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 Hi - yes it's me and I
feel just like a '57 Chevy up here on the Internet, still in style
after all this time! Never thought I'd have my own website
www.diannechandler.com, but here I am and I intend to try to make
my site one you'll want to return to time after time. I plan to keep
my site interesting and change it often, have an opportunity to
converse with you, invite my sister Playmates to contribute and even
come up with some contests and fun games, including a "favorite
fantasy" section. I'll be posting my snapshots of the Playboy and
Playboy-related events I attend, as well as a few promoting the ASPCA.
I'll also have some neat stuff for sale. Follow the links to my
website to see what is new with me.
For starters, I'm told I
should do a brief bio, so for those of you who aren't familiar with
"The Illini Eyeful" as my Centerfold in the September 1966 issue of
Playboy was titled, here's a quick background sketch.
I grew up in Oak Park,
Illinois (the magazine got that part wrong!) a suburb of Chicago, and
in high school was on the swim team, involved with the Drama Club and
worked as a DJ on the school radio station, which was broadcast to the
local hospital. Then I attended college at U of I in Champaign/Urbana,
IL. I had been reading Playboy for years by then, and noticed an ad in
the back of one of the Spring issues for Bunnies for the Chicago
Playboy Club. Hmm, I thought, that has to pay WAY better than
working at the Pancake House, like I did last summer! I had a friend
take some bikini-shots, sent them in, and presto! I worked the lunches
that summer at the Chicago Playboy Club, and occasionally at the Lake
Geneva Club. One of the staff photographers in Chicago who was a
regular luncheon customer kept asking me to take test shots. He said I
was perfect for the "Girl Next Door" they were looking for. Tho' I
never considered myself the glamorous type, I finally thought, "Why
Not?" I will never forget shrieking with delight when the phone
call came from Marilyn Grabowski (Photo Editor) telling me I'd been
chosen to become a Playmate! I mean, this just didn't happen to
college girls in the Midwest! This happened to golden girls living in
LA!
 Thence followed a year
or so of an intense shooting schedule with the very famous and very
wonderful Mr. Pompeo Posar, who to this day remains one of the neatest
gentlemen I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. After the centerfold
was chosen, Pompeo & I traveled to the U of I campus to shoot the rest
of the story, and I even got to invite my real friends to be in the
photo shoot! What a blast!
To accommodate my
Playmate promotional schedule, I had to drop out of school for a
while, because Playboy had me booked almost every weekend for about 5
years. That was a big benefit of living in Chicago; most of the
Playmates live in LA, so there were a lot of appearances to be made
and the few of us living in Chicago (Patty Reynolds, Linda Gamble,
Eleanor Bradley) se we were were kept very busy.
It was a wild and crazy
time – the 60's in all its glory, and I really did get into the whole
scene. It was, like, "try everything, all experiences are cool". And
so I did, and I'll never regret it. Sure, I did a lot of stuff I
wouldn't do today, but so many things were very different then… think
of the ubiquitous "sex & drugs & rock 'n roll" phrase. Well, in those
days there was no AIDS, the drugs were for the most part what they
were supposed to be, and the music, well, what can I say? I'm a
Deadhead. I was totally into the music scene and fortunately, due to
my Playmate status, actually got to meet many of the performers I so
adored, and even party with them. The Blues Scene in Chicago, was
really happenin', and the Chicago folk-rock scene was exceptional as
well. I was so fortunate – I got to not only attend all those
incredible parties at the Chicago Mansion, where Hef was kind enough
to put me up while we were doing my shooting, but also to go to all
sorts of "related" activities and meet lots of celebrities. The
musicians were always the ones I got really excited about seeing. They
were the ones most likely to be into the friendly herb, and many a
concert was spent blissed-out and grooving till the wee hours, after
which "the munchies' would set in and I'd find myself out for
breakfast after an all-night jamming session with the band.
 My folks were divorced
and Mom wasn't too happy about my pin-up notoriety, and my younger sis
was kinda embarrassed too, since she was still in high school. These
are the kind of effects you never think about when, at 18, you sign a
contract to be published. By now, my niece by that sister has already
been approached by Playboy, but she has declined since she's in
college to become a psychologist (yes, this has changed from wanting
to be a criminal defense lawyer). Maybe my younger niece will allow me
to use my "friends in high places" to get her some test shots – both
of them are gorgeous (of course, I'm not prejudiced about this).
I have tons of stories
about crazy things that happened to me during this time, and I'll keep
the stories to short ones which I'll insert at my website,
www.diannechandler.com, in the future. Living at Hef's Mansion and
being a Hippie was an interesting combination of lifestyles to keep
up. What a long strange trip it has been. A lot of what I'll talk
about will be determined by what YOU want to hear.
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