Cynthia Myers

{{Short description|American film actress and model (1950–2011)}}

{{Infobox Playboy Playmate

| name = Cynthia Myers

| image = Cynthia Myers.jpg

| imagesize =

| caption = Myers in the 2000s

| issue = December 1968

| birth_name = Cynthia Jeanette Myers

| birth_place = Toledo, Ohio, U.S.

| birth_date = {{birth date|mf=yes|1950|9|12}}

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2011|11|4|1950|9|12}}

| death_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S.

| height = {{height|ft=5||in=3}}

| preceded = Paige Young

| succeeded = Leslie Bianchini

}}

Cynthia Jeanette Myers (September 12, 1950 – November 4, 2011{{cite news|title=Playboy Playmate Cynthia Myers Dies: ‘Beyond the Valley of the Dolls’ Star|url=https://www.altfg.com/cynthia-myers-playboy-playmate-beyond-the-valley-of-the-dolls/|first=Andre|last=Soares|date=6 November 2011|website=Alt Film Guide}}) was an American model, actress, and Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for the December 1968 issue.

Career

Born in Toledo, Ohio and attending Woodward High School, Myers began getting modeling offers when she was fourteen years old. Many people suggested to her that she should model for Playboy.{{cite interview|title=Interview With Playboy Magazine’s Cynthia Myers|last= Myers|first=Cynthia|interviewer-last=James|interviewer-first=Gary|date=27 December 2014|website=Strip Magazine|url=https://strip-magazine.com/featured-dancer/interview-with-cynthia-myers/}} According to Myers, she was 13 when her breasts began to develop, and when she was fifteen she submitted some photographs to Playboy. Her bust had reached size 39 DD by the time the photoshoot for the magazine took place in June 1968. Myers was the first Playboy Playmate born in the 1950s when she appeared in the magazine in December 1968.{{cite web|url=http://www.cynthiamyers.com/Graphics/bio2001.gif|title=Cynthia Myers' official biography|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010618020531/http://www.cynthiamyers.com/Graphics/bio2001.gif|archive-date=18 June 2001|url-status=dead|website=Cynthia Myers}} The pictures were taken when she was 17 years old,{{cite web|url=http://www.retrocrush.com/archive2006/cynthiamyers/|title=Randy Waage's interview with Cynthia Myers|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080808133832/http://www.retrocrush.com/archive2006/cynthiamyers/|archive-date=8 August 2008|website=Retro Crush|url-status=dead}} but it was Playboy's policy at that time to wait until a Playmate turned 18 before her pictures would be published.{{cite web|url=http://www.cynthiamyers.com/my%20bio.htm|title=Steve Sullivan's biography of Cynthia Myers|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080512093114/http://www.cynthiamyers.com/my%20bio.htm|archive-date=12 May 2008|website=Cynthia Myers}} In the meantime she moved into an apartment at the Playboy Mansion in Chicago and worked at the Chicago Playboy Club. At the mansion she met attendees from the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Her pictorial, released in December 1968, was taken in front of the Toledo Art Museum and was titled "Wholly Toledo!" because of Myers' hometown and her large breasts. She appeared on the cover and in the centerfold, which was photographed by Pompeo Posar. Her appearance in Playboy magazine took place during the Vietnam War. She quickly became a favorite of the American troops serving in Vietnam, receiving many letters from them and trying to answer them all. Her centerfold appears in the 1987 film Hamburger Hill and in the 1989 film The Siege of Firebase Gloria.

After her magazine debut, she carried out a promotional tour for Playboy and then returned to school, after which she had a number of jobs, including being an usher at a movie theater. She met Burt Lancaster who introduced her to Sydney Pollack, leading to her having a small uncredited role in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). She also made frequent appearances on Hugh Hefner's Playboy After Dark TV series in 1969. She joined the Actors And Directors Lab in Beverly Hills and studied there with Bruce Dern. She took the leading role of the sensitive bisexual rock and roll singer and bass player Casey Anderson in Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). She followed this with a supporting role in the Western, Molly and Lawless John (1972). She subsequently retired from film-making, partly due to repeated requests for her to appear in nude scenes.{{cite news|title=Toast to a 60s icon; Cynthia Myers, Toledo native and 68 Playboy cover girl, is Gusto Girl today|url=https://www.toledoblade.com/a-e/culture/2009/07/05/Toast-to-a-60s-icon-Cynthia-Myers-Toledo-native-and-68-Playboy-cover-girl-is-Gusto-Girl-today/stories/200907050004|website=Toledo Blade|date=5 July 2009}}

She appeared in the 1970, 1971, and 1972 Playmate Calendars and was also voted No. 10 “Playmate of the Century” in a Playboy poll carried out in the year 2000.

In 1994, it became known that a nude photo of Myers (along with fellow playmates Angela Dorian, Reagan Wilson and Leslie Bianchini) was scanned and inserted into Apollo 12 extra-vehicular activity astronaut cuff checklists by the Apollo 12 backup crew (Dave Scott, Jim Irwin, Al Worden) at NASA.{{cite web|url=http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/13/playboy_playmates_pr.html|title=Playboy Playmates pranked into Apollo 12 mission checklists|date=13 January 2007|first=Xeni|last=Jardin|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110517151518/http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/13/playboy_playmates_pr.html|archive-date=17 May 2011|website=Boing Boing}}{{cite web|url=http://www.playboy.com/go/blog/magazine/Letters/2007/01/10/On-Buckeyes-Nanotechnology-and-Playmates-in-Space.html|title=On Buckeyes, Nanotechnology and Playmates in Space|website=Playboy|date=10 January 2007|first=Chip|last=Rowe|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070317190829/http://www.playboy.com/go/blog/magazine/Letters/2007/01/10/On-Buckeyes-Nanotechnology-and-Playmates-in-Space.html|archive-date=17 March 2007|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a12/a12.lmpcuf08.jpg |title=Profile |access-date=2007-01-14 |archive-date=2016-12-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161228103802/http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/a12/a12.lmpcuf08.jpg |url-status=dead }}

In 2000 she shot new topless and nude photos for a Playboy retrospective. She had left open the possibility that she would pose nude again.{{citation needed|date=November 2024}}

Myers married an Air Force pilot whom she met on a fishing trip to Lake Mead, Nevada in 1981, living with him and their son Robert in southern California. She continued to model, ran a website featuring her work, and was about to appear in a feature film, Please Sign it Love.{{citation needed|date=November 2024}}

In 2009, Myers became a spokeswoman for Schlitz beer.{{cite news|url=http://www.toledofreepress.com/2009/07/03/pin-up-still-turns-heads-with-beer-campaign/ |title=Pin-up still turns heads with beer campaign|newspaper=Toledo Free Press|first=Mark|last=Hensch|date=3 July 2009|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130125002942/http://www.toledofreepress.com/2009/07/03/pin-up-still-turns-heads-with-beer-campaign/ |archive-date=25 January 2013}} Her image was displayed on billboards and in grocery stores and bars as part of 60s-themed marketing campaign.

Bill Cosby

Sometime after 1997, Myers provided interviews for the book Centerfolds, which was released in 2015. In these undated interviews, she claimed she personally witnessed Bill Cosby "use drugs to have sex with women" at the Playboy Mansion, stating that his actions repulsed her so much she was unable to "shed a tear" when Cosby's son Ennis was murdered in 1997.{{cite news |title=New Book Reveals Playboy Playmate's Posthumous Allegations Of Bill Cosby Drugging Women For Sex |first=Jennifer |last=Murray |date=August 19, 2015 |work=Inquisitr |url=http://www.inquisitr.com/2349157/new-book-reveals-playboy-playmates-posthumous-allegations-of-bill-cosby-drugging-women-for-sex/ |access-date=November 23, 2022}}