A third-generation Californian born in 1937, Lari Laine majored in journalism at the University of California at Berkeley but got sidetracked when she became first runner-up to Miss USA. After that, she became a model, "a sort of early Cheryl Tiegs," she says. "I had been on 29 national magazine covers when I decided to pose for Playboy. The magazine had been chasing me for three years through this photographer and that photographer, and finally this one man, Ron Vogel, came to me. He was working with his wife. He cried on my shoulder, said this could be my big break and it would get his foot into the door with Playboy. So I finally said yes. For most girls, Playboy was their first modeling job; I quit modeling after I did Playboy. I figured that was the top."