However, her friend Cynthia Wood (the Cowgirl) convinced her otherwise. As for Colleen Camp, who started her acting career at the age of 3, she was not so sure about the nudity required for this role and almost refused the job. But this step was skipped for Apocalypse Now, most likely because Coppola’s reputation was already well established. The magazine wanted to ensure that any productions involving their playmates were not cheap in view to preserve a certain “quality” to the girls seen in their magazines. During those years, the usual procedure for filming with official playmates was to get a visit from a Playboy agent. Wood and Carpenter were both actual playmates and posed for Playboy prior to the movie release. Those were Cynthia Wood (the Cowgirl), Colleen Camp (the Indian) and Linda Carpenter (the US Cavalry Girl). Of course, those playmate characters needed actresses to bring them to life. The design on the right can be seen in the movie. Research sketches for the bunnies by Dean Tavoularis. Beautiful production sketches survived to this day. ![]() Tavoularis is the one who designed the look of that scene, including the costumes seen on the playmates. He is also known for the look of The Godfather and Bonnie and Clyde. One of the main reasons for the success of this scene is the work of Dean Tavoularis, production designer working on Apocalypse Now. The whole thing had to be rebuilt and became the iconic stage with giant phallic munitions surrounding the place. When hitting the Philippines in May 1976, the typhoon Olga totally destroyed many of the sets constructed for the movie, including the one that was meant to serve in the USO show scene. Interestingly enough, the filming of that scene became seriously threatened at some point. The scene ends in total chaos, with a swarm of young soldiers escalating the stage and forcing the girls to retreat in their helicopter. The message was that sending a 17-year-old boy to Vietnam was as immoral as serving those three girls to this mad crowd. Francis Coppola, in one interview with Playboy magazine, explained that this scene was put there as a symbol of abuse. In this scene, three playmates are delivered by helicopter and a crowd of uncontrolled soldiers while Suzy-Q by CCR is playing. ![]() There, on a tropical river bank, a recreational show was organized to give a feeling of being home to the GIs fighting at the other end of the world. One of the last contact points with the American civilization in the movie is the USO show in the middle of the jungle. The 1979 movie Apocalypse Now, by Francis Ford Coppola and nominated for 8 Oscars, brings us in the middle of the Vietnam War, in what is a long journey towards a more and more outlandish and mad world. But it’s already time to talk again of that scene as King and Country just released a set inspired by the three playmates from that scene! Behold the VN147 - The Apocalypse Playmates Set. ![]() We recently talked of the USO show from the movie Apocalypse Now in a previous blog entry about Suzy-Q.
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