Biography of Shannon Long

Shannon Long (born February 11, 1969, in Gladstone, Queensland, Australia) is an Australian nude model and actress. She was chosen as Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for October 1988 issue.

Shannon spent her formative years moving around Queensland and up and down the east coast wherever her father could find construction work. By the time she was in her early teens her family had settled in the New South Wales 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. Additionally, Shannon was the lightest Playmate ever, weighing in at 94 pounds.

Her American success led to an unprecedented second centerfold in the Australian edition in December 1988. Australian 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.

Shannon returned to Australia in the mid 1990s and wound down her modeling career in favor of becoming a computer specialist while doing occasional glamour modeling for local magazines.