Alice Denham: Life Story and Glamorous Photos of Stunning Beauty with Brains

Alice Denham was not the kind of woman who fit neatly into one box. She was a fashion model and a Playboy Playmate, but also a published novelist and a university professor. She moved through New York’s literary circles with the same ease she brought to the pages of men’s magazines — and she did it all on her own terms.

Alice’s academic record set her apart from nearly everyone in her world. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina in 1949, then followed it with a master’s degree from the University of Rochester in 1950. Armed with both credentials, she headed straight for New York City — not for a desk job, but for literary fame and romance.

New York in the early 1950s was a city buzzing with ambition, and Alice plugged right into it. She was photographed for fashion magazines, detective magazines, paperback book covers, comic strips, and movie posters. Her face and figure showed up across a wide range of publications, each one a different version of the image she was building for herself.

One of her more unusual modeling jobs came from True Adventures magazine. For a spread titled “Girl Gun Runners of Saigon,” Alice posed as four different Vietnamese women, each holding weapons, positioned on a ridge. She played all four characters herself — a testament to her versatility in front of the camera.

Her biggest modeling milestone came in July 1956, when she was named Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Month. The feature made her one of the most recognized faces of that year’s publication and cemented her place in the history of the magazine.

Beyond the camera, Alice was carving out a space for herself in Manhattan’s literary salons — the private gatherings where writers, editors, and intellectuals mingled. She moved through those rooms with confidence. Men were drawn to her looks, and women admired her nerve. She later described that period of her life with characteristic wit: “Manhattan was a river of men flowing past my door, and when I was thirsty, I drank.”

Among those she grew close to was actor James Dean, who was a frequent presence in her circle until his attention shifted to Italian actress Pier Angeli. Alice kept moving. The social world of 1950s Manhattan was wide, and she had no shortage of company.

She also took on copywriting work during this period, writing dust jacket copy for publishers. It kept her connected to the book world while she worked toward her own writing goals.

Alice published her first novel, My Darling from the Lions, in 1967. The book drew little public attention, but it marked the start of her identity as a serious fiction writer. She followed it in 1974 with Amo, a novel centered on a feminist centerfold who leads a fantasy life on another planet. The concept was bold, blending the world she knew as a model with a sharp feminist perspective.

Her third novel, Secrets of San Miguel, came out in 2013 — nearly four decades after Amo. The long gap between books did nothing to dim her commitment to writing. She kept at it well into her later years.

Alice also built a career in education. She served as an adjunct professor of English from 1970 to 1980, and she ran fiction-writing seminars at the University of Toronto for several years. Teaching gave her a way to stay rooted in the literary world and pass her craft on to younger writers.

Her personal life had its share of change. She was married twice, with her first marriage ending in divorce. Her second husband was John Brady Mueller, and the two stayed together for the rest of her life.

Alice Denham died on January 27, 2016, from complications related to ovarian cancer. She was 89 years old. She had spent her life working across modeling, writing, and teaching — rarely staying still, always doing more than one thing at once.