Paige Young in Los Angeles1969 January. Playboy Magazine. Playmate of the Year Contest. Winner: Connie Kreski. Anthony Newley. Roman Polanski. Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe…..? 1970s James Caan. Under Construction. NSFW. 6-9-25
Posted on July 15, 2020
NSFW
PMOM = Playmate of the Month. PMOY = Playmate of the Year.
This photo of Paige Young appears in the January 1969 issue of Playboy magazine.
A brief update about her life is included, which was truthful I learned, if incomplete.
Update on Paige Young shown with her photo. Jan. 1969 Playboy Magazine.
More specifically Paige lived in Topanga Canyon/ Topanga Beach. And area at that time of artists and hippies of all kinds.
The January 1969 Playboy magazine issue shows all 12 Playmates of 1968.
A brief update accompanies each one, as we read in Paige YOung’s.
Standard protocol for this annual issue.
It means the PMOY title will be announced soon.
1969 is also the 15th anniversary issue of the influential and wildly successful magazine.
Hugh Hefner became famous for his publishing and business empire including the trendy Playboy Clubs and instantly iconic Playboy Bunny cocktail waitresses.
And successful enough to have created scores of imitators in the magazine publishing world during the 1950s and early 1960s.
Titles like Escapade, Nugget, Modern Man, Adam, Dude and Rogue, to name only a few. An easy Google image search.
The imitators experienced varying degrees of success.
The Playmate of the Year
has a higher status than the Playmate of the Month (PMOM) obviously.
Kind of like, the “elite of the elite.“
Or the “creme de la creme.“
A PMOY title is akin to winning a beauty contest, much like Miss America or Miss USA.
The 12 finalists are the 12 PMOMs.
The yearly 12 have already cleared a major hurdle by winning over many other young women for the coveted monthly spot.
Round 2: the 12 finalists are automatically up for the PMOY title.
PMOY means more of everything you have already experienced as a regular PMOM: public appearances, photo sessions, media interviews, a modeling fee, career opportunities.
However, a pink car is reserved exclusively for the PMOY.)
PMOY 1970 Claudia Jennings with her prize of a Playmate Pink Mercury Capri Claudia Jennings.
Claudia Jennings Jennings, an aspiring actress, is interviewed on the Tonight show sitting on Johnny’s famous couch around the time she was given the title PMOY.
More about Jennings in my Start Here page.
A big party is thrown in your honor, often at Hef’s Chicago mansion, later LA, which will be attended by various celebrities, including good looking film actors, the press, Playboy big-wigs, assistants and assorted VIPs.
You would meet 100s of men in particular I imagine.
How was PMOY chosen?
I wonder if reader feedback influenced the decision, was it up to Hugh Hefner alone, or decided by committee?
Paige Young did not win and I doubt if she was even in the top 3.
The winner was Connie Kreski seen here on her PMOY issue, June 1969
Winner Connie was the girlfriend of Victor Lownes, head of the London Playboy Club & Casino, Chicago friend of Hugh Hefner.
A forgotten figure of the 1960s.
There is evidence Connie and Victor met at a Chicago Mansion party to honor her title as PMOY.
More on Victor Lownes coming up.
By the time of her title in 1969, Connie had already filmed a movie directed by English singer, actor, composer Anthony Newley.
Newley wrote many classic songs:Goldfinger, What Kind of Fool and I?, Feeling Good and Candy Man!
Connie Kreski
was born Constance Joanne Kornacki in Wyandotte, Michigan.
She said in press interviews that she grew up in a “strict Polish Catholic family.”
Constance Kornacki was studying for a degree in psychiatric nursing at Mercy College in Detroit when Playboy came calling in the form of a man at a University of Michigan football game.
He worked for Playboy and told Connie he thought she had the ideal youthful face and figure required for Playmate candidates.
Connie appeared to look much younger than her 21 years.
This is why Newley cast her as Mercy in his 1969 released film “Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?”
Anthony Newley had married a beautiful Hollywood starlet in 1963.
She was a native of England named Joan Collins.
Anthony Newley plays himself in the title role of Heironymus, wife Joan Collins plays his wife in the film, named Polyester Poontang.
It was pretty much a flop and skewered by the critics.
The article below was written before the disappointing reviews that followed the debut of the film in 1969.
It’s an interesting look at late-1960s popular culture by way of Newley’s film, filmed on the island of Malta in 1968.
The Newley’s small children Alexander and Tara were in the film as well as and several starlets, models and dancers.
Note the part that Connie “plays a temptress of 14.” Paragraph 4.
Connie, just like Paige Young, had publicity all year long in 1969.
More than they would ever have the rest of their short lives.
Connie had her picture in newspapers across the USA, England and Canada in ‘69
Connie was in newspaper articles many times for her title role in Heironymus Merkin.
One issue of Playboy magazine featured a nine page photo spread, serving as a promo for Heironymus. And for Connie as their Playboy Star.
Newley was a great friend and appeared on Hugh Hefner’s show of 1968-1970 Playboy After Dark.
Connie has several nude shots in the issue and a nearly nude Joan Collins has one.
Victor Lownes
is a colorful and forgotten 1960s character.
Lownes was a close Chicago friend of Hugh Hefner.
People said that Lownes, who moved to London to run the Playboy Club & Casino, embodied the “Playboy man” even more than Hugh Hefner.
He was also known to sexually harass Bunnies at the clubs.
Victor and Connie are seen together in the much viewed film footage of the Tate (and maybe Sebring?) funerals on youtube. However, they are never identified.
Little Known connection to Charles manson killings
Victor Lownes, Hefner and director Roman Polanski, Anthony Newley, were close friends in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Polanski and actress Sharon Tate lived together in London for a time and had their wedding reception at the London Playboy Club in 1968. A party hosted by Victor Lownes.
Connie and Victor appear together with several mourners at Sharon Tate’s funeral in Los Angeles, on film footage seen on youtube.
Roman and Sharon also appeared together on an episode of Playboy After Dark, a show Connie appears on several times.
The couple was interviewed by host Hef; Roman does most of the talking. (Available on youtube and tiktok.)
Paige Young promoted the show in 1969 and may or may not have appeared on the show.
Victoria Vetri, PMOY 1968, and starlet is mentioned in left column. Her reign of ‘68 was honored at the party. The opening of her film, now a cult classic, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, was also celebrated. Victoria Vetri had a small part in the Roman Polanski-directed hit film “Rosemary’s Baby.” Victoria was known as Angela Dorian when she was the September Playmate of the Month in 1967. and Playmate of the Year 1968 as Victoria Vetri. Roman Polanski convinced her to use her real name. of Victoria Vetri, where she had a bit part in Rosemary’s Baby.
The Manson murders would occur just a few months after this article appeared.
Connie holds photo of herself and Victor, who would dump her in about 2 years for the force of nature that was Marilyn Cole. Connie claims there is nothing romantic going on between her and Roman Polanski. This article is only months after the horrific murders.
Victor dumped Connie after he fell hard for a new Bunny at the London Club.
The aforementioned Marilyn Cole
She has her own story to tell and has done so in interviews. But she’s never been asked about her love triangle involving Connie and Victor, that I know of.
Marilyn appears briefly in Secrets of Playboy.
This Bunny was quickly promoted PMOM in 1972 and PMOY in 1973.
Marilyn Cole’s Playboy centerfold is famous/infamous for being the first obvious straight-on view of a PMOM with full frontal nudity. Not subtle or partially hidden as earlier photos.
Cole’s issue came at a time when Playboy magazine experienced a drop in readership. This was due to competition from the new and more explicit Penthouse magazine.
The Marilyn Cole issue provided a huge sales boost for Playboy which she talks about in Secrets of Playboy documentary.
Penthouse magazine feature more explicit and forward photography of their centerfold called a “Penthouse Pet.” In particular full-frontal nudity.
The viewer is more of a voyeur to the private bedroom of the “Pet,” than he may have seen in the Playboy centerfold.
Playboy was “forced” or pressured into publishing more centerfolds in the Penthouse style, to keep up with the new standards in Society, that they helped bring in.
Marilyn in the Daily Mirror 1974. Photo by The now infamous Terry O’Neill. This may have been the time Terry and Anjelica Huston met and became an item. Anjelica was an in-demand model.
Connie Kreski has about 10 TV and film appearances after “Hieronymus.“
April 6, 1969. Long Beach Press Telegraph
From 1969
Connie appeared as a guest on the Merv Griffin and Joey Bishop talk shows.
From the Fremont Tribune, June 21, 1973
In a 1969 episode of Playboy After Dark, Connie is introduced by Hugh Hefner as “Connie Kreski, our Playmate of the Year.” Connie does not say one word the entire show.
She does have more lines on other episodes of PAD, mostly the ones from 1970, the last year of the program.
The People, London. Aug. 23, 1970 A little over a year since Sharon Tate and the others were murdered, Connie remains friends with widower Roman Polanski. Sorry for poor quality.
Kreski’s newspaper press indicates she was signed to a contract with Universal Studios.
Universal signed an extraordinary number of pinup models, beauty contest winners and starlets in the 1950s and 60s.
Detroit Free Press April 27, 1969 The hometown/homestate paper covered their homegrown Hollywood star.
It seems Connie had about 15 minutes of fame as an actress.
She appeared on a memorable 1970 episode of Love American Style starring Kaye Ballard, playing a topless waitress: Love and the V.I.P. Restaurant.
After a few years Connie’s contract with Universal was dropped which merited one sentence in a Hollywood gossip column I read.
Her last credit is a TV mini-series Aspen in 1976.
James CaaN
Connie had a high profile romance with actor James Caan beginning in the early 1970s and lasting around 3-4 years.
She was identified in Hollywood news articles as his “girlfriend” and “ex-Playmate.” T
hey got together soon after Caan’s star making turn in The Godfather; he was much in demand by directors and studios.
And by many beautiful young women, according to several interviews at the time.
Playboy Mansion regular James Caan speaks about girlfriend Connie Kreski in NY Daily News Oct. 8, 1972
Below is from an 1970s Playboy feature on men’s jewelry with Connie and boyfriend James Caan.
It was determined that Connie Kreski died of cirrhosis of the liver at age 48 in 1995. Laennec’s is a cirrhosis most associated with alcohol abuse over time.
What happened in her life that caused it to end this way at the age of 45?
What happened to her friendships with Hefner and Polanski and that crowd? And James Caan?
Connie Kreski is rarely mentioned in any pop culture forum.
I find that strange, given the people that she was seen hanging out with: Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, Hugh Hefner, Anthony Newley and James Caan.
Many of these people continue to generate attention and conversation. Some are still alive, many dead.
Most recently, Connie’s ex and Playboy mansion regular and good friend of Hefner, James Caan passed away on July 6, 2022. His death drew numerous accolades and a film festival is in the works.
Unusually, Caan lacks a dedicated biography.
This will likely be forthcoming.
Caan hadn’t been asked about Connie since the 1970s, that I have ever seen.
Like Paige Young, Connie’s cause of death is incorrectly identified on the internet. It usually says “blocked carotid artery” or “cancer.” Connie’s entry in The Playmate Book, mentions her death in Beverly Hills, 1995, but doesn’t state a cause. I have included closeups of her death certificate.
Connie and a man named Louis Edelman were married in New York in 1986 per records seen on ancestry.com.
They set up a marital home in Beverly Hills. Connie was pregnant at the time but unfortunately lost the baby the same year.
Connie died in March of 1995 at the young age of 49. She died before her about 10 years older husband, Louis Edelman.
I had long wondered what happened to Connie so I ordered her death certificate.
And after seeing it, of course I wondered how she had become an alcoholic with all her seeming advantages in life. Beauty and a budding career in movies and TV, money.
Cirrhosis of Liver is clearly stated as the cause of Connie’s premature death. Interval between onset and death says years.
I was fortunate enough to get some answers by correspondence with Connie’s stepdaughter Barbara Cooper. Her father was Louis Edelman.
Barbara Cooper told me that after the loss, Connie began an obsession with calorie counting and losing weight. On top of that she abused alcohol and her husband Louis felt compelled to hide liquor bottles from his wife.
With those two illnesses, it’s no wonder that Connie died so young and before her older husband.
Barbara’s daughters spent vacations with “Grandpa and Connie in California.” Barbara told me how consistently kind and sweet Connie was to her daughters and to everybody.
She said that Connie did not talk about Playboy, Hefner, any of the Playmates, or her days in Hollywood.
More on Connie Kreski and her brief time in the spotlight
Telegraph Journal New Brunswick. July 10, 1969
Still a couple years away from meeting Marilyn Cole and giving Connie the heave-ho.
Another famous gossip columnist of the era: Marilyn Beck. Here, she dispels any truth to the rumors of a romance with Connie and Sammy Davis Jr.
She was Sammy’s type in that era given the physical qualities of Sammy’s women mentioned here.
I doubt that Victor Lownes remained faithful to Connie. She was in LA working on her new career as an actress.
Connie had a fair amount of press on and off, for about 6 years. Press for projects and Hollywood gossip due to her relationships with Victor Lownes, Roman Polanski (denied as a relationship) and later James Caan.
I’ll be posting several of all kinds.
She was wafer thin with proportions of being tall; she could have been a perfect commercial model, if not a high fashion one. There are many fashion shots of Connie that I haven’t yet published.
Patriot News 9/12/1975
BACK TO 1969
Paige Young in Los Angeles 