{"id":3834,"date":"2016-08-05T16:15:26","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T16:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sixtiescinema.com\/?p=3834"},"modified":"2016-08-05T16:15:26","modified_gmt":"2016-08-05T16:15:26","slug":"happy-birthday-playboy-playmate-beach-bunny-jo-collins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/2016\/08\/05\/happy-birthday-playboy-playmate-beach-bunny-jo-collins\/","title":{"rendered":"HAPPY BIRTHDAY PLAYBOY PLAYMATE &#038; BEACH BUNNY JO COLLINS!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ajo.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3835\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-3835\" src=\"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/ajo-195x300.jpg\" alt=\"ajo\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>A fresh-face, wholesome brunette, Jo Collins\u00a0was one of the most celebrated Playboy Playmates of the Sixties becoming the pin-up du jour of GIs stationed in Vietnam due to her many visits to that war torn country.\u00a0 Despite her popularity, she was never able to rise above decorative minor roles on the big screen. But with her figure, bikini-clad on the shores of Malibu is where she belonged.<\/p>\n<p>Jo Collins was<em> Playboy<\/em>\u2019s Miss December 1964 and was selected as Playmate of the Year in 1965 Collins became a favorite pin-up of service men worldwide and to show her support she traveled to Vietnam a number of times to help boost morale resulting in her being nicknamed \u201cG.I. Jo.\u201d\u00a0 She made her film debut in <em>Ski Party<\/em> (1965) as one of the anonymous beach girls who don ski clothes for a party in the snow.\u00a0 Of course there is an occasion for the gals to doff their bulky sweaters and slacks and slip into their bikinis as Frankie Avalon croons \u201cLots Lots More\u201d poolside.\u00a0 Collins is featured very prominently in this production number as she dances and gyrates to the catchy pop tune.\u00a0 She also competes with ski bunnies Patti Chandler, Salli Sachse, and Mikki Jamison for pompous ladies man Aron Kincaid\u2019s attention but he only as eyes for Dwayne Hickman dressed in drag as a feisty English lass.\u00a0 Despite her fantastic figure, Jo was pushed to the background in her next beach film <em>How to Stuff a Wild Bikini<\/em> (1965) though she makes the first comment about bikini girl Beverly Adams, the new competition on the sand, and joins the beach girls singing \u201cHey, What About Us\u201d to try to get adman Mickey Rooney to select one of them for his new advertising campaign.\u00a0 Later she and the other beach girls reluctantly try to teach Adams how to walk seductively.\u00a0 In the lame service comedy <em>Sergeant Deadhead<\/em> (1965) the beach gang once again puts on clothes as Collins played one of Deborah Walley\u2019s military friends.\u00a0 Her most outstanding screen appearance was in the satire <em>Lord Love a Duck<\/em> (1966) directed by George Axelrod.\u00a0 The former Playmate looked fantastic and gave a surprisingly droll performance as a shapely bored starlet seen lounging on a yacht.\u00a0 The star of <em>Cold War Bikini<\/em> and plaything of producer Martin Gabel, Collins finds him to be \u201cwhat a drag\u201d when he announces she is too over exposed and will now be playing the older sister to new discovery Tuesday Weld in his upcoming beach movie extravaganza, <em>Bikini Countdown<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 Jo Collin\u2019s last feature film was <em>Fireball 500<\/em> (1966) wherein the beach party gang abandons the shores of Malibu for the drag strip.\u00a0 Collins was part of a gaggle of groupies who coo over handsome racer Fabian rival to Frankie Avalon on and off the track.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Frankie Avalon - Lots Lots More (Ski Party - 1964)\" width=\"1170\" height=\"658\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/40gpiAErzpk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>After she stopped acting, Collins continued visiting Vietnam while working as a Playboy Bunny in clubs.\u00a0In 1970 Jo married former baseball player Bo Belinsky.\u00a0 That marriage ended in divorce in 1975 and Collins dropped out of the limelight working at Playboy, Inc. as a Bunny Mother.\u00a0 In the January 2000 issue of <em>Playboy,<\/em> Collins was named one of the 100 Centerfolds of the Century placing seventeenth.\u00a0 She appeared as herself in the DVD release <em>Playboy: 50 Year of Playmates<\/em> (2004) and in \u201cHugh Hefner: Girlfriends, Wives and Centerfolds\u201d on <em>E! True Hollywood Story<\/em> in 2006.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A fresh-face, wholesome brunette, Jo Collins\u00a0was one of the most celebrated Playboy Playmates of the Sixties becoming the pin-up du jour of GIs stationed in Vietnam due to her many visits to that war torn country.\u00a0 Despite her popularity, she was never able to rise above decorative minor roles on the big screen. But with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}