January Venus: Sally Duberson

Sally Duberson for January 1965

We are desperately posting the selection of January centrefolds so we have at least a faint chance of getting February in actually during the month itself!  Not an outstanding selection again this month but at least the number one choice was an easy pick.

Sally Dubersen, re-energised by her coffee, gives it some more come thither

Sally Duberson from 1965 poses on a chair having a restorative cup of coffee before going back to bed for another good session.  That is if she gets that far and doesn't end up on the shag (!) pile carpet.  A nice Z shaped composition by Pompeo Posar this and her casually spread legs, perky nipples and lazy half smile just ooze sex.  Duberson was a Bunny Girl in both Miami and Baltimore before going to New York to study fashion design.

Virginia Gordon for January 1959

Here is another Playmate using angles to good effect in this picture from 1959.  Gordon was hoping for a Hollywood career when she posed for photographer Ron Vogel.  Following her appearance as a Playmate she posed nude in a number of other magazines that were then jumping on the Playboy bandwagon, prompting Hugh Hefner to introduce a two year exclusive contract with his models from then on. 

Virginia Gordon sitting pretty

Virginia did go on to make half a dozen films including Tonight for Sure (1962), the directorial debut of Francis Ford Coppola.  Again, its the faintly naughty smile that's the winner here as well as the "just hanging around your bathroom" vibe.  Photographer Ron Vogel was one of the top glamour photgraphers in Los Angeles at this time and was well connected with the movie industry and, apart from his magazine work, went on to have a more than forty year career as stills photographer on a whole slew of racy films from 1960 until 2003.

Judi Monterey for January 1963

Our third choice, Judi Monterey, was nearly this month's winner.  Photographed by one of the greatest pin-up photographers in history, Peter Gowland, in his own bathroom in California, she was only the second centrefold to be photographed in the bath (after Colleen Farrington in October 1957). 

Judi can do sexy as well as cute in the bubbles

A tiny 5'1" tall, she manages to twist her body so that she displays both her bottom and bust.  Her appeal is in her cute smile and her foamy tipped breasts.  Did she put the foam there or did she have someone to help her?  Whatever, you are torn between wanting to jump in and either wash the suds off or put more on.

Debra Jensen for January 1978

From 1978 we have Debra Jensen in a rather old-fashioned studio-bound shot by Phillip Dixon.  Her pose doesn't look that natural or comfortable but the horizontal swoosh effect of the coat, roses and drapery take your eye along the length of her tanned body.  Dixon shot six centrefolds for Playboy between 1976 and 1978.  He was more prolific on covers, taking no less than seventeen between 1975 and 2003.  Dixon is now a well known fashion and advertising photographer whose clients include Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Ray-Ban and Paramount Pictures but it was Playboy who gave him his big break.  Jensen's tan lines emphasis her natural coloured looking pubic hair which is almost dead centre in the picture.  Dixon's lighting gives it such texture that you feel you can reach into the picture and stroke it.

Debra a little more upright

Jensen, who also had a contract with Coppertone, went on to marry Peter Criss from the band Kiss whom she met at a party thrown by Rod Stewart but they eventually divorced after five years.  Jensen was also one of a pool of girls that Hugh Hefner had in the late seventies along with Patti McGuire, Monique St. Pierre, Susan Kiger, Hope Olson and Daina House amongst others. 

Karen Elaine Price for January 1981

Now Triple P has never been a big bust man in real life.  Amongst his former girlfriends only SA and K could be said to have had really big busts.  He finds girls with very big busts can look rather odd, especially, ironically, when dressed.  However, there is a certain visual power a large bust can have in glamour photographs when femininity tends to be exaggerated anyway.  A very good example of this is Karen Elaine Price from 1981.  Playboy loves big busts and few have been as impressive as Miss Price's. 

Karen uses gravity to demonstrate she is entirely natural

Photographer Ken Marcus, who originally worked for Penthouse,  makes it quite clear what the focus of his picture is.  Price's amazing 38 inch breasts shine forth from the page like two giant moons; their pale skin making them appear to float in three dimensions above the rest of her body, which has been artfully crammed into the three page format. Price, who used to be a gymnast when she was younger, went on to become an actress, stuntwoman and now TV producer.

Irina Voronina for January 2001

Finally, we have an unusually late, for Triple P, entry in the stunning shape of Russian playmate Irina Voronina from 2001.  Although we are not a fan of the later over-Photoshopped style of Playboy photographer, this effort, by veteran Playboy snapper Arny Freytag places the beautifully sculpted Irina in front of a blood red background as she steps out of the shower like twenty-first century succubus.

She'll suck you dry

Irina, who was originally a fashion model in Russia, now appears regulary on TV and in the cinema.  Voronina hit the headlines in 2009 following several appearances on the TV show Entourage when she claimed some of the actors on the show didn't know where acting the bad boy and real life ended.  She claimed that she was summarily fired from the show in the middle of a shoot for being "rude", for which read not being nice enough, to some of the actors.  Unfortunately, this is always a problem for women who take their clothes of for a living.  Men (especially men with celebrity, money or power) can't tell the fact from the fantasy.