Lannie Balcom

Any woman has the ability to become a Playmate if she has the drive, beauty and determination to make it happen. Lannie Balcom embodied those qualities and so much more—after all, she is beautiful with all-natural curves. Born in Clarkdale, Arizona, Lannie moved to Chicago where she was hired to be a Bunny at the Playboy Club. “I enjoyed being a Bunny,” says the blonde-haired beauty with blue-gray eyes, “but when I found out the magazine was looking for an editorial receptionist, I decided to throw my hat in the ring. I never dreamed I'd come up through the ranks so quickly, but that's the way things are around here—fast and furious.” Fast and furious is exactly how we would describe the ambitious cottontail who landed the job as Playboy’s assistant manager for the College Bureau. “I've had lots of interesting jobs before -- dancing teacher, stewardess, dental assistant and secretary, but my present position is by far the most demanding of the lot. I'm the sort of person who's not happy unless I'm busy all the time, and with my current responsibilities to the magazine's more than 450 campus representatives, in addition to working on college surveys, subscriptions and correspondence with students and local advertisers, I hardly have time for a coffee break,” she quickly says. “Don't get the idea that I'm complaining, though, because I wouldn't have it any other way. In fact, I'm looking forward to adding the upcoming Playmate promotion tours to my schedule.” Adding the title of Miss August 1965 to her list, our Playmate of the Month is excited by how far she’s grown within the company in such a short amount of time, but she isn’t going to let it go to her head and distract her from her duties. “One college subscriber I corresponded with is now a pilot in Vietnam,” says Lannie, “and he wrote back to tell me he named his helicopter the Miss Balcom.” Brightening up the lives of Playboy fans on and off campus, Lannie tells us she wouldn’t be the fabulous person she is today if it weren’t for her family. “The Balcoms are a very close-knit family by nature. I guess that comes from their history of frontier living,” she explains. “One of my ancestors, a distant aunt named Elizabeth Balcombe, struck up more than just a nodding acquaintance with Napoleon and, as a result, the Balcoms had to leave Europe in a hurry after Waterloo. Most of them headed for Australia, but our branch of the clan settled in what is now Clarkdale, Arizona.” One thing we know for sure is to never question the depths of a Balcom’s ambition, especially Lannie’s.