that I had been very brave to have shot the pictures in the snow and cold! All in all it was a great experience, as I've always been interested in photography and thought it was very educational to see how Playboy photographers light their subjects.