A third-generation Californian, Lari Laine majored in journalism at the University of California at Berkeley but got sidetracked when she became first runner-up to Miss USA. After that, she became a model, "a sort of early Cheryl Tiegs," she says. "I had been on 29 national magazine covers when I decided to pose for Playboy. The magazine had been chasing me for three years through this photographer and that photographer, and finally this one man, Ron Vogel, came to me. He was working with his wife. He cried on my shoulder, said this could be my big break and it would get his foot into the door with Playboy. So I finally said yes. For most girls, Playboy was their first modeling job; I quit modeling after I did Playboy. I figured that was the top."
Lari's name was actually Corinne, but because her father was running for Congress at the time, she adopted a pseudonym. "My mother, who had been a Ziegfeld showgirl, was very supportive. And the pictures were done in such good taste that my father went around the country club (site of the centerfold shoot) showing them off."
Playboy paid off for Lari with showbiz offers: "'Ozzie and Harriet,' 'Playhouse 90' and all those wonderful television shows. I got a beautiful Thunderbird car with the money."
Lari/Corinne has been married three times -- once widowed, once divorced, she's now the wife of legendary motion-picture director George Sidney -- and has one son. "Ben came to me as an angry 11-year-old when he heard I'd been in Playboy. I went and got the magazine and showed him the picture, and he said, 'You see models on billboards with fewer clothes on!' and calmed down."
In recent years, Lari has been a society columnist, a candidate for the Beverly Hills city council and president of the Hollywood Women's Press Club. But it's her Playmate past that interests people most, she says. "It's an art form," she declares. "I don't know if I'd do Playboy now, with the pubic hair and everything. But I'd march for the right to do it."
