Laura Young Bio
Laura Young was an American glamour and nude model. She was born on May 22, 1938, in Long Branch, New Jersey. Playboy named her its October 1962 Playmate at 24. Her appearance came during the 1960s, as Playboy grew into a major force in American magazine publishing.
Young had natural breasts, green eyes and brown hair. Her measurements are 36-25-36.
Laura Young came to Playboy without a long modeling apprenticeship behind her. Before posing for the magazine, she had supported herself through more conventional work as a secretary, telephone operator and nurse’s aide. She joked that her previous camera experience had been considerably less glamorous—a photographer once needed only a woman’s back, not her face—so the centerfold represented a very different introduction to professional modeling.
The session also carried significance on the other side of the camera. Pompeo Posar photographed Young’s centerfold, making her the first Playmate he shot for Playboy. His approach favored controlled composition and classical portraiture over elaborate gimmicks, allowing posture and expression to do much of the work. Posar would go on to become one of the magazine’s recurring photographers, giving Young’s pictorial an additional place in Playboy’s photographic history.
Golf was the hobby that supplied much of her personality off set. Young spent plenty of time on the course and was happy to joke about her own scorekeeping, once claiming a 72 before admitting she had only reached the sixth green. The game suited her social side as well: she valued humor above most other qualities in a man and had little patience for gloomy company or anyone unwilling to dance.
Young’s appearance drew enough attention for her to become a finalist for Playmate of the Year, although the annual title ultimately went to June Cochran. For Young, Playboy arrived at a moment when modeling still felt new rather than predetermined. That combination—a first major shoot, a photographer beginning an important Playboy run and a woman approaching the whole experience with a golfer’s sense of humor—gives her place in the archive a quietly distinctive character.
