Marina Baker (born Marina Augusta Baker on December 8, 1967) is an English model and actress. She was chosen as Playboy's Playmate of the Month in March 1987. By her own account, she had an unconventional, nomadic hippie upbringing in the rural environs of Norfolk, East Anglia, living in tents and celebrating childhood birthdays in the rain. She was widely traveled at a young age and moved to London as a teenager, where she worked as a waitress. Baker began nude modeling as a Page Three girl at 17 before she was discovered by noted erotic photographer, Byron Newman.
| Marina Baker | |
|---|---|
| Preceded by | Julie Peterson |
| Succeeded by | Anna Clark |
| Personal details | |
| Height | 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) |
According to a recent interview, Baker was approached by Penthouse (magazine) but turned them down and did her Playmate shoot in 1986 when she was 18, making her one of the youngest Playmates to date. When the March 1987 issue of Playboy was released to newsstands, she had only recently turned 19. She appeared in several other men's magazines such as High Society (magazine) and Gallery following her Playboy appearance. Baker wrote a lengthy article about her experiences as a Playmate for the December 1994 edition of Time Out magazine. An avowed bisexual and extrovert, she is given to cheeky and titillating remarks and claimed to have had a lesbian fling with model Carrie Leigh during her stay at the Playboy Mansion.
Marina Baker has a devoted coterie of fans to the present day who appreciate what some have called her distinctive "retro-Edwardian" good looks and naturally buxom, voluptuous hourglass figure as displayed in her Playboy (and other) photos.
She claimed that her comfort with posing nude was due to the liberating influence of her mother, a nature-worshipping white witch. She also attributes what she calls her "pear-shaped... pneumatic silhouette", wasp waist, and "big, child-bearing hips" to ballet-training and her robust Irish and Welsh ancestry.
Baker has appeared in two films (the 1987 TV movie "Casanova", starring Richard Chamberlain), and the 1990 short film "Man from China". Following the death of one of her boyfriends, she went through a period of soul-searching. She retired from acting and modeling by her mid-20s and went back to waitressing in England. She eventually decided to further her education and earned a degree in journalism. During the 1990's, Baker worked extensively as a journalist, most often for The Independent and the The Guardian newspapers in Britain.
She is best known today as a practicing Wiccan and author of several books on witchcraft (including "Spells for Teenage Witches").
Baker is an active figure in local politics, sometimes working under her married name of Marina Pepper, in the Brighton area of England where she lives with her husband, Lee Pepper, and their two children, Charley and Boudicca -- the latter named in honor of her mother's pagan feminist beliefs and Norfolk childhood.
She is currently (as of 2005) the vice chair of the Lewes district council and mayor of Telscombe and at the 2005 General Election stood (unsuccessfully) for Parliament in the Brighton Kemptown as a Liberal Democrat.
Appearances in Playboy
- Playboy "Great Briton", Playmate of the Month. March 1987. Playmate pictorial and data sheet.
- Playboy "Playboy's Playmate Review". January 1988. Features photograph of Miss Baker nude while wearing an Edwardian-style costume corset accessory.
- Playboy "Off With Their Clothes". Semi-nude pictorial featuring Miss Baker as Marie Antoinette. August 1989.
Appearances in Playboy Special Editions
- Playboy's Playmate Review No. 4 June 1988.
- Playboy's Book of Lingerie Vol. 5 January 1989.
- Playboy's Book of Lingerie Vol. 7 May 1989.
- Playboy's Book of Lingerie Vol. 9 September 1989.
- Playboy's Book of Lingerie Vol. 16 November 1990.
- Playboy's International Playmates January 1992.
- Playboy's Pocket Playmates No. 2 November 1995.
- Playboy's Voluptuous Vixens January 1998 (Covergirl: Tawny Peaks)
- Playboy's Celebrating Centerfolds Vol. 1 December 1998 - page 59.
- Playboy's Book of Lingerie Vol. 76 November 2000.
External links
- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themarinabakerplayhouse The Marina Baker Playhouse - a Yahoo Groups fansite
- Marina Pepper PPC profile at the site of Liberal Democrats
- Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Marina Pepper