July's calendar girl (yes we know we are nearly in November but we have had a rather busy four or five months) is, we suspect, rather more famous in America than over here. In fact, like Carmen Electra (another Playboy alumna), FHM thinks she is more well known in the UK than she is, probably because they are inveterate Playboy readers there (using the term "read" in its loosest sense - I don't think anyone at FHM can actually read).
Jenny gives the nuns a shock
Unlike Carmen, however, Jennifer Ann McCarthy was an actual Playmate (for October 1993) and was later Playmate of the Year for 1994. For her Playmate pictorial she wore the official sweater of her school, Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School in Chicago, in something of a naughty schoolgirl themed pictorial. She was just twenty when the magazine came out and declared that she would use her Playboy money to go back to college.
Her Playmate of the Year pictorial featured a trio of pictures which, at the time, impressed Agent Triple P a great deal in their suds-soaked sensuality. We think that these pictures by Richard Fegley remain the finest studies of her and we are almost prepared to forgive her her nasty plastic bust for the rear end one.
In fact, following the fame her Playmate of the Year title gave her she went off to Los Angeles and started on a TV and film career. Originally appearing on Playboy shows but in 1995 was picked up be MTV for one of their series. She went on to appear on many TV shows (even having several (short-lived) series of her own, including the dismal NBC sit-com, Jenny. Her film career could have been much more stellar but she missed out on the lead for Showgirls (1995) (probably just as well), the lead role in Contact (1997) and Natalie in Charlie's Angels (2000).
She never quite made it global, as Pamela Anderson had and, in her earlier interviews had said that she had her sights more set on an Anna Nicole Smith-type career. She didn't marry a geriatric Texan oil billionnaire but did end up, for a time, as girlfriend of annoying comic actor Jim Carrey and has recently broken up with one of those popular targets for Plymates, an NFL footballer.
Skinny but no waist
She keeps hammering away, however, and has written books and appeared in more forgettable TV and films. Her son is autistic and she does a lot (sometimes controversially) for autism charities. I'm afraid that, the trio of pictures above excepted, Agent Triple P has never been a big fan of Ms McCarthy, partly because her plastic bust (she had her implants removed in 1998, it is said) always looked ludicrous on her straight up and down body.
