Shy and modest? Not two words one would immediately associate with Mariel Hemingway, the grand daughter of prolific writer Ernest Hemingway and sister to Margaux Hemingway, who appeared to have no problem removing her clothes for the cameras.

But those are the words Mariel uses to describe herself when she talks about herself in relation to wearing a bikini on the beach. Hemingway states, ‘I won’t even wear a bikini on the beach. On TV I’m lit well and I can choose the angle. I can’t edit what you see at the beach.'’

Regardless of her feelings of modesty, Mariel has appeared nude in the movie the Star 80, in which she portrayed murdered Playboy model, Dorothy Stratten. Again, in Civil Wars, Mariel acts in a scene in which her character, divorce attorney Sydney Guilford, models for a photographer-artiste, ‘’it was pretty nerve-racking,'’ she reports. ‘’They said ‘Robe off,’ and the crew could see my face turn fuchsia.'’

Evidently, the experience was not too traumatic for the actress who, at the time was 31 years old, as she went on to agree to grace the cover of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine in April 1982.

Mariel has stated she is no prude and in fact finds the American mentality to nudity on the TV baffling, saying, ‘’Sometimes we can say ‘God’ but we can’t say ‘Jesus.’ I don’t get the mentality of that. I still think that people should be more up in arms about the number of people who get shot on TV, not people taking their clothes off. Movies like Basic Instinct are out,  Demi Moore is naked on magazines. There’s Madonna looking like she’s doing kiddie porn on a magazine cover. To me, nudity is not news. I’ve turned on the TV in the middle of the day and seen more on Oprah.'’

There are several Playboy models who are no longer with us, but none of their deaths could have been more tragic than that of Dorothy Stratten, murdered at the age of 21 by her estranged husband.

Dorothy became a Playboy as Playmate of the Month in August 1979 and Playmate of the Year in 1980 and also held the accolade of being only one of two Playboy models born in the 1960’s.

Dorothy first found work as a Bunny at the Los Angeles Playboy Club in 1979 and in June that year she married Paul Snider in Las Vegas, Nevada. With their relationship quickly falling apart Hugh Hefner encouraged Dorothy to leave Snider which resulted in Snider having fits of jealousy and bizarre, controlling behavior.

When Dorothy finally moved on and met a new man in her life Snider’s jealousy became so obsessive and eventually he lured her to his home in Los Angeles on August 14th 1980 where Snider shot and murdered the 21 year old and then turned the gun on himself.

Dorothy Stratten was the youngest Playboy model to die and is buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.