Actors - Karen McDougal

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	Actors - Karen McDougal

Karen McDougal (b. March 23, 1971, in Gary, Indiana) is an American model and actress. She was Playboy's Miss December 1997 and Playmate of the Year of 1998. She is of Cherokee Indian and Irish descent.

Biography

McDougal moved to Sawyer, Michigan with her family at the age of 9. She was a cheerleader, band member, color guard, volleyball and softball player in high school and college. She is a clarinet player (Michigan state champion 4 years in a row in high school) and has studied tap dance and ballet as a child. After attending Ferris State University for college, she moved to a Detroit suburb and taught preschool there. In her spare time, she works out 3 times a week to stay in shape. Her childhood dream, prior to teaching and modeling, was to become a ballerina.

One of her goals is to open a learning center for children. Lately, she has been pursuing roles in acting and modelling and has put her learning center plans on hold. She is interested in pursuing hosting duties of TV or sports shows.

McDougal's family members initially did not support her decision to pose for Playboy. Eventually, they embraced the fact and her mother appeared in interview segments of her Playmate of the Year video centerfold as a sign of support.

She is one of the few Playmates that has publicly acknowledged having breast implants to enhance her figure. Since becoming Playmate of the Year, she has become an advocate of breast cancer awareness, trying to use her fame to spread awareness.

An avid motorcycle rider, She commissioned a custom-built motorcycle in 2004. Her requirements for her bike were that it had to be pink in color and had to be reliable.

McDougal is currently residing in Los Angeles and Phoenix, Arizona.

Career highlights

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. Later she was selected to return for a complete shoot and chosen as Playmate of the Month of December 1997. Her pictorial, which was shot by photographer Richard Fegley, has a winter theme and its outdoor portion was shot in the snowy fields near Park City, Utah.

In June 1998, she was announced to have been chosen by Hugh Hefner and fans as Playmate of the Year 1998 at a luncheon at the Playboy Mansion. As her reward, she was awarded $100,000 and a silver Shelby Series 1 convertible with a special 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 St. Lucia. According to her interview in her Playmate of the Year video, 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. She has also appeared in other Playboy Videos. During her appearance on The Magic Hour to promote her PMOY issue, McDougal demostrated her signature pose, sideway split on TV in front of a live studio audience.

In March 1999, McDougal became the first woman to appear on the cover of Men's Fitness magazine. Since then she began transitioning her career into that of a fitness model by appearing in various fitness and body building magazines such as Muscle & Fitness (January 2000), Physical (June 2004) and Iron Man (October 2005 and January 2006) and refrained from modelling nude. She appeared in a 10-page pictorial in the January 2006 issue of Iron Man as the "Hardbody of the Month".

In 2000, McDougal appeared in a series of sexy, scantily-clad TV commercials for XFL football league on NBC with the theme of "Cheerleaders" along with Pennelope Jimenez, Angel Veil and other models. The most famous one featured her as one of many cheerleaders taking a shower in the locker room. Using clever camera angles and strategically placed objects, the commercial gave viewers the titillating illusion that the cheerleaders were nude in the shower with little left to the imagination. The edgier XFL commercials backfired and caused a controversy as they were deemed too risqué by family values groups, they were quickly withdrawn before the launch of 2001 XFL inaugural (and final) season.

In 2001, she co-starred with Lisa Dergan in The Arena
, a Roger Corman-produced, direct-to-video movie directed by Timur Bekmambetov. The entire production was shot in Russia. In her feature film debut, McDougal's character, Jessemina, is a slave girl who is forced into fighting as a female gladiator in a Roman colony by its corrupt governor. The role offered McDougal her first opportunity to act in a dramatic role and to demostrate her physical abilities with the movie's sword fighting sequences. The movie, initially titled Gladiatrix was deemed to be a knockoff of Gladiator. Although the movie was not well received, it has turned into a lesser known cult film.

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Actors - Karen McDougal

Biography

Career highlights

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