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BIOGRAPHY

Karen McDougal
	BIOGRAPHY | GALLERY | GOSSIP | BLOG

Karen McDougal, born March 23, 1971, is an American model and actress of Cherokee Indian and Irish descent.

McDougal is best known for her appearances in Playboy magazine as Playmate of the Month for December 1997 and Playmate of the Year of 1998.

McDougal began her career as a promotional model and a swimsuit model. Since her appearances in Playboy, her career has broadened to encompass appearances in a wide variety of mainstream media including print media, television and movies with mixed success. She has transitioned into fitness modelling and is pursuing hosting duties on TV. She has also inspired the creation of a fantasy art statuette and a doll. In 2001, she was voted "No. 2 Sexiest Playmate of the 1990s" by Playboy readers.

Althrough her Playmate datasheet stated McDougal was born in Gary, Indiana, McDougal was actually born in Merrillville, Indiana, near Gary. She is the first daughter in the family with 3 older brothers, Bob, Dave and Jeff and a younger sister, Tina. Little is known about her family, but her mother, Carol, remarried when McDougal was 9 years old and the family moved to Sawyer, Michigan where she remained until college. She attended River Valley High School[6] and became a cheerleader, band member, color guard, volleyball and softball player in high school.

McDougal studied tap dance and ballet as a child. She is also a clarinet player, having been a Michigan state champion for four (4) years in a row in high school. Her childhood dream, prior to teaching and modeling, was to become a ballerina. After graduating high school in 1989, she attended Ferris State University at Big Rapids, Michigan for college for 2 years, majoring in Elementary Education. Afterwards, she moved to a Detroit suburb and taught preschool there.[6] In her spare time, she works out 3 days a week to stay in shape. Her first modelling assignment was being a promotional model at a Harley-Davidson bike show in Detroit.

In 1997, McDougal tried out and won her local Venus Swimwear swimsuit competition in Michigan. Her victory caught the eye of Playboy photographer David Mecey. Soon after that she was approached by Playboy for a test shoot at Playboy Studio West which she accepted. Upon completing her test shoot, she was promptly selected to return for a complete photo and video shoot and chosen as Miss December 1997. Her pictorial, which was shot by photographers Richard Fegley and Stephen Wayda, has a winter theme and its outdoor portion was shot in the snowy fields near Park City, Utah. Her video, the "Playmate Profile", was featured on Playboy TV soon after her magazine debut.

In May 1998, McDougal was announced to have been chosen by Hugh Hefner and fans as Playmate of the Year (PMOY) of 1998 at a luncheon at the Playboy Mansion. As her reward, she was awarded $100,000 and a special edition silver Shelby Series 1 convertible with a customized Michigan license plate "PMOY 98". In contrast to her Playmate pictorial, her PMOY pictorial in the July 1998 issue of Playboy has a tropical theme and its outdoor portion was shot at Saint Lucia. According to her interview in her Playmate of the Year "Video Centerfold", she believes her physical imperfections are her "funny" smile, her crooked pinkies which she inherited from her grandfather and her "ugly feet" which she wishes others would not look at. Because of the popularity of the VH1 television series "Pop-up Video" at the time, one of the segments in her PMOY video was done as a Pop-up Video parody filled with factoids about her and Playboy. During her appearance on The Magic Hour to promote her PMOY issue, McDougal demonstrated her signature pose, sideway split on TV in front of a live studio audience.

Playboy has continued to publish her material in Playboy Cyber Club, Playboy Special Edition publications and Playboy Videos on different occasions based on her work at this time.

McDougal appeared in the 2005 Playmates at Play at the Playboy Mansion swimsuit calendar as the calendar girl of July. The calendar was the inaugural Playmates at Play calendar and it was shot on the grounds of Playboy Mansion in 2004. It was Playboy's first attempt at creating a non-nude swimsuit calendar featuring Playmates similar in style with those from Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. While all Playmates appeared in bikinis in the calendar, McDougal and Hiromi Oshima were the only two Playmates actually wearing only painted on bikinis.

McDougal appeared as one of the interviewees in E! True Hollywood Story of Hugh Hefner first broadcasted on April 9, 2006. McDougal briefly described her experience at the Playboy Mansion when the marriage between Hugh and Kimberley Conrad Hefner was falling apart at the time when she was Miss December 1997. In summer of 2006, McDougal appeared as a fitness model demonstrating all the exercises in a fitness training DVD with Hollywood celebrity fitness trainer Valerie Waters.

In November 2006, McDougal was part of a trio of Playmates (along with Tina Marie Jordan and Katie Lohmann) that appeared in the "Celebrity Playmate Gift Guide" pictorial of Splat magazine, a paintball enthusiasts magazine. The pictorial showcased new paintball products for the 2006 holiday season.

McDougal has also guest hosted TV programs (Wild On! on E!, VIP Access on Showtime) and appeared in other television programs (such as: Lovespring International, The O'Reilly Factor, Playmate edition of Russian Roulette, etc.) and movies (cameos in Joe Dirt, Charlie's Angels, Grind, The Girl Next Door and Raising Helen), music videos (singer David Lee Roth), various pin-up posters, calendars, magazine covers, advertising campaigns, promotional events, clothing, swimwear and lingerie catalogs following her success as Playmate of the Year.