A couple of our readers have suggested that we feature some of the very lovely girls in mens' magazines who did not reach the coveted centrefold slot. Indeed, it is not uncommon to find that in some cases these girls may be superior to the centrefold who may, perhaps, heve earned her position through the simple tactic of sleeping with the publisher of the magazine (not to mention any names).
Our first young lady, who went by the name of Debbie in Club International's September 1976 issue, caught our eye when we decided to make the centrefold from the same issue, Davina, our centrefold of the month. Now, in the future, we don't intend to have the centrefold and the non-centrefold from the same magazine but, just in this case, we liked the pictures of Debbie by Michel Moreau a lot so decided to put her in anyway.
Michel Moreau was a French photographer who was very active in providing pictures for mens' magazines, including Lui, Mayfair and Club International from the seventies to the nineties. He first contributed to Penthouse, for example, by providing the Pet of the Month for the March 1982 issue.
Sharon Axley aka Janine Andrews by Michel Moreau
She was known in the magazine as Sharon Axely but was in fact well known Page 3 model (she appeared in The Sun over 60 times) and Bond Girl (Octopussy) Janine Andrews.
Angelique and Erica
His last pictorial for Penthouse was nearly a decade later with a rather modest two girl set called Angelique and Erica in the August 1991 issue. Pictures from this shoot appeared in other magzines at the time too and Triple P remembers this set very well.
Jill Peters
Moreau's pictures in the eighties tended to feature striking blondes on sunny tropical beaches such as this photograph of Jill Peters (above) from New Look magazine in March 1984.
Again, here is Kathleen (above), from the French magazine Plus in June 1979 so his style is, if not exactly distinctive, then certainly consistent. These pictures of Debbie are, therefore rather different in style but are from an earlier period. In fact at this time, 1976, Moreau was living and working in Gothenburg, Sweden, which may well explain his later penchant for tropical beaches!
Moreau also had a number of books of his photographs published in the eighties.
"Debbie" is a complete contrast to the photoshopped silicone models of today. She doesn't have a big bust, she has what look like bruises on her legs and, unthinkable today, she has hair under her arms. Yet, for all of these reasons, she exudes more sexuality than a whole issue of a current magazine full of porn stars. She looks, in fact, like a normal girl; a particularly nice looking one, granted, but a real one.
There is a fair chance, given the date of these pictures, that she may have been a Swedish model in which case we feel that she shares some of the Baltic frankness of Ivar Kamke's pictures which we highlighted in the previous post.
We had a number of girlfriends in the late seventies and early eighties who had underarm hair and although these days that would be unusual in young women in the UK then it was much more common. It's still more common in Europe whereas in the US you might as well die if you get caught with underarm fluff, however wispy. Poor old Julia Roberts was vilified for it a few years ago but, as she pointed out, her boyfriend at the time was European and it wasn't a problem for him.
So we like Moreau's straightforward set. Just a girl posing in a bath. A bit of soap and some water. Simple but effective and a reminder that sexy pictures of girls should have subjects who actually look like girls and not computer generated animated characters.
