Victoria Valentino
Victoria Valentino (born December 13, 1942 in Los Angeles, California) is an American model who was Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for its September 1963 issue. Her centerfold was photographed by Mario Casilli.
Victoria was married at the time of her pictorial, and in fact she had found out the day before that she was pregnant. The joy of this news was greatly blunted by the fact that her husband had been physically and emotionally abusive, which may explain the somewhat somber expression Victoria had in her centerfold photo. She did not publicly talk about her situation until after the O.J. Simpson verdict in 1995, after which she wrote an essay for the Los Angeles Times:
Women everywhere woke up this morning with the chilling realization that our cries for help were swept under the rug. Mr. Simpson woke up this morning knowing he could batter, bruise and butcher another woman in the future and get away with it.
More hardships followed her abusive marriage. She worked as a Bunny at the Los Angeles Playboy Club, but then her son drowned when he was 6 years old, a tragedy which crushed Victoria personally and professionally - her singing career was on the verge of taking off when the accident happened. Eventually, her life on the rebound, she started a career as a hospice nurse, in which she has thrived, and has taken on a project designed to help parents with missing children. She is the host of a cable TV show about empowered women, and is one of the most active Playmates in terms of organizing alumni organizations and events.
"Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." - H.L. MENCKEN
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