Dorothy Mays Bio
Dorothy Mays is an American model best known as Playboy’s Playmate of the Month for July 1979. She was born on July 24, 1957, in Nuremberg, Germany, and later lived in Maryland. Her centerfold was photographed by Richard Fegley.
Mays was working as a hairdresser at Head First in Glen Burnie, Maryland, when she was selected for the July 1979 issue. Contemporary reporting described her as a Baltimore-area haircutter whose Playmate fee was $10,000; she planned to use it toward opening her own shop. She had previously held the titles Miss Van Festival in Richmond and Miss Georgetown.
Her Playmate data sheet lists her height as 5 feet 7 inches, weight as 118 pounds, and measurements as 35½-24½-34. It also records Leo as her astrological sign. The same questionnaire names her professional goal: opening a high-quality men’s hair-styling shop in Maryland.
Away from work, Mays listed the beach, good friends, writing, and reading among her interests. Her favorite films included One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Midnight Express, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind; she named Bob Dylan, Serge, and Linda Ronstadt among her favorite musicians. She also described herself as a vegetarian and listed potatoes, pasta, and large salads as favorite foods.
Her long-term ambition was more rural than glamorous: Mays wrote that she hoped to run a farm with horses and cows, grow and sell her own vegetables, and “live happily ever after.” The contrast between that goal and her work as a Maryland hairdresser gives her July 1979 Playboy appearance a more personal context than the usual Playmate profile.
