Mara Corday Bio 
Mara Corday was an American showgirl, model, actress, and pinup girl. Born Marilyn Joan Watts on January 3, 1930, in Santa Monica, California, she has also been credited as Marilyn Joan Long. Playboy named her its October 1958 Playmate at 28. Her appearance dates from the magazine's formative 1950s, when the Playmate format was still taking shape.
Corday had natural breasts, brown eyes and brown hair. Her measurements are 35-24-35.
Mara Corday had already lived several show-business lives before Playboy entered the picture. Still in her teens, she found work at Hollywood’s Earl Carroll Theatre, where she spent roughly two and a half years progressing from showgirl to acting in comedy sketches. Even her professional name was assembled during those years: “Mara” grew out of the nickname Marita, while “Corday” was borrowed from a perfume bottle. Marilyn Watts had become Mara Corday, and the more exotic name suited the Hollywood career she was determined to build.
Modeling helped open the next doors. Corday became a familiar pinup face in men’s magazines during the 1950s while simultaneously working toward more substantial screen parts. Universal-International signed her as a contract player, and after a succession of smaller assignments she found a durable niche in science fiction, horror and Westerns. Tarantula paired her with John Agar and Leo G. Carroll, while The Giant Claw and The Black Scorpion further established her within the creature-feature cycle that later developed a devoted cult following. Westerns including Man Without a Star, A Day of Fury and Raw Edge showed another side of the same working actress.
Television broadened that run. Corday held a recurring role on Combat Sergeant and later guest-starred on series including Peter Gunn and Wanted: Dead or Alive, where she appeared alongside Steve McQueen. Playboy therefore caught her not at the beginning of an uncertain career, but in the middle of an already busy stretch spanning stage work, pinup modeling, studio contracts, film and television.
Marriage to actor Richard Long in 1957 eventually changed the pace. Corday stepped away from acting in the early 1960s to raise their three children, remaining out of films for years after Long’s death in 1974. Her return came through an old Universal friend, Clint Eastwood, who brought her back for The Gauntlet in 1977. She later appeared in Sudden Impact, Pink Cadillac and The Rookie, giving her career an unusually satisfying second act decades after her 1950s heyday.
Corday died in 2025 at the age of 95. Her Playboy appearance belongs to a much larger Hollywood story: Earl Carroll showgirl, pinup model, Universal contract player, science-fiction heroine, television actress, mother and, eventually, returning character performer. Few Playmates of the period arrived with so much screen history already behind them—or had quite so much career still waiting ahead.
