Carol O'Neal Bio
Carol O'Neal is an American actress, glamour and nude model. She was born on August 18, 1948, in New York City, New York. Playboy named her its July 1972 Playmate at 23. Her appearance came during Playboy's 1970s print era, when the magazine reached the height of its mass-market influence.
O'Neal has natural breasts, brown eyes and brown hair. Her measurements are 35-25-35.
Carol O’Neal arrived at Playboy through the front door—literally. In 1970 she came to the company’s Chicago headquarters looking for a job as a receptionist, not a place in the magazine. She had previously worked as an airline stewardess but found the opportunities for advancement limited and wanted something with more room to grow. Playboy hired her, and O’Neal soon moved beyond the reception desk into personnel work, screening applicants and helping match candidates with available positions.
She took that responsibility seriously. O’Neal believed nervous applicants rarely presented themselves at their best, so she tried to make people comfortable before their interviews and sometimes suggested jobs they had not originally considered. As Playboy expanded its clubs, hotels and other operations, she found herself learning the business from inside the company—eventually even assisting with assignments involving Playboy models. It was an unusual apprenticeship for someone who would later find herself on the other side of the process.
O’Neal also had a playful explanation for her progress: astrology. Before landing her Playboy job, she recalled reading a horoscope predicting that her vigorous personality would serve her well in the many enterprises she undertook. She was impulsive enough to enjoy the prediction rather than dismiss it, and her move from airline work to Playboy employee and then into modeling certainly gave the stars a good story to work with.
Away from the office and camera, O’Neal’s interests included antique shopping, public auctions and gourmet cooking. Her later personal life connected her to another distinctly Chicago institution when she married Bobby Douglass, quarterback for the Chicago Bears; the marriage eventually ended in divorce.
What makes O’Neal’s Playboy story unusual is that she understood the company first as a workplace. She had answered its phones, reviewed its job applications and watched its growing organization from behind the scenes before becoming part of the magazine herself. For once, Playboy did not discover its next model at a club, casting session or photo studio. She was already on the payroll.
