Lieko English Bio
Lieko English is a Japanese Playboy Bunny, glamour and nude model. She was born on June 3, 1947, in Okinawa, Japan. Playboy named her its June 1971 Playmate at 23. Her appearance came during Playboy's 1970s print era, when the magazine reached the height of its mass-market influence.
English has natural breasts, hazel eyes and brown hair. Her measurements are 36-23-36.
Lieko English made Playboy history with a centerfold that registered as a milestone for representation: she was the first Japanese-born Playmate, the first American Playmate of Japanese ancestry and the magazine’s first hapa Playmate. The layout married a classical glamour portrait with an image of cross-cultural presence that, by contemporary accounts, stood out amid the publication’s glossy roster.
Her public life before Playboy already carried an international frame. In 1965 she competed on the Miss Universe stage as a representative of Okinawa, a credential that placed her on a global pageant platform well before she became a familiar face inside the company’s clubs. That familiarity had practical consequences: she turned up in Playboy editorial pages as one of the “Bunnies of 1970” (August 1970) and again among the “Bunnies of 1972” (October 1972), appearances that complemented her centerfold work rather than merely repeating it.
Off the magazine page she worked the floors at Playboy Clubs in Atlanta and Chicago, a steady, visible role that exposed her to the brand’s public-facing life. For a select few that visibility led to rarer assignments: English served as a Jet Bunny aboard Hugh Hefner’s DC‑9, a high-profile traveling role that mixed promotion, hospitality and the more theatrical side of Playboy’s operations.
Viewed together, the pieces of her career—from international pageant contestant to club Bunny, centerfold subject and Jet Bunny—trace an unusual arc within Playboy’s midcentury ecosystem. Her presence in those varied arenas became, for readers and clubgoers alike, a small but unmistakable sign that the magazine’s image could encompass a broader set of backgrounds and stories.
