lyle waggoner was the first centerfold in playgirl magazine.

He got the idea while working on “Wonder Woman,” when he was assigned a motor home rented from an individual. “They can yank the rug out from under you at any time.” “I was always looking for a backup because I knew the series they don't last forever,” he told a CNBC interviewer in 2002. The series ended in 1979 and Waggoner focused on his rental company, with acting jobs on the side. In 1977 “Wonder Woman” moved from ABC to CBS as “The New Adventures of Wonder Woman” and from the `40s to contemporary times, with Carter still the superhero and Waggoner as Steve Trevor Jr., his previous character's son. Wonder Woman joined him on his return to the United States, where she mostly fought Nazi agents with her secret powers while posing as Steve's secretary. Steve Trevor (Waggoner) crashed onto the island during World War II. Lynda Carter was Wonder Woman, who came from a lost island where she was one of a band of Amazon women with superpowers. In 1976 Waggoner was picked to star in “Wonder Woman,” based on the venerable comic book heroine. He stayed with the show from its beginning in 1967 to 1974 (it ran on CBS another four years).Īlong the way, he made history of sorts in 1973 when the fledgling Playgirl magazine chose him as its first centerfold, calling him “the stuff of which sexual fantasies are made, a 6-foot-4 hunk of gorgeous beefcake.“ The Chicago Tribune studied his unclothed but discreet pose behind a desk, and reported he looked “slightly embarrassed at having it widely known that he sits at his desk in the nude.” He had a sly, tongue-in-cheek delivery that told you he was putting himself on and not taking himself seriously.“Īs the series evolved, she said, he showed such great comic instincts that he got roles in sketches and became a full member of the cast. “In walked Lyle Waggoner,“ she recalled in her 2010 book, “This Time Together.“ “Gorgeous? Yes. He had to also be good-looking, so she could do her ugly-duckling, romance-besotted character with him, and funny, so he could contribute laughs.

The actress-comedian recalled that she wanted an announcer for the show who could do more than introduce the commercials. Then he was called to audition for Burnett's variety show.

In the mid-1960s, the Kansas-born Waggoner was appearing in run-of-the-mill movies such as “Swamp Country” and “The Catalina Caper” and was a finalist to play “Batman” in the campy TV series that eventually starred Adam West.

Lyle waggoner was the first centerfold in playgirl magazine.