Can a Playboy Centerfold Build a Film Career? Playboy, Penthouse, Lui and the Screen
Yes, but rarely on the pictorial alone. Playboy, Penthouse and Europe's Lui and Playmen did not just photograph actresses: they financed films, ran television channels, sold home videos and timed their covers to film releases. The women who built lasting careers used that exposure as a door, then sold talent, timing and a public persona, not only a beautiful face.
I started writing about cinema in 1990, and from 1993 to 2000 I worked in film marketing in Egypt for Hollywood distributors, including Fox/Warner and UIP. From that side of the business, I learned how much of a film's launch happens outside the cinema: in posters, press kits, and the magazine coverage that turns an actress into a talking point before audiences have seen a single scene. Men's magazines were part of that machine for decades, in America and even more boldly in Europe.
This article follows that relationship from Playboy's first television show to Polanski's Macbeth, from the bikini on the beaches of Cannes to the nude covers of Lui and Playmen, and from the Playboy Channel to the straight-to-video erotic thriller. It ends with the real question behind every centerfold who wanted a screen career: what does it take to be remembered for more than one issue?
How Playboy Became a Film Producer: From Playboy's Penthouse to Polanski's Macbeth (1959–1971)
Category: Film and TV History
Playboy moved into production only six years after Hugh Hefner launched the magazine in 1953. Its TV shows Playboy's Penthouse and Playboy After Dark sold the brand as sophisticated nightlife, and in 1971 Playboy Enterprises financed Roman Polanski's Macbeth after the major studios turned it down.
Playboy's Penthouse and Playboy After Dark
Playboy's production arm was formed in 1959, the same year Playboy's Penthouse went on air. The format was simple and clever: Hefner hosted a cocktail party in a studio set made to look like a bachelor apartment, with musicians, comedians and guests mixing with Playmates. It was not nudity that Playboy sold on television but a lifestyle, the idea that the magazine's reader belonged in that room. Playboy After Dark revived the format at the end of the 1960s, and the same idea returned again as After Hours in 1989.
For the women who appeared, television offered something a pictorial could not: they moved, spoke and were seen as personalities. That difference would matter to every Playmate who later tried to act.
Why Playboy Financed Macbeth
By the early 1970s Playboy was at its commercial peak; the magazine passed seven million copies in 1972. That money gave Hefner the chance to become a real film financier. Polanski's Macbeth had been rejected by Paramount, Universal and MGM. Hefner met Polanski at a party, and Playboy Enterprises agreed to fund the film. In April 1971, Columbia signed a deal with Playboy for at least four films, with Macbeth first.
The film opened on December 20, 1971, at the Playboy Theater in New York. It was a serious Shakespeare adaptation, not an erotic film, though its nude sleepwalking scene was inevitably linked to its producer. Commercially it failed, losing a total of $3.5 million, and it showed the limit of Playboy's ambitions: the brand could open doors in Hollywood, but it could not guarantee an audience.
Nudity on Screen and on the Page: Exploitation or Drama?
Category: Critical Analysis
The same nude image could launch a career or destroy one. The difference usually lay in who controlled it: the woman, or the men selling it. Dorothy Stratten, Traci Lords, Vanessa Williams, Sylvia Kristel and Corinne Cléry show both sides: nudity as part of a serious film, and nudity used to sell someone who had no real choice.
Dorothy Stratten: The Cautionary Case
Dorothy Stratten was Playboy's Playmate of the Year in 1980 and seemed to be the perfect example of the centerfold who could act. She starred in the science-fiction comedy Galaxina and then in Peter Bogdanovich's They All Laughed, a real step towards respected cinema. In 1980, she was murdered by her estranged husband, Paul Snider, who had promoted her early career. Her story became the darkest reminder that the men who "discover" a beautiful face often believe they own it.
Penthouse, September 1984: Traci Lords and Vanessa Williams
One issue of Penthouse holds two of the industry's biggest scandals. In September 1984, the magazine published nude photos of Vanessa Williams, taken before she became Miss America and published without her consent. They cost her the crown. The same issue's centerfold, Traci Lords, turned out to be only 16 years old. Both women later rebuilt their careers: Williams as a singer and actress, and Lords in mainstream films beginning with John Waters' Cry-Baby (1990). But in 1984 they were the clearest examples of nudity as exploitation: images of a woman who had not agreed to their use, and of a minor who could not legally agree at all.
Emmanuelle and Story of O: Art Film or Erotic Product?
Sylvia Kristel made Emmanuelle (1974) a worldwide hit and appeared in five of the seven Emmanuelle films, but the role defined her for the rest of her life. In her memoir Undressing Emmanuelle (2007), she looked back on the fame and its cost. Corinne Cléry faced a similar question with Histoire d'O (1975), adapted by Sébastien Japrisot from the novel and directed by Just Jaeckin. The British censor refused it a cinema certificate in 1975, and it was only passed uncut on DVD in 2000. Cléry escaped the label better than most, moving to Moonraker (1979) and a long career in Italian cinema.
Where Is the Line?
For me, the line is not how much the camera shows, but whether the nudity serves the story and whether the actress agreed to the way it would be used. Caligula, where explicit scenes were added in post-production without the involvement of the main cast, is exploitation even with a cast of great British actors. A film like La Femme publique, which earned Valérie Kaprisky a César nomination, uses nudity as part of a demanding role. As a critic and festival juror, I have judged many films with nude scenes, and the question I always ask is the same: would the scene still matter if the actress were not famous for her body?
What This Meant for Playmates
Playboy had become more than a magazine. It owned clubs, a television presence and a foothold in film production, and it could put its models in front of producers and casting directors. As a marketer, I see Macbeth as a branding statement as much as a film: Playboy wanted to be taken seriously by the industry. The women in its pages would face the same challenge, proving that being seen was not the same as being cast.
From Bikini to Topless to Full Frontal: How Europe Undressed the Cover (1946–1980s)
Category: Fashion, Press and Censorship
Europe moved faster than America. In about thirty years, beachwear and magazine imagery went from the one-piece to the bikini, from the bikini to topless, and finally to nudity on the cover of mainstream magazines. Nude images that had once been kept on the inside pages moved to the front, and cinema and the press pushed each other forward.
The Bikini and Brigitte Bardot
The modern two-piece arrived in Paris in 1946. Jacques Heim showed his "Atome" swimsuit in May, and Louis Réard presented the bikini on July 5, four days after the American nuclear test at Bikini Atoll gave it its name. For years it was a scandal rather than a fashion. Cinema made it acceptable. Brigitte Bardot wore one in Manina, la fille sans voiles (1952), was photographed in bikinis on the beaches around Cannes in 1953, and became an international icon with Et Dieu… créa la femme (1956), set in Saint-Tropez.
When Ursula Andress walked out of the sea in a white bikini in Dr. No (1962), the image belonged to cinema and fashion at once. The bikini itself later sold at auction in 2001 for £41,125. Three years after Dr. No, in 1965, Playboy published nude stills of Andress from Nightmare in the Sun, the first of her seven appearances in the magazine. A Bond girl's screen image and her magazine image were now part of the same career.
The Monokini and Topless Saint-Tropez
The next step came in 1964, when the American designer Rudi Gernreich introduced the topless monokini; the first frontal photograph, of model Peggy Moffitt, ran in Women's Wear Daily on June 3, 1964. That summer, French newsreels filmed the first monokinis on the Riviera, while France's Interior Minister called the swimsuit a public outrage to decency. In Saint-Tropez, police fined women for going topless, and the issue was still being debated on French television in 1970. Within a few years, the topless beach had become part of the Saint-Tropez legend that French cinema loved to film.
When Nudity Moved to the Cover
The French and Italian magazines followed the beaches. Daniel Filipacchi and Frank Ténot launched Lui in November 1963 with Valérie Lagrange on its first cover, and it photographed stars including Bardot, Mireille Darc, Jane Birkin and Marlène Jobert, often through Francis Giacobetti, who later directed Emmanuelle 2. Lui used French film stars rather than anonymous models, giving nudity a cultural respectability that American magazines rarely achieved.
Italy's Playmen, founded in 1967 and run from 1969 by Adelina Tattilo, went further and faced repeated court-ordered seizures, yet reached 450,000 copies by 1971. Its first "girl of the month" was Bardot, covering her breasts with her hands. In March 1982, Ursula Andress posed nude on its cover at the age of 45. In France, Valérie Kaprisky appeared fully nude on the cover of Lui in August 1983, the year of Breathless with Richard Gere. There was no single "first" nude cover; the change was gradual, and even then pubic hair on a star in a general-audience magazine was considered daring.
Over my years as a critic and festival programmer, I have watched many European films of that era, and what strikes me is how naturally the bodies on screen and on the newsstand mirrored each other. A film's nudity became a cover; a cover sold the next film. That loop is the subject of the next sections.
Europe's Rivals: Penthouse UK, Mayfair, Club International and Caligula
Category: Magazine and Film Business
Playboy's biggest challenger was born in London, not America. Bob Guccione launched Penthouse in Britain in 1965, took it to the United States in 1969, and then went further than Hefner ever did in cinema, investing in Hollywood films and financing Caligula. British rivals such as Mayfair and Club International followed, each trying to win the same readers.
Penthouse: From London to New York
Guccione, an American living in London, published the first British issue of Penthouse in March 1965. Its photography was more intimate and more explicit than Playboy's, and the rivalry between the two magazines became known as the "Pubic Wars". The American edition arrived in September 1969 and turned Penthouse into a direct competitor on Playboy's home ground. The British edition, where it all began, folded in 1999.
Mayfair and Club International
Britain soon produced its own answers. Mayfair was launched in 1966 by Fisk Publishing as a response to Playboy and Penthouse, and Club International followed in 1972, founded by Paul Raymond, the Soho club owner and publisher. These magazines wanted famous names as much as the Americans did. Club International once offered the BBC newsreader Anna Ford £75,000 to pose, and she declined. The offer itself shows how the business worked: a recognisable face from film or television was worth far more than an unknown model.
Penthouse Goes to the Movies: Caligula
Where Playboy financed one Shakespeare adaptation, Guccione invested in mainstream Hollywood productions, including Chinatown, The Longest Yard and The Day of the Locust. His most famous film project was Caligula, released in Italy in 1979 and in the United States in 1980, with a cast that included Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole and John Gielgud. Guccione had explicit hardcore scenes added in post-production, without the involvement of the film's main cast.
Caligula became the ultimate example of a magazine using cinema to sell its brand, and of the risk for actors when a producer's priorities are not theirs. During my years in film marketing in Egypt, I learned that a distributor and a producer often see the same film very differently; with Caligula, that difference ended up on screen. It is also why the film still belongs in any discussion of exploitation versus drama.
Europe's Rivals: Penthouse UK, Mayfair, Club International and Caligula
Category: Magazine and Film Business
Playboy's biggest challenger was born in London, not America. Bob Guccione launched Penthouse in Britain in 1965, took it to the United States in 1969, and then went further than Hefner ever did in cinema, investing in Hollywood films and financing Caligula. British rivals such as Mayfair and Club International followed, each trying to win the same readers.
Penthouse: From London to New York
Guccione, an American living in London, published the first British issue of Penthouse in March 1965. Its photography was more intimate and more explicit than Playboy's, and the rivalry between the two magazines became known as the "Pubic Wars". The American edition arrived in September 1969 and turned Penthouse into a direct competitor on Playboy's home ground. The British edition, where it all began, folded in 1999.
Mayfair and Club International
Britain soon produced its own answers. Mayfair was launched in 1966 by Fisk Publishing as a response to Playboy and Penthouse, and Club International followed in 1972, founded by Paul Raymond, the Soho club owner and publisher. These magazines wanted famous names as much as the Americans did. Club International once offered the BBC newsreader Anna Ford £75,000 to pose, and she declined. The offer itself shows how the business worked: a recognisable face from film or television was worth far more than an unknown model.
Penthouse Goes to the Movies: Caligula
Where Playboy financed one Shakespeare adaptation, Guccione invested in mainstream Hollywood productions, including Chinatown, The Longest Yard and The Day of the Locust. His most famous film project was Caligula, released in Italy in 1979 and in the United States in 1980, with a cast that included Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole and John Gielgud. Guccione had explicit hardcore scenes added in post-production, without the involvement of the film's main cast.
Caligula became the ultimate example of a magazine using cinema to sell its brand, and of the risk for actors when a producer's priorities are not theirs. During my years in film marketing in Egypt, I learned that a distributor and a producer often see the same film very differently; with Caligula, that difference ended up on screen. It is also why the film still belongs in any discussion of exploitation versus drama.
Cross-Promotion: When Pictorials Sold Films and Films Sold Magazines
Category: Film Marketing
From the 1960s to the 1980s, men's magazines and film studios fed each other. A pictorial timed to a release gave a film publicity that no trailer could buy, and a star from a hit film sold more copies than any unknown model. Ursula Andress, Sylvia Kristel, Corinne Cléry, Bo Derek, Kim Basinger and the Bond girls all show how the loop worked.
Bond Girls on the Newsstand
Ursula Andress set the pattern. Three years after Dr. No, Playboy published her nude stills from Nightmare in the Sun in 1965, and she returned to the magazine six more times. The Bond films kept the connection alive. Barbara Bach, the heroine of The Spy Who Loved Me, was on Playboy's cover in January 1981, and Barbara Carrera, the villainess of Never Say Never Again, had the cover in March 1982. In September 1987, Playboy marked the release of The Living Daylights with a pictorial of its leading lady, Maryam d'Abo.
Emmanuelle and Story of O
The French erotic films of the 1970s travelled with the help of the press. In March 1976, Playboy ran a preview of Emmanuelle II, although the cover went to the model Vicki Cunningham rather than Sylvia Kristel, and Kristel had her own Playboy pictorial in February 1982. Her image reached as far as Japan, where she appeared on the cover of Screen magazine in April 1975. In France, Corinne Cléry promoted Just Jaeckin's Histoire d'O (1975) with a Lui cover in which she held a giant copy of the novel, a perfect union of book, film and magazine on a single page.
Bo Derek and Kim Basinger
In America, the clearest case was Bo Derek. After 10 made her a star, she appeared on Playboy's cover in March and August 1980, then again in September 1981 and July 1984. Each cover kept her name in the public eye between films. Kim Basinger did it more strategically. She posed for Playboy's February 1983 cover and pictorial to promote Never Say Never Again, and she has said that the pictorial led to her role in The Natural. For Basinger, the magazine was a step towards serious roles, not the destination.
Valérie Kaprisky in France
Valérie Kaprisky's nude Lui cover in August 1983 came in the same year as Breathless, the American remake of Godard's film, with Richard Gere. She followed it with Andrzej Żuławski's La Femme publique (1984), which earned her a César nomination for Best Actress, and L'Année des méduses (1984). The cover made her famous; the films made her an actress.
When I worked in film marketing for Hollywood distributors in Egypt, publicity was our daily work, and men's magazines were a channel we could never use there. Looking at these campaigns now, I see how effectively they turned a scene into a cover and a cover into ticket sales.
The Playboy Channel and Video Centerfold: Television and VHS (1982–1990s)
Category: Cable TV and Home Video
In the 1980s, Playboy turned its pictorials into moving images. The Playboy Channel brought the brand to cable television in 1982, and Playboy Home Video put Playmates on VHS through the Playboy Video Magazine and the Video Centerfold series. For the women involved, it was a screen test seen by millions: they now had to move, talk and hold the camera's attention.
From Escapade to the Playboy Channel
The channel's roots go back to a cable service that began as Bravo! in 1979. In 1981, Playboy became half-owner of the pay service Escapade, and its first Playboy programming aired on January 21, 1982, with an interview with John and Bo Derek and footage of Shannon Tweed. On November 18, 1982, the service relaunched as the Playboy Channel, mixing R-rated films with original shows such as the music programme Playboy's Hot Rocks. The UK video magazine Electric Blue also aired on the channel, a sign of how freely this material crossed the Atlantic.
The channel changed names as the market changed: it became Playboy at Night in 1989, then took the Playboy TV name in 1994, when it moved to 24-hour broadcasting. In 2011, Playboy sold it to Manwin, the company now known as Aylo.
Playboy Video Magazine and the Video Centerfold
Playboy Home Video started in 1982, with early titles distributed through MGM/UA and CBS/Fox, the same major-studio video labels that sold Hollywood films on cassette. The Playboy Video Magazine ran for 12 issues between 1983 and 1987. Its first issue featured Shannon Tweed and introduced the first Video Centerfold, Lonny Chin.
The idea grew into its own series. The first stand-alone Video Centerfold, with Sherry Arnett, was released in 1986, and later volumes featured Pamela Anderson in 1992, as well as Anna Nicole Smith, Jenny McCarthy and Victoria Silvstedt. For many of these women, the video was the first time audiences heard their voices.
A Screen Test on Cable
Television rewarded personality more than pictorials did. Jenny McCarthy hosted Hot Rocks on Playboy TV before moving to MTV's Singled Out, her own sitcom Jenny and Scream 3. Her case shows what cable could do: it gave a Playmate a format to prove she could be funny, quick and natural on camera, which is exactly what casting directors look for.
The 1980s were also the years when I was beginning to follow the business side of cinema, before I joined film marketing in 1993, and home video was changing everything. Cassettes and cable created a huge demand for content, and Playboy was ready to fill it. The same demand would soon create a whole genre: the straight-to-video erotic thriller.
The Straight-to-Video Erotic Thriller: Shannon Tweed, Andrew Stevens and Red Shoe Diaries
Category: Home Video and Cable Erotica
The video and cable boom of the late 1980s and 1990s created a new home for Playmates and for actresses willing to do nudity: the erotic thriller made for VHS and premium cable. It was a steady, profitable market where a centerfold could become a lead actress, but it rarely led back to mainstream cinema.
Shannon Tweed, the Playmate as Leading Lady
Shannon Tweed is the clearest example. After being named Playmate of the Year in 1982 and appearing in the first issue of the Playboy Video Magazine, she moved into television with Falcon Crest and HBO's 1st & Ten, then built a long career in B-movies and erotic thrillers made for video and cable. Years later, she reached a new audience with the reality series Gene Simmons Family Jewels. Her career shows that the video market did not end careers; it created a different one, with its own stars and its own loyal audience.
Andrew Stevens and the Night Eyes Formula
The genre also had its producers. Andrew Stevens, the son of former Playmate and actress Stella Stevens, wrote and starred in Night Eyes (1990), an erotic thriller about a security man watching a woman he is hired to protect, and its sequels. He then ran Royal Oaks Entertainment, which produced around 70 films, including premieres for HBO and Showtime. His career links two generations: the mother who made the move from Playboy to Hollywood in the 1960s, and the son who turned erotic video into an industry in the 1990s.
Zalman King and Red Shoe Diaries
At the more stylish end of the market stood Zalman King, director of Two Moon Junction and Wild Orchid. His anthology series Red Shoe Diaries ran on Showtime from 1992 to 1997 and was distributed by Playboy, with David Duchovny introducing the episodes. It gave the erotic genre a polished, romantic look and proved that Playboy could profit from erotica it had not produced itself.
Stars Who Joined the Market
Established names also moved into this market. Bo Derek, once Playboy's most famous cover star, made Woman of Desire (1994), an erotic thriller that went to video. For performers who had been stars in the 1980s, video and cable offered steady work when cinema roles became fewer.
Since I began writing about cinema in 1990, I have followed many actors who slid from theatrical releases into direct-to-video films. For actresses in the erotic thriller, the trap was sharper: the genre paid well and kept them working, but it also fixed their image. Few managed to leave it, which is why the question of exploitation versus drama matters so much in the next section.
Nudity on Screen and on the Page: Exploitation or Drama?
Category: Critical Analysis
The same nude image could launch a career or destroy one. The difference usually lay in who controlled it: the woman, or the men selling it. Dorothy Stratten, Traci Lords, Vanessa Williams, Sylvia Kristel and Corinne Cléry show both sides: nudity as part of a serious film, and nudity used to sell someone who had no real choice.
Dorothy Stratten: The Cautionary Case
Dorothy Stratten was Playboy's Playmate of the Year in 1980 and seemed to be the perfect example of the centerfold who could act. She starred in the science-fiction comedy Galaxina and then in Peter Bogdanovich's They All Laughed, a real step towards respected cinema. In 1980, she was murdered by her estranged husband, Paul Snider, who had promoted her early career. Her story became the darkest reminder that the men who "discover" a beautiful face often believe they own it.
Penthouse, September 1984: Traci Lords and Vanessa Williams
One issue of Penthouse holds two of the industry's biggest scandals. In September 1984, the magazine published nude photos of Vanessa Williams, taken before she became Miss America and published without her consent. They cost her the crown. The same issue's centerfold, Traci Lords, turned out to be only 16 years old. Both women later rebuilt their careers: Williams as a singer and actress, and Lords in mainstream films beginning with John Waters' Cry-Baby (1990). But in 1984 they were the clearest examples of nudity as exploitation: images of a woman who had not agreed to their use, and of a minor who could not legally agree at all.
Emmanuelle and Story of O: Art Film or Erotic Product?
Sylvia Kristel made Emmanuelle (1974) a worldwide hit and appeared in five of the seven Emmanuelle films, but the role defined her for the rest of her life. In her memoir Undressing Emmanuelle (2007), she looked back on the fame and its cost. Corinne Cléry faced a similar question with Histoire d'O (1975), adapted by Sébastien Japrisot from the novel and directed by Just Jaeckin. The British censor refused it a cinema certificate in 1975, and it was only passed uncut on DVD in 2000. Cléry escaped the label better than most, moving to Moonraker (1979) and a long career in Italian cinema.
Where Is the Line?
For me, the line is not how much the camera shows, but whether the nudity serves the story and whether the actress agreed to the way it would be used. Caligula, where explicit scenes were added in post-production without the involvement of the main cast, is exploitation even with a cast of great British actors. A film like La Femme publique, which earned Valérie Kaprisky a César nomination, uses nudity as part of a demanding role. As a critic and festival juror, I have judged many films with nude scenes, and the question I always ask is the same: would the scene still matter if the actress were not famous for her body?
More Than a Beautiful Face: Who Built Careers and Who Didn't
Category: Careers and Lessons
The Playmates who lasted treated the pictorial as an introduction, not a career. They chose roles that showed another skill (comedy, drama, presenting or producing), worked with respected directors, and kept changing their image. Those who stayed only the "girl from the magazine" usually remained in exploitation films and on video.
The Ones Who Made It
| Actress | Magazine debut | What came next |
|---|---|---|
| Stella Stevens | Playboy Playmate, January 1960 | Golden Globe for New Star of the Year; Too Late Blues, Girls! Girls! Girls!, The Nutty Professor, The Poseidon Adventure |
| Connie Kreski | Playmate, January 1968; Playmate of the Year 1969 | Female lead in Anthony Newley's Heironymus Merkin; The Outside Man; Captains and the Kings |
| Shannon Tweed | Playmate of the Year 1982 | Falcon Crest, 1st & Ten, erotic thrillers, Gene Simmons Family Jewels |
| Kim Basinger | Playboy cover, February 1983 | Never Say Never Again, The Natural |
| Pamela Anderson | Playmate, February 1990 | Raw Justice, Barb Wire, The Last Showgirl, Tennessee Williams' Camino Real on stage in 2025 |
| Jenny McCarthy | Playmate, October 1993 | Hot Rocks, MTV's Singled Out, the sitcom Jenny, Scream 3 |
| Kelly Monaco | Playmate, April 1997 | Baywatch, Port Charles |
What They Had in Common
Stella Stevens is still the model. She worked with John Cassavetes on Too Late Blues, played opposite Elvis Presley and Jerry Lewis, and joined the ensemble of a blockbuster, The Poseidon Adventure. Her comic timing sold more than her face. Kim Basinger used Playboy to promote a Bond film, then used the attention to win a role in a prestige baseball drama. Jenny McCarthy sold humour, and Shannon Tweed sold reliability to a genre that needed it.
Pamela Anderson took the longest road. She holds the record for the most Playboy covers, and for decades her image was bigger than her work. In recent years she has turned that around with The Last Showgirl and a Broadway-bound turn in Camino Real, and Karim Aïnouz has announced her for Rosebush Pruning. Her late career proves that an actress can rewrite her image if she chooses serious directors and material.
Who Didn't Break Through, and Why
Claudia Jennings, Playmate of the Year in 1970, became a familiar face in exploitation films and on television, but never crossed into mainstream leading roles. Dorothy Stratten might have, if her life had not been cut short. In Europe, Sylvia Kristel spent decades trying to escape Emmanuelle. The pattern is clear: when the industry offered only one type of role, the actress needed a strong director, a different genre or her own business to break out.
After more than three decades as a critic, programmer and juror, I believe the lesson is the same in Hollywood, Paris or Rome. A magazine cover can sell a face for a month. An actress who wants a career has to sell timing, intelligence, a voice and a willingness to be seen differently, and those are things no photographer can provide.
Conclusion: More Than a Face, More Than a Magazine
Playboy, Penthouse, Lui and Playmen were never just magazines. They financed films, ran television channels, sold home videos and timed their covers to film releases, and in Europe they moved nudity from the inside pages to the cover in less than two decades. For the women they photographed, that power opened doors and set traps.
The careers that lasted, from Stella Stevens and Kim Basinger to Pamela Anderson's late reinvention, were built on what came after the pictorial: comic timing, strong directors, new genres and the courage to change an image. The stories of Dorothy Stratten, Traci Lords and Vanessa Williams remind us what happens when someone else controls a woman's image.
I have written about cinema since 1990 and spent the 1990s marketing Hollywood films in Egypt, and I have seen how publicity can make a star in a month and define her for a lifetime. The beautiful face sells the first issue; everything after that is the actress's own work.
FAQ: Playboy, Men's Magazines and the Screen
Did Playboy produce films?
Yes. Playboy formed a production arm in 1959 and made the TV shows Playboy's Penthouse and Playboy After Dark. In 1971, Playboy Enterprises financed Roman Polanski's Macbeth after Paramount, Universal and MGM turned it down. The film opened at New York's Playboy Theater and lost $3.5 million in total.
When did the Playboy Channel start?
Playboy programming first aired on the cable service Escapade on January 21, 1982, and the service relaunched as the Playboy Channel on November 18, 1982. It showed R-rated films and original shows such as Playboy's Hot Rocks, became Playboy at Night in 1989 and took the Playboy TV name in 1994.
What was the Playboy Video Centerfold?
It was Playboy's home-video series of Playmates on VHS. The Playboy Video Magazine introduced the first Video Centerfold, Lonny Chin, in its first issue, and the first stand-alone release, with Sherry Arnett, followed in 1986. Later volumes featured Pamela Anderson, Anna Nicole Smith, Jenny McCarthy and Victoria Silvstedt.
Which Playboy Playmates became successful actresses?
Stella Stevens, Playmate for January 1960, won a Golden Globe as New Star of the Year and starred in The Nutty Professor and The Poseidon Adventure. Others who built screen careers include Shannon Tweed, Jenny McCarthy, Kelly Monaco and Pamela Anderson, who moved from Barb Wire to The Last Showgirl and the stage.
What was Lui magazine?
Lui was a French men's magazine launched in November 1963 by Daniel Filipacchi and Frank Ténot, with Valérie Lagrange on its first cover. It photographed French film stars such as Brigitte Bardot, Mireille Darc and Jane Birkin, and in August 1983 put Valérie Kaprisky fully nude on its cover.
Did Penthouse finance movies?
Yes. Bob Guccione, who founded Penthouse in London in 1965, invested in Hollywood films including Chinatown, The Longest Yard and The Day of the Locust. He also financed Caligula, released in 1979 and 1980, and had explicit hardcore scenes added in post-production without the involvement of the film's main cast.
Why did Vanessa Williams lose her Miss America title?
Penthouse published nude photos of Vanessa Williams in its September 1984 issue, pictures taken before she became Miss America and published without her consent. The scandal cost her the crown. The same issue's centerfold, Traci Lords, was later found to be only 16 years old at the time.
How did Kim Basinger use Playboy for her career?
Kim Basinger posed for Playboy's February 1983 cover and pictorial to promote the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. She has said the pictorial led to her role in The Natural, making her one of the clearest examples of an actress who used a magazine as a step toward serious roles.