Melanie Pillman (Wife of late Wrestler Brian Pillman)

[ripoulejo]

For more than 20 years, I search pix from a shoot she did for Penthouse, probably in the 80's.


I never found ONE picture.


So if you have some, I would be very grateful.


Thank you all!

[PackOfLies]

ripoulejo, I don't think Melanie was really a Penthouse Pet. I was in the wrestling business for a while and the guys in the biz...they lie and exaggerate, a lot. My guess is that Pillman falsely claimed his wife was so hot she was a Penthouse Pet. This was back before we had actual internet lists of such. Back in 1995, how do we know who was and wasn't a Penthoue Pet?

[ripoulejo]

Thank you for your answer!

[Gordon3]

Originally Posted by PackOfLies

ripoulejo, I don't think Melanie was really a Penthouse Pet. I was in the wrestling business for a while and the guys in the biz...they lie and exaggerate, a lot. My guess is that Pillman falsely claimed his wife was so hot she was a Penthouse Pet. This was back before we had actual internet lists of such. Back in 1995, how do we know who was and wasn't a Penthoue Pet?

I agree with this...I looked back a bit after the preview episode of Dark Side of the Ring, featuring Brian Pillman, was posted on YouTube by Vice, and I was already pretty familiar with the Penthouse scene from that era anyway. There is no one who appeared in Penthouse during that era that looks like any of the photos of Melanie Pillman during that time (although porn make-up can fool). But only wrestlers, well-known liars, have referenced Penthouse in regards to Brian's biography.

In addition, Penthouse does a very good job at recognizing their history, especially with the Pets (better than Playboy had been in recent years, for example, never recognizing Lynda Wiesmeier's passing). In fact, they have a few people on staff who work on reprints of old pictorial material in the current magazine, as well as posting it on social media. On the one hand, Penthouse should want nothing to do with this individual; on the other hand, this would be a publicity opportunity. As it turns out, the magazine's social media has been completely quiet on this Melanie Pillman. She may have been a "model" of some sort, maybe in a lesser men's magazine, or possibly another "kind" of model (I'm guessing B).

The Dark Side of the Ring itself, while breaking some incredible history on professional wrestling, is a bit disappointing in general, probably due to time constraints. But on occasion, the producers have left out some important facts due to an obvious lack of research. In the case of this Penthouse story, which was mentioned 4-5 times, the producers should have verified this story with the magazine before airing it.

As a side note: as far as pre-Internet lists were concerned, there were people keeping lists, primarily mail order sellers of back issues of men's magazines, which ended up being de facto catalogs of who was in the magazines & when. I still have an old mailing from a seller in Memphis, from around 1995, of about 15-16 photocopied pages, listing Playboy, Penthouse, and some other magazines, including the models, when they were identified in the magazine (but none of the encyclopedic cross-referencing you'll find here on VEF).

[tvcigar]

I saw that program as well, and I knew this would be the place to verify that information. Thank you.

[Viklas]

It was reported last week that Melanie Pillman, widow of wrestler Brian Pillman, has died at age 56.

A bit of Googling suggests that her dancing/modeling career was under the name Eva St. James. Perhaps now that she is at peace, that can be revealed in full.