Alice Denham was a fashion model, actress, and author. During her modeling career, she was featured in various men’s magazines. She was Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Month for the July 1956 issue. Alice earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina in 1949 and a master’s degree from the University of Rochester in 1950.
Modeling Career
After completing her education, she went to New York City for literary fame and romance. She was photographed for fashion magazines, detective magazines, paperback covers, comic strips, and movie posters. For a spread in True Adventures magazine, “Girl Gun Runners of Saigon,” she posed as four different Vietnamese women holding an array of weapons as they took position on a ridge.
Alice made her way easily into Manhattan’s literary salons. Several fell for her looks and women loved her nerve. Actor James Dean was very close to her until he fell hard for the Italian actress Pier Angeli.
Manhattan was a river of men flowing past my door, and when I was thirsty, I drank
Author and University professor
Alice published her first novel ‘My Darling from the Lions’ in 1967, which attracted little attention. She also did some copywriting, mostly penning dust jacket copy for publishers. In 1974, she wrote her second novel ‘Amo’ about a feminist centerfold who has a fantasy life on another planet. Her third novel came ‘Secrets of San Miguel’ in 2013. She served as an adjunct professor of English from 1970 to 1980. She also held fiction-writing seminars at the University of Toronto for several years.
Personal life
Alice Denham was married twice, her first marriage ended in divorce. Her second marriage was to John Brady Mueller and they remained married until her death. Alice died of complications from ovarian cancer at the age of 89, on January 27, 2016.
