Evelyn Treacher – First Penthouse Pet
In 1969, Penthouse Magazine published it’s first US Edition, which was essentially a copy of it’s UK edition for the same month. Penthouse had already been publishing in the United Kingdom since 1965. The centerfold, or “Pet of the Month” for the first “American” Edition was a quintessential 60’s brunette, Evelyn Treacher.
Penthouse September 1969 Cover
Like many models of this era, there is frustratingly little information about her. She wasn’t even a prolific model, seemingly only posing for Penthouse a single time. Even her “Playmate of the Year” photoshoot was just recycled photos from the first shoot. It is possible that she posed under other names though, and those shoots have yet to be uncovered.
On the other hand, the story (posted below), if true, could very well be a reason why she didn’t pose again.
Magazine Appearances
1969 – Penthouse UK, September (Vol 3, No 11)
1969 – Penthouse US, September (same as UK)
1971 – Penthouse US, May (as Pet of the year)
The photographer for this shoot was Philip O Stearns, and the photos were taken in Nassau, Bahamas.
“Treacher Knows Best”
“Something wonderful happens in summer, so the songsmith assures us. And for our part, the most wonderful things happen in or around tropical waters or wherever and whenever sun, sea and sand collide. It is at this electric moment that the alchemy of man (or woman) and the natural elements mingle to transform urban pallor to native gold. An again, at this electric moment, when 21-year old London-born expatriate Evelyn Treacher was first seen by our vacationing cameraman.
“She was languishing on a little sand dune,” recalls perennial Pet-finder Philip O. Stearns. “on a ten-mile-long stretch of deserted beach. It was late afternoon, about 5:30, and she lay there still wet from sea, glistening like a white-gold fish and not giving a hoot-in-hell that me and a couple of pale-faced buddies fresh from New York had discovered her.”
Evelyn, an ex-air hostess on the London-Nassua-Miami run, had grounded herself in favor of “a constant earth-bound Caribbean climate. After London,” she told us, “the Bahamas are unbelievable. An English summer normally lasts two or three days. If you happen to overlseep one morning you could miss it completely – the sun part, I mean. But here you feel as if the sun belongs exclusively to you. At night it slips into the ocean – but only to coll off, mind you, it doesn’t’ travel around the earth like it does everywhere else. And in the morning it comes up again – as full and rich and regular as clockwork.”
Her defection, through clearly Treacher-ous from an Englishman’s point of view, was not altogether unpatriotic. “I always enjoy going back,” she said, “despite the weather. I’ve got loads of friends in London and it’s really a marvelous city in its own special way. What I love about the Bahamas goes a little bit deeper. It’s something you could never find in London or any other big city and I don’t mean the sun. This is a very peaceful place; it’s wild, primitive and yet strictly non-competitive. The people are warm and somehow they don’t seem to expect anything from you. They live their life and you live yours.”
“It’s an exciting, trippy place too – maybe because you can get so close to nature. You have to be here, alone on the beach, perhaps watching the ocean for a few hours or hearing the birds chatter before you can really appreciate, not what civilization has come to mean in the American or European sense, but what it really is. This is civilization. The things I left behind are like those little ships that mean build in bottles – perfect little replicas glued to their painted sea – little ships with nowhere to go.”
On plans for the immediate future, our prescient Pet confessed to an unhappy but practical kinship with the vagaries of western commerce. “A girl has to work, of course, I’m aware that I can’t keep going on living”(continued below)
“forever without income and I’m not likely to find a suitable job here. As soon as my savings run out, I’ll go back to London, or New York, or some woolly place but it won’t be air-hostessing. That’s too frustrating and besides, I’m likely to end up jumping ship in some other exotic port.”
A brief perusal of Evelyn’s newly adopted environment is evidence enough that climate still controls the man. “You can’t find the sun,” says she, “you simply relax, take off your clothes and surrender the last vestige of animal in you.” And, faced with the idyllic configurations of her own pace-clime continuum, who are we to doubt our well schooled Treacher knows best?”
Evelyn’s Centerfold
And lastly, her Playmate of the year photo published in the May, 1971 edition. As far as I can find, this was the only photo of her published in that issue and as you can see is obviously from the same photoshoot.
So Miss Treacher, whatever happened to you, we hope you found a climate and lifestyle suitable to you!
