Boss Tweed

A mink farmer's daughter from Newfoundland, Shannon Tweed was new to America when we found her 17 years ago. Since then the stellar six-footer has personified elegance in movies, television and some of Playboy's most popular pictorials. Now she's back--kicking off the new year in TV's The Tom Show with Tom Arnold and here on our pages with us. "Every so often I pose like this to reassure myself that I look OK," she says. How can such a woman be insecure about her looks? "Isn't every girl insecure?" she asks. Few have less reason to be. As a star of TV's Falcon Crest and more than 30 films, our 1982 Playmate of the Year gained notice as one of the world's great blondes. How popular is she? Tweed facts and photos are now seen on an estimated 20,000 Web sites, making her one of the top half-dozen cybercelebrities. "That only proves there are a lot more young men on the Net than young women," says Shannon. Of course her fans--some of whom can recite her lines in such films as Lethal Woman and Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death--beg to differ. To them she is an icon.

After two years as Hugh Hefner's consort, Shannon set up house with Gene Simmons of Kiss in 1984. She and Gene