South Florida Sun Sentinel from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 73

Sun-Sentinel r-i r-I I I Thursday, January 20, 1983 dud pa OH '''Mr'' 1 pa Facte i They are centerfold celebrities 'Playboy magazine's 25th Anniversary Playmate and Playgirl magazine's Man of the Year and they make quite a promotional pair. I i I i 1 7 Candy Loving, 26: 'I had a package they were looking Perfect -r and Loving it By Amy F. Brunjes Suff Writer How did a nice girl from Ponca City, wind up as Playboy magazine's 25th Anniversary Playmate beating out 4,000 women for the $25,000 honor? Perhaps it's because her name is Candy Loving. Or maybe it's because she was majoring in public relations at the University of Oklahoma when a Playboy representative "discovered" her almost four years ago. Or maybe it is because Miss Loving, 26, is 5-foot-7, 120 pounds, amply endowed and downright pretty.

But Candy Loving, in Miami Beach recently for the World of Wheels car convention at the Miami Beach Convention Center, says it's a combination of the above and more. "I had a package they were looking for," says Miss Loving, eating a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich in the top-floor restaurant of a Miami Beach hotel. "I was the girl next door, my name was Candy Loving, I was a college student majoring in public relations and it just seemed that it all fit together." Now Miss Loving who was called "Playmate Perfect" by Playboy says she is back to being the girl next door, representing Playboy at weekend car conventions around the country only to put herself through graduate school at the University of Oklahoma. She is getting her master's degree in human relations, a specialty she hopes to use to become a children's counselor or teacher. But Miss Loving, relaxing in jeans, a white cotton blouse and a full face of makeup, says posing nude for Playboy was an experience she would not trade for all the degrees in the world.

"It has changed my life. I feel I have grown so much. I am able to be self-sufficient and very independent and it has given me a chance to live life to the fullest," Miss Loving says. Candy Loving's transition from small-town girl to big-time sex symbol started in 1978 when Playboy began its searph for their 25th anniversary playmate. Representatives from the magazine visited all the major college campuses across the country, including the University of Oklahoma.

"It never entered my head to be a centerfold. It did not seem real to me." But Miss Loving, who was married at the time, says her husband, an avid Playboy reader, encouraged her to apply. On the last day possible, Miss Loving, clad only in a bathing suit, interviewed with Playboy. "I was curious so I went, but I never expected anything. From a small town in Oklahoma, something like that seems a million miles away to you." Please see CANDY, 4E Jeff Wintemute, 24: "I still picture myself as that fat little kid." Is he America 's sexiest man? Suff phoUM by BOB MACK, Playboy's ideal girl next door and Playgirl's sexiest man teamed up for an auto convention.

By Amy F. Brunjes Staff Writer Playgirl magazine's Man of the Year was once a fat teen-ager who couldn't get a date. Now G7o6e magazine calls him "America's sexiest man!" And the object of all this attention 24-year-old Jeff Wintemute finds himself in a tizzy over the rapid transformation of his looks and his life. "I still picture myself as that fat little kid," says Wintemute, a California carpenter who is anything but. "I never pictured this happening.

I wasn't ready for this. It's a total shock." Wintemute is seated in a hotel bar high above Miami Beach. He is waiting for the start of the World of Wheels convention held at the Miami Beach Convention Center, a car show at which he will walk around looking beautiful and autograph- ing pictures of himself wearing nothing but white boxer shorts. That picture was published in the January issue of Playgirl, along with a five-photo spread of Wintemute in the buff. But at the hotel, Wintemute, described by Playgirl editors as possessing bedroom eyes, breathtaking good looks and raw sensuality, is fully clothed in skintight blue jeans, a tan short-sleeved shirt unbuttoned to the navel, and tennis shoes.

He has a deep tan his nose is peeling and a dimple on his chin. He wears a gold nugget around his neck. Sipping orange juice, he marvels at his almost-instant success. "I am a pretty down-to-earth guy. I've always been a shy person." When Wintemute was 16, he carried 215 pounds on his 5-foot-8 frame.

He had a 38-inch waist and little self-confidence. At a football game with friends, Wintemute accepted a dare and asked a pretty high school classmate for date. She flatly rejected him, Wintemute recalls, calling him "fatso" in front of his friends. "I could hear all my buddies laughing in the stands, and not only my friends but people I didn't even know," he says. "It hit me right then and I lost 60 pounds in a month and a half." In December of 1981, Wintemute, down to 160 pounds and up to 5-foot-10, was a carpenter in Buena Park, Calif.

He spent his free time weight lifting, golfing, boxing, bicycling and skiing. It wasn't until his wife Melodye snapped his picture as he was drying himself after a shower that things began to happen for Wintemute. Please see JEFF, SE Couples whti play together, stay together CC Going on a date with your mate doing something fun, like going to a zoo to watch the monkeys, can do wonders for a relationship." Greg Neimeyer open up and talk to one another, to discuss their fears and fantasies in the relationship and to support and understand one another's viewpoints," he says. One of the most common problems he found in the university community occurs when "somewhere along the line, one partner makes changes or gains, while the other is left behind. That's really common when one partner is in school and the other one isn't." Spending time with one another, helping each other with school or work tasks and keeping lines of communication open are critical to successful relationships, Neimeyer says.

"Happy marriages don't just happen. They re-rjre continuous work." "To some extent, shared interests are important, too. And although many happy couples have very different interests, they tend to understand and appreciate one another's differences rather than criticize them. "Accepting differences and regarding as positive qualities instead of faults is absolutely essential to a relationship that is going to grow, as opposed to one that will cap off and stagnate." Neimeyer also found that' couples who aren't satisfied with their marriages have a tendency to ignore differences and to believe their spouses think the same way they do about things, when in fact, their spouses think very differently. "The trick is often to get people to The Auociated Prra AINESVILLE When the go-Pi ing gets rough in a relationship, 1 couples should do something like head for the hills or go fly a kite, a University of Florida researcher says.

"Going on a date with your mate doing something fun, like going to a zoo to watch the monkeys, can do wonders for a relationship," says Dr. Greg Nei-meyer, a psychology professor and marriage and family counselor. In conjunction with the university's counseling center, Neimeyer is conducting a study aimed at finding what happy couples have that unhappy ones don't He hopes by spring to find how effective counseling is at improving relationships. Since September, he and several university doctoral students have studied 25 couples being counseled at the school's center and another 25 chosen at random from the university community. So far, the researchers have found that couples who laugh together, call each other funny nicknames, have picnics, share sports and hobbies or just take walks and throw Frisbees together seem more content in their relationships than others.

"So in therapy, we try to encourage couples to recount what they used to do together that was fun and get them to act like they are dating and do those things again. It can be as simple as getting a bushel of oysters and going to the beach for the day," Neimeyer says. "A large part of a happy relationship is being able to be yourself and be frivolous sometimes, and be accepted for that. Without that fun, life becomes a drudgery. "But relationships are also serious business," Neimeyer adds.

"Most satisfied partners can talk to one another about important matters and are more alike in their values than those who aren't so happy. insids Bad commercials, revisited Bill Kelley, Page 10E The challenge of growing old Jim Sanderson, Page 3E String quartet is young, but musically mature Tim Smith, Page 11E.