Other than some reality show skanks I can’t recall the last time an actress with a fading career (who was popular at some point) appeared for her swan song in Playboy. Is this cultural rite of a passage for has been actresses and semi-famous hot women dying?
I think so, nowadays their pictures and even the video are released “accidentally” to the internet.
Yes, I do believe it is.
Does Lisa Rinna count? (May 2009)
I had no idea who she was until I googled her name. If she’s a big deal catch for Playboy at this point I suppose that answers the question.
Who still buys Playboy? I picture the typical subscribers as the Wild and Crazy Guys from SNL, except the Czech Republic is now sophisticated and cosmopolitan
Barbershops?
They still do articles, don’t they? 
It’s a shame. I can only think of a handful of actresses who actually managed to rejuvenate their careers by posing in Playboy (Sharon Stone, Kim Basinger, Drew Barrymore), vs. the hundreds who have tried but just accentuated their personal/professional death spiral (Dana Plato, Victoria Sellers, Chyna, that woman from the Go Gos, etc.).
I haven’t bought it regularly in decades. I have to balance the enjoyment I get from it against the embarrassment of being seen buying it in public. The interview subjects, like the naked celebrity babes, are of a decidedly lesser caliber now than in the magazine’s heyday. The cartoons have suffered since Michelle Urry’s death (not to mention Eldon Dedini’s and Shel Silverstein’s; is Gahan Wilson still alive?); the last time I picked up an issue, there was a grand total of five cartoons, only one or two painted.
Hefner’s editorial fingerprints are conspicuously missing and the duties have fallen into lesser hands. I think the magazine’s reputation would be greatly enhanced if they cut their losses and suspended publication.
I’ve only ever bought Playboy for two reasons: 1.) For the occasional has been appearance. 2.) The articles. (Seriously)
If I need something to masturbate with Playboy is the last thing that’s on my mind. I mean, I like girls. I just like the ones that are a little naughtier than the ones on Playboy.
Yikes, that’s shocking. Yes, Gahan Wilson is alive and still appearing regularly in the New Yorker.
I think they could still get the market if a big name decided they wanted to do it. Think if Jennifer Lopez, Demi Moore, or another actress that’s getting close to playing grandma in their next movie, decided they’d pose in Playboy. I’m willing to bet that’d outsell almost anything else on newstands that week.
The problem seems to be, what hugely successful, yet at the end of their “beauty” acting career, actress has posed lately. The last Playboy I bought was the one that had China from the WWF in it. That was more because of morbid curiousity between me and my college roommates.
Hate to admit it, but I’d probably plop down $6 to see J. Lo, Demi, or Lindsey Lohan naked right now. I’m not sure I’d want to pay for any of their pictures in 5 years, lol. 
The last one I recall, and the last Playboy I ever bought, was Kristy Swanson which Wikipedia says that was November of 2002. The cover even touted her appearance as “The Original Buffy NUDE” which is more than a little depressing.
I have a subscription that ran out years ago. I still get a free one sent every month, probably just to keep their numbers up. There is nothing wrong with being seen with Playboy in public.
I let my subscription lapse when they re-targeted towards the Maxim crowd.
You’re joking, right?. I think at this point only her gynecologist has seen more of Demi than the public has.
I subscribe. There are far more than 5 cartoons in each issue, but the ideas that they’re losing their voice and dying off are very real. In the early part of this decade, the lifestyle features and political commentary were two to three times as long as they are now, and the magazine itself was literally twice as thick due to actually having advertisers.
Nowadays, Playboy is almost pamphlet sized with virtually no ad buys. They even went the TV Guide route and issued a “double issue” in July. This double issue covered July / August, so there was no August issue, and it was just as small as any other issue this year.
As for fading celebrities, the ones I can remember off the top of my head this decade:
Belinda Carlisle
Charisma Carpenter
Brooke Burke
Teri Polo
Kristy Swanson
Tiffany (teen pop star from the 80s.)
A chick from G4’s Attack of the Show (one picture, not nude)
There were also a very small handful of reality stars. Kim Kardashian, Heidi Montag, Jerry Manthy of Survivor, and another one with two chicks from Survivor from a season I didn’t watch.
They also do sports stars. Amanda Beard, Daniela Hantuchova from the WTA, a women’s beach volleyball team who isn’t Misty May and Kerri Walsh, an Olympian spread with some swimmers and track & field…ers(?), and probably a few others I’m not thinking of.
The current state of Playboy is quite depressing. They still have the nude chicks, but all the features: movie reviews, DVD releases, video game reviews, and online sites worth checking out, have been gradually cut back from 2-3 pages each to now a half page each. And the forum has also shrunk quite a bit, down from 4-5 pages to usually 2. To add insult to injury, they moved the forum from the front of the magazine to the very end. (Don’t confuse this with Penthouse forum; the Playboy forum is where they espouse their political viewpoints, typically very far left.)
I’m not sure how much longer they can limp along before closing their doors.
OK . I’ll admit to buying the current issue (Aug 2009) for Heidi Montag. Most of you will have to Google her. The pictorial was Maxim(1) level nudity. You mean to tell me that you PAID(I’m assuming) a D-list reality star for pictures that probably would be rejected for Maxim’s 2010 calendar. Wow! Just wow!
I think it is a dying art. I remember picking up the Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, Jody Watley and Tia Carrere issues in the late 90s/early aughts. Good times, man.
(1)Msxim US not Maxim UK. I understand you guys are freer with the news stand nudity.
Well they’re facing basically the same problem as the music industry, namely that what you used to have to pay for, you can now get for free on the Internet. And as an added bonus you no longer have to suffer the embarrassment of going into a store and facing a sales clerk to get your naked chick fix.
Growing up (late 80s, early 90s) I remember it was a huge deal to have a brother or some older relative with a stash of Playboys in the basement, because that was the only way that you as a 12-year-old could hope to see a naked woman. But I just can’t see adolescents these days getting very excited about anything in Playboy when the Internet has stuff that’s 100 times more explicit.
Since I mentioned New Yorker cartoons above–last week’s issue had one with a kid showing his friend the stash of magazines under his mattress, with the caption, “My parents are so busy checking the computer they never think of this.”