Lannie Balcom Bio
Lannie Balcom was an American Playboy Bunny, actress, glamour and nude model. She was born Linda K. Balcom on March 17, 1941, in Clarkdale, Arizona. Playboy named her its August 1965 Playmate at 24. Her appearance came during the 1960s, as Playboy grew into a major force in American magazine publishing.
Balcom had natural breasts, brown eyes and brown hair. Her measurements are 34-22-36.
Lannie Balcom’s relationship with Playboy developed from the inside out. She first worked as a Bunny at the Chicago Playboy Club, then spotted an opening for an editorial receptionist and decided to apply. The move placed her closer to the magazine’s day-to-day operations and quickly led to greater responsibility. Before long, Balcom had become assistant manager of Playboy’s College Bureau, a position that put her in contact with hundreds of campus representatives across the country.
The workload suited her. Balcom had previously worked as a dance teacher, stewardess, dental assistant and secretary, but she described the College Bureau as the most demanding job she had held. She handled correspondence with more than 450 campus representatives, worked on college surveys, subscriptions and advertising matters, and rarely seemed troubled by the pace. Quite the opposite: Balcom said she was happiest when she was busy and looked forward to adding promotional appearances to an already crowded schedule.
Her correspondence occasionally produced reminders of how widely Playboy travelled beyond college campuses. One former subscriber she had written to later became a pilot serving in Vietnam and told her that he had named his helicopter “Miss Balcom.” It was an unexpected tribute for someone whose job was usually concerned with paperwork, campus programs and magazine promotion rather than military aviation.
Family history gave Balcom another story she enjoyed telling. She described the Balcoms as a close-knit family shaped by generations of frontier life and repeated a family tradition involving a distant relative, Elizabeth Balcombe, whose acquaintance with Napoleon supposedly helped send part of the family away from Europe after Waterloo. Whether working as a Bunny, managing campus correspondence or stepping in front of the camera, Balcom approached each new role with the same appetite for motion. Playboy did not simply discover her; it promoted someone who was already finding new ways to make herself indispensable.
