Karen Elaina Price

[PriceIsRight]

I disagree about Karen's centerfold. I remember my jaw dropping further with every turn of the page when I first saw her layout. The centerfold was the icing on the cake and her whole pictorial defined sensual beauty for me from that day forward.

Though I am also a fan of the images where Karen smiles this pose really captures her incredible figure. The only centerfold that comes close for me is Gig Gangel's. It is unfortunate that reprinted versions of Karen's centerfold and other images have colors so far off the original.

Here are a couple of other great images that could have been considered for the centerfold:

[cqnew1648]

Dear fellow fans of Karen,

When Karen spoke with the reporter for the Regina Leader in April, 1981, she put a more positive spin on her experience as a PM than she had a few days before in speaking to the reporter for the Brandon Sun. The reporter for the Leader spent an hour speaking with Karen, and it seems that the reporter was genuinely interested in Karen—charmed, even—and attentive to what Karen had to say. That’s why I was startled by something the reporter wrote. “Now, with all the work and excitement of being a playmate, Karen is a svelte 118 pounds. Carrying drinks and playing bumper pool in a bunny outfit at the Century City Playboy Club in Los Angeles is history.”

I’ve never seen Karen on any list of PMs who were former PB bunnies, but the article in the Leader is so detailed that it’s hard to believe the reporter didn’t hear that straight from Karen. After all, why would a reporter from Regina know that the LA PB club was in Century City?

My question for my fellow fans is: is there any way to know for sure whether Karen worked at the club? And if so, when? If she did work at the club, did she work there at PB's request after she agreed to be a PM but before she appeared in PB? Or was she already working there when her father sent her photo to PB or when PB approached her? It would be interesting to know, because it’s hard to sort out Karen’s feelings about the whole business from the few interviews we have. Karen said that she “didn’t feel good about it” when her father asked her if she would like to appear in PB. But she never worried for a second, it seems, whether PB would want her. She knew PB would be thrilled to have her.



I wonder if working in the club—if indeed she did—would have given Karen confidence, at the very least, that she would be a stunning PM. I wonder too if working in the club would have made being a PM more thinkable to her than it would have been had she not worked at the club. Maybe the whole idea didn’t come entirely out of the blue for her father. And maybe Karen had a very good idea of what it took to be a PM and realized how great her centerfold might look on the wall of the club. As we all know, she certainly wasn’t out of place on that wall!

[cqnew1648]

A few months ago, I posted a tribute to one of my favorite photos of Karen. Last week, I expanded the introduction and the second from the last paragraph of that post, which I hope fans will enjoy; and since I received so many thanks and kind PMs for my earlier post, which I greatly appreciate, I thought I’d try my hand at another.

As I said in that post, I have too many favorite photos of Karen to pick just one. I love every photo in her original layout, but this one has always given me a thrill, because it gives us a chance to dream of Karen performing a long, slow, sensual strip for us in the gym, followed by an acrobatic routine in the nude.



It’s the most erotic photo from Karen’s gym and beach shoots. Karen is the wonderful girl-next-door, but she reveals here that she’s not an innocent when it comes to putting on a show. Karen knew she was the center of every male’s attention at every gym meet since she hit puberty, and as she lets us know in this wonderful photo, she knew why. Every guy in the crowd, however much he enjoyed watching her perform, was desperate to see her pop out of her gym togs and not miss a beat as she tumbled to and fro. Now, barely out of her teens, she obliges, bless her heart, as she peels off what’s left of her gym outfit. Alas, the photo was probably a one-off, but we can see at a glance that Karen was game. She would have kept going had Ken Marcus urged her on. I wish he had, so we could see Karen strip from start to finish, frame by frame.

I love the photo because it captures the beauty of Karen’s face, just as her backlit photos by the fireplace do. We get to appreciate her beauty all the more because her hair is up.



I also love the way Karen and Ken Marcus composed the shot. Karen balances on her toes to form the tallest, most elegant line she can. She tips herself forward to tantalize us with her breasts and tugs down on what’s left of her gym outfit. She looks down at herself, intent on her task, and invites us to gaze with her at her spectacular body and enjoy what’s she’s in the midst of doing. Karen lets us know that she is more knowing than we might think – aware of her assets, aware of the way men look at her, aware of her ability to mesmerize us, and aware of how to tease and drive us crazy. She knows what’s expected of her, knows what men want, and knows what she’s signed up to do. Poised and assured, she delivers. Karen sustains the illusion that she is unaware of our presence, to heighten our voyeuristic pleasure in the moment. But though she tries not to show it, I'm sure Karen’s delighted to leave us in her thrall.



Too bad PB didn’t ask Karen to make a video in the gym. She was still under contract and making appearances for PB when the PB channel was launched. It would have been a video for the ages. We could have seen her perform that slow, tantalizing, seductive strip and a gym routine in the nude—something she showed she was willing to do in a few wonderful photos on the beach. Were you paying attention, PB? What’s Karen saying here? Look at her body language. Is she ready to perform that routine for us? Is she having fun? For goodness sakes, PB, wake up! Karen wants to perform for us in the nude. She’s fantasized about it. She expects you to ask her. Why else would you invite a voluptuous young gymnast to be Miss January? Karen knows we’d be thrilled to see her romp around in the gym as she does on the beach. She’s a born performer from a performing family. She knows what we’d like to see and she wants us to see it. She loves to drive us crazy. Our dreams could have come true.




But clumsy PB got in the way. How obtuse can you get? Think what a show a future member of the World Acrobatic Hall of Fame would have put on for us. Thank goodness we have imaginations: we can enjoy Karen’s video in our fantasies. But it would have been better to see Karen in that video. Wouldn’t it make sense for a fan or two to be on the set for every PB shoot and at the table for every planning meeting in the video department, so we could prevent tragedies like these? Someone has to remind PB from time to time of what PB is about for us and our favorite PMs.

Yes, Karen is extraordinarily beautiful—PB figured out that much. But Karen’s much more than that. She’s a talented, fun-loving performer with the courage to do just about anything to thrill a crowd, whether she’s dangling from a helicopter or accepting PB’s invitation to be a PM. Why not celebrate her athleticism, her beauty, and her daring all at once, with a nude romp in the gym? Why not let her shine in every way she wants to shine? There’s nothing hotter (or more profitable, from PB’s point of view) than that.

[hdvisor]

Hef has long had a bias against strippers/dancers appearing in the bunny mag, particularly as PMs. If Ken Marcus got other shots of this type, Hef likely hid them in the vault.

Probably goes back to his conception of the mag as a showcase for the girl-next-door vs. the strippers of the '50s that populated his early competitors' mags. Recall that Julia Hayes was a regular at the Mansion in the very early '90s aiming to become a PM, but then Hef discovered that she once danced in a club, making her persona non grotto, as it were

[cqnew1648]

Thanks for your post, Hdvisor. You’re right about Hef’s strict policies on the backgrounds of PMs. But I’m pretty sure Karen’s striptease wouldn’t have offended Hef by the time he launched the PB Channel. He envisioned the PM Profiles as a chance to see PMs and PB shoots in motion, and he included all the elements that I would have loved to see in Karen’s video, including striptease, as long as PMs disrobed in comfortable everyday settings, at the end of a long day at work or after an afternoon spent on their favorite pastime (horseback riding, bicycling, exercising, etc). And what I have in mind for Karen’s vid is elegant and well within the bounds of what Hef encouraged in PB vids, even in the first year of the profiles.

Consider, for instance, Lynda Wiesmeier’s great vid from the summer of 1982—one of the first. She does a beautiful job of getting out of her medical assistant’s uniform—exactly what I’d love to see Karen do to get out of her gym clothes. Something slow and intimate.










Later in Lynda’s video, we follow her to a gym where she performs a few exercises for us in her exercise outfit. Then she takes off her exercise outfit and keeps exercising.






That’s what I’d love to see Karen do: perform a gym routine for us, lose her outfit, and continue with a few slow, graceful floor exercises and a few moves on the balance beam. And I wouldn’t be in a hurry about it. I can’t believe how short the first PM profiles were—five minutes tops! Karen’s vid, as I imagine it, would take an hour or two, at least!

And in fact, I have in mind something a lot less provocative than what Lynda does, and far more athletic and graceful. If you take a look at the kind of bump-and-grind exercises Lynda does in her PB video or in the exercise video she participated in later for PB, or if you look at what Ruth Guerri does with her riding crop after stripping sensuously out of her riding habit, I think you’ll see examples of what I wouldn’t want Karen to do. That’s not Karen, and that’s not what I think her fans would want to see. I’d love for her video to be just about her as it opens, a showcase for the things she does every day as a gymnast and acrobat. It would emphasize her talent, skill, beauty, and of course, her smile. In her real gym clothes, she'd go all out for us, twisting and tumbling and flying around as she would at a real competition or exhibition. Once nude, she’d perform something fun, slow, and special for us.

I’d love to see her at her seductive best getting out of her gym outfit. This would do nicely for an opening shot!



But I’d love to see her smile and have fun in her gym routines before and after she’s out of her outfit.



That would be the best!

My post is a fantasy, no doubt—but a fantasy I think pretty much every fan of Karen shares. And I think my fantasy video was well within the realm of possibility, if PB had been interested and had Karen been as willing to perform for us in 1982 as she was in the summer and autumn of 1980. As it was, PB produced a PM profile for every PM but one from October 1981 to February 1983, and only one for a PM who appeared earlier: Vicki Lassiter in February 1981. It would be interesting to know why they went back to Vicki. She appeared only one distressing month after Karen! Why not go back one more month? But there were no PM profiles from March through September 1981 either, so the arrangement with Vicki must have been special.

Oh well!

In a couple of weeks I hope to post a few thoughts on the Karen's newly released photos, which I think help us imagine a bit better what her video could have been like.

[cqnew1648]

Karen’s newly-released photos have won her yet another convert. A fellow on Tumbler saw the light. He looked Karen up after seeing her new photos on PB.com and posted this comment:

Karen Price ’80s PB PM. Goddess. I stumbled upon her pictures recently and I think she might actually be the sexiest woman in history. Gorgeous, breathtaking curves, in peak fitness, and best of all, 100% natural and real. An actual, real, female human being, not a freak created by surgery and Photoshop. Go figure….”

You can’t sing Karen’s praises better than that.

I’m grateful every time PB releases new photos of Karen, but they always make me greedy for more. Just think of how many “holy grail” photos of Karen they’re still hiding in the vault.



It’s great, for instance, to have a second high-fashion photo of Karen to complement the one on the right. But when I saw Karen’s new photo, I realized for the first time that she’s lying in front of the brass bed on top of her robe—which means she’s lying there completely nude. Yikes! Another pose we didn’t expect. I’d love to see Karen full-length in this pose. We just don’t have enough shots of her from above or behind. How frustrating! Masque blessed us recently with a scan of another new photo of Karen from her test shots, which he found recently in a Japanese edition from 1982 (you’re a god, Masque!). Still, knowing what PB is sitting on, I wish, wish, wish for more.



It’s wonderful, however, to see new photos of Karen in clothes, something I hoped for a few years ago in a tribute post to her. These photos give us a chance to fall in love with her all over again and remember the joy we felt when she won our hearts at the opening of her layout with a handstand and a smile. We still haven’t had a chance to see her wear her sundress at the beach or her robe in the bedroom, but it’s obvious from PB’s new release that those photos exist—Ken Marcus photographed Karen’s every move. And thanks to the new release, we have a much better understanding of Karen’s shoots in the gym—and of what her video would have looked like had PB had the wit to go back a few more months and feature her.

I was delighted to learn from the new release that PB shot a real gym sequence with Karen. She’s irresistible in her bright red outfit, which is designed, with the help of her sports bra, to let Karen perform all sorts of spins and tumbles without a costume failure. My god she’s cute! Wouldn’t it be great to see more photos from this set so we could see Karen in action? How fun would that be?



Her solo performance in the gym would have been a perfect video follow up to her shoot at Muscle Beach in Venice. Her outfit at Muscle Beach was a bit more revealing, but still practical—heavy straps, sports bra, etc.—so Karen was ready to perform acrobatic stunts with her friends. Wish we could see those stunts. All we have to date is Karen with her grandmother.



My heart nearly stopped, however, when I saw the next new photo. How great would our sense of anticipation be if, after her routines on the beach and in a crowded gym, we were to find ourselves suddenly alone with Karen in a gym—a sure sign in PB’s world that something special is about to happen—and realize for good measure that the outfit she’s wearing isn’t the gym outfit we had always thought it was before we had had a chance to see Karen in a real gym outfit. It’s not even the outfit she was wearing on the beach. It’s totally impractical. She’s ditched her bra, and her striking crimson outfit is cut ultra-low with tiny straps. It’s not designed to hold up in an athletic contest. It’s meant to fail—something I hadn’t really appreciated before I saw her in her real gym outfit.



As Karen stands in profile in her elegant new outfit, gazing at us, we get to appreciate not only the beauty of her face and her curves in a wholly new way, but the enormity of her un-haltered breasts. They dwarf her forearm. And what makes her photo all the better is that we know now where it fits in the sequence. It comes after her athletic performances, at the opening of her shoot in the closed gym, before the lights are turned down. She’s beautifully clothed, but I for one can’t contain my excitement, because we know from the sultry look on her face that the time has come. She’s slipped into something special for the occasion, and she’s going to tease us to death before she slips it off. She’s all in!
 
And her next new photo lets us know how in she was.



I used to think that her routine in the closed gym was her gymnastic routine, but it’s not—it’s her tease. Karen knows what she’s up to as she transforms herself before our eyes into a femme fatale. Yes, she performs a few slow, costume-safe moves to give us a chance to linger on her curves and the grace of her movements, and to appreciate how beautiful she is in her new outfit. We know these photos well.



But then she plays with us in an open-hearted way and does everything she can to raise our anticipation to a fever pitch. She wants to get us hot and bothered before she strips. She leans forward, balanced on one leg, and smiles, inviting us to gaze deeply into her cleavage. Karen beckons us with her inviting smile, and as the erotic call and response begins, she delights in our delight that we will soon see her nude. She relishes every moment, and does everything she can to turn our anticipation white hot.



I had always thought from the first photo that Karen meant to give us a playful hint of what’s to come, but now that we have the second photo, it’s clear that Karen meant to give us a preview. She knows the straps on her outfit aren’t strong enough to hold a tea cup, but she dares them to give way, as provocatively as she can. And it’s so hot to see Karen having fun. We can feel her excitement. She’s looked forward to this moment. She’s not just willing. She’s eager to strip for us—something I hadn’t really grasped before seeing her new photos, because I feel so bad about the fact she sometimes regretted having posed for PB. Karen doesn’t have any regrets here. She’s thrilled to be in that gym. She’s a young woman who knows how special she is, grateful for the opportunity PB has given her, and anxious, after months of anticipation, to share herself with the world. She wants to dazzle us with her warmth, her beauty, her artistry, and her incomparable breasts, which she lets us know as happily as she can we’ll be seeing soon. She wants us to ache to see her nude. She’s totally with the program!

It’s hard to know where things went from there in her gym shoot. We have only two more photos of Karen with a ribbon in her hair. The rest are high fashion with her hair pulled to one side, but without her ribbon. It seems that the photos were shot in two sequences, with bow and without, which means Karen was asked to go topless twice. I’d rather, however, imagine her shoot as one long, uninterrupted performance. It’s hotter that way! So here goes. 

At the end of her tease, Karen descends from balance beam and strikes a pose. Has she ever looked more beautiful? And does she know how to build our sense of anticipation? My god, she’s great!



Karen slowly pulls her straps from her shoulders and hunkers down. She hides her body from us and draws us in by looking suddenly fragile and vulnerable, now that the moment we’ve been waiting for is at hand.



But Karen composes herself and offers us a beautiful sequence, changing her expression from frame to frame. At first she looks away, distant, remote, as she pulls down her top and towels off. Next, she’s shy and flirtatious as she gives her panties their first tug, and then, assured and confident, she prepares goes all the way.



If my dreams had come true, Karen would have kept going, all the way for us, patiently and lovingly, sharing her joy and lingering at each step, as she did during her tease, so we (and she too) could savor every moment; and at the end of the sequence, she would have performed a few more gymnastics moves for us, this time in the nude. Now that would be a video! And why not make Karen’s video a full length feature film? I wouldn’t want this to be the final scene. Her opening scenes with her pet squirrel, at Muscle Beach, in the open gym, in the closed gym—they’re just the beginning. On to the beach, the hot tub, the fireplace, her calendar shoots, her personal appearances for PB, and for her finale, the bedroom!

[masque51]

I think the source of these pictures is this German NSS.

[masque51]

I don't think every picture has been posted, but some of them can be found at this post and several other posts at the Magyar Forum.

http://sztar.com/temak/l%C3%A1nyok-a...7#post-2087688

[cqnew1648]

I’ve been thinking of a way to honor Karen on the 35th Anniversary of her appearance in PB (which was actually last month, since she appeared on newsstands in December 1980). If I hadn’t been busy, I would have made this a Holiday gift to Karen, as her issue was to me that December long ago. I can only apologize for the fact that my note of appreciation for Karen is a month late. And the occasion marks an important milestone: Karen’s thread has been the top-rated thread in “Softcore Models” on VEF going on at least three years—a stunning achievement, given the competition. Her thread remains the most popular of any PM who appeared only in PB: over 1.3 million views. And our “Softcore Models Discussion” thread for Karen is also doing well. There’s not as much competition in the discussion section, but hers is still one of the most highly rated and popular: second in views (130,000), bested only by a discussion thread for an entire category of models.

If Karen, Patti, and Marilyn ever see our forum, I hope they’ll understand how much we adore them, even when we chat about matters like this. They’re my three favorite PMs. I don’t think three more beautiful women have ever graced the planet, so I hope they won’t take it as a sign of disrespect if we talk about matters like the one raised a bit too bluntly on another thread: Which PM has the largest cup size? I’d feel terrible if they’d take this wrong, but I take comfort in the fact that Karen, Patti, and Marilyn were willing to cast modesty aside and pose for us in part because they were proud of their breasts and eager to show them off. They knew their breasts were photogenic. You can almost hear them say, photo to photo, “Can you top this?” So I’m happy to participate in the discussion that started on that other thread, as long as it is in the same spirit of fun in which Karen, Marilyn, and Patti posed.

Since the question is comparative, I thought we might make this a competition. To cut to the chase: You can’t pick a Number 1. Everything depends on the angle of vision, because their breasts, natural as nature intended, take on a dazzling variety of shapes and dimensions as Karen, Patti, and Marilyn move from pose to pose. Sometimes Karen wins, sometimes Patti or Marilyn win, but in the greater scheme of things they all win the cup-size race.

In two of my favorite shots, Marilyn reclines and Karen sits cross-legged, which allows their breasts to drop to their waists. They nearly fall in a puddle in their laps.



Marilyn props hers up a bit with her robe, so they come almost straight at us. Karen lets hers fall more dramatically, from her shoulders to her waist, by hunching her shoulders. We can see at a glance that cup size is in the eye of the beholder. You can’t get bigger or better than this—and Karen and Marilyn, bless their hearts, know it. But they’d fill out a bra quite differently. Where would you begin to measure?

 
Patti doesn’t strike a similar pose, but she’s their peer. No women in the history of PB has reclined more seductively than Patti, or performed a better breast cradle—the absolute best cradle in PB history!



Patti is smaller in stature than Karen or Marilyn—only 5’ 3”—so she might not win against a tape measure. But when it comes to proportions, she wins just as many rounds. And Patti’s breasts put every bit as much strain on a bra—so much, as her fans know, that Patti had to have reduction surgery to relieve her back problems.

And there’s another problem for Patti. She is as voluptuous as Marilyn and Karen, and fit, but not quite as strong. Marilyn’s and Karen’s powerful, athletic muscles, chest and back, provide better support, and when they relax those muscles they can drop their breasts farther. That gives them—and especially Karen—a dramatic edge. When she bends over, Karen can drop her breasts past her elbows. Extend your arms forward and look at how far away your elbows are from your chest. Karen’s amazing!



No one else in the history of PB, to my knowledge, can drop her breasts that far, because no one else had Karen’s combination of size and strength. And when Marilyn and Karen arch their backs and flex their muscles, they can project their breasts forward in a display of raw sexual power. Just look at the strength of their chest muscles. Those muscles have been carrying a lot of weight, and they’re up to the task. They’ve gotten a lot of exercise!



Only Cynthia Myers can give Marilyn or Karen a run for the money in this pose. No one—not even Marilyn or Karen—has Cynthia’s lift, which must have come in part from the especially firm character of her breasts. (And to think: Cynthia was only 5'3" tall and 39-24-36.)



Patti can’t project her breasts as these three other greats can. She’s not as strong as Karen or Marilyn, nor are her breasts as firm as Cynthia’s. She has to prop them up or halter them or lean very far back to project them forward. But when she does, she’s stunning.



And no one can droop her breasts better than Patti. When she lets her chest muscles go limp, it’s paradise for us. Her breasts slump beautifully and hang sensuously from her chest. (Patti’s shot on the right has always gotten to me. I’ve never seen a PM “send a message” better than that!) And once again, Patti matches Marilyn and Karen on cup size, relative to her stature.



I’d like to conclude by following Karen, Marilyn, and Patti through a series of poses. Each bears on the question of cup size, but let’s face it: it’s great to follow Karen, Marilyn, and Patti through series of poses just for the heck of it.

Here’s our trio lying down.



No debate here: a glorious tie. How can women be that naturally stacked while lying on their backs? Karen, Patti, and Marilyn are beyond incredible.

Here’s our threesome happily giving us an eyeful.



Still a tie.

Patti, Marilyn, and Karen from behind, where they can’t for the love of god hide their breasts. They’re just too big.



And finally, as Prince would put it, Karen, Patti, and Marilyn “wasting time.”



If you’re still paying attention to the competition, it‘s a win, win, win, for them and for us.

I realize that Cynthia Myers may well be, in all honesty, the all-time cup size winner, especially if the measurement were made standing up. I can’t imagine where she could have possibly purchased a bra that fit. Karen, Marilyn, or Patti might outdo her, however, if they were to measure cup size the way that large breasted women are urged to do, by taking two measurements (one standing up and one bending over) and using the larger measure. Cynthia’s breasts don’t change shape as she moves—they’re pretty much out there for the duration, so she might not measure up when she leans over. Her breasts are spectacular, but relatively static. They don’t change shape from pose to pose. Which is another way of saying, I suppose, that despite my admiration for Cynthia (who is among my top ten favorite PMs), in the end I’m heart and soul a fan of Patti, Marilyn, and above all Karen Price. Karen’s breasts are extraordinary. They change in kaleidoscopic ways as she moves. They are as changeable and expressive as her face, which is why they are, like everything about her, incomparable.



So when it comes to breasts, to the muscles that support them, and to everything else, Karen is the woman of my dreams.

[Lurk_D]

Originally Posted by cqnew1648

May wonders never cease. Another great picture of Karen. Thanks to Better Blue for posting it in Kelly's thread, and to Leroy Large Car for letting me know it was there.



I'm in despair about PB opening up its vault while we're still on this earth, now that the organization seems to be repudiating it past. And PB+ seems to have no interest in PB's Golden Era. But nice photos of Karen still keep showing up. We can be thankful for that!
Does anyone have an idea of what occasion might have led to this gathering of PMs? I can't quite manage to ID all of them. Maybe we can move to Karen's discussion thread and try to sort this out!

Originally Posted by spazarino

Some function at the Mansion probably...woman in blue looks like Kelly Tough.

The one in black behind Kelly Tough is Vicki Lasseter. Kelly's arm is cutting off her chin. And the one holding Kelly's hair is Kymberly Herrin. I don't recognize the ones whose faces I can't see.