Janet Pilgrim In Palm Springs

When Janet Pilgrim, our illustrious chief of Playboy Reader Service, told us that she planned to spend her vacation in California's fabled Palm Springs, we were about to ask her to send us back a spring or two. But we bit our tongue and hit upon a better idea—a pictorial record of J.P.'s pilgrimage to P.S. We told her that if she wouldn't mind having a Playboy photographer tagging along (lucky fellow) we'd be happy to pick up the tab for her trip. Janet, one of our earliest and most popular Playmates and the only girl ever to become Playmate of the Month on three occasions (July 1955, December 1955 and October 1956), happily accepted the offer. Thus, she had herself a nifty vacation on Playboy, and we—and you—got some fine photos of Pilgrim's progress on an oasis odyssey, as you'll see on these six pages. As in any good tale of the Wild West, Janet's journey was marked by a harrowing moment: on the third evening of her stay, the convertible in which she was riding ran off the Palm Canyon Highway. Walking away from the accident with a broken arm and a few beautiful bruises, Janet said, "I suppose this is the modern equivalent of getting tossed by a bucking bronco!" Roughriding notwithstanding, the Palm Springs Saga ended happily with a well-tanned Janet safely back in the Playboy Building in Chicago, supervising thousands of monthly reader queries on every subject from Playboy fiction to fashion to Playmate of the Month.