Shannon Long(I)
- Actress
Shannon spent her formative years moving around Queensland and up and
down the east coast wherever her father could find construction work.
In her early teens she settled in the NSW coastal town of Ballina. Soon
after her 16th birthday she moved to Sydney, took up modeling and
landed an immediate success as a Playmate in the Australian edition of
Playboy in September 1985. She was a smash with readers of the
Australian edition. Shannon did an encore pictorial in late 1986, and
represented Australia in the Playboy International Pageant in 1988. She
caught the eyes of the US Playboy editors and became the first ever
Australian to appear as a Playmate in the US edition in October 1988.
This is in turn lead to an unprecedented second centerfold in the
Australian edition in December 1988. Australian edition readers
couldn't get enough of her, leading to encore pictorials in 1989 and
1992. She toured the USA in the early 1990s promoting Australian beer.
She returned to Australia in the mid 1990s and wound down her modeling
career in favor of becoming a computer specialist while doing
occasional glamor modeling for local magazines.