Like several other Playmates you've seen, Miss June is a promising young actress. But that's the only typical thing about Carrie Stevens, who has gone from Graceland to Hollywood -- and from tragedy to triumph -- while growing from bubbly teen to independent woman. "My story is a strange fairy tale.
... It started when I was a groupie," she says. In fact, Carrie's tale starts even earlier. She was born in Buffalo, where her father was a research scientist, and is a living reminder of his spectrophotometer. Its brand name: Carrie. "I was named after lab equipment," she says. Miss June combines her dad's logic with the artistic spirit of her mother, a painter, whom she followed to Memphis when her parents divorced. Teenager Carrie took countless tours of Graceland, dreaming of Elvis, wishing she were Priscilla Presley. Next came a real-life rock-and-roll dream. In 1987 she met Eric Carr, drummer for Kiss. She was 18, he was 37. For the next four years Carr was both a father figure and a lover to Carrie. "We lived it up, loving every minute together," she says. "Then Eric got sick." He died of a rare form of cancer in 1991, and Carrie mourned for years. She's finally put her life back together and now, at 28, says, "I'm ready to be happy again. Excited again. Maybe even in love."
Until her meditation session, Carrie never dreamed of posing for us. Now she's thankful she waited so long. "I'm glad I'm doing this now instead of when I was 18. What would I have said then? 'Hi, I'm Carrie and I like rock stars!'" And just as she was no typical groupie when she was 18, Miss June isn't only a good-looking actress today. A survivor who always seeks "the things that truly matter, beauty and integrity," she has become the director of her own fairy tale.
