Karen Elaina Price is no strange to the limelight, thanks to her drummer father who played with Rich Little, Oscar Peterson and Stan Kenton. However, Karen wasn’t as interested in music the way her father had hoped. The all-natural brunette gave up on the piano—and her father’s dreams of her ever playing music professionally—when she decided she wanted to be a gymnast. “I would love to open my own gymnastics and acrobatics school,” says our flexible Miss January 1981. Karen began teaching gymnastics a few years after she began practicing the sport. She was a natural talent who could leap through the air with the greatest of ease –until she turned 16 years old.

“I was flat-chested until the age of 16, and then—boom!—all of the sudden, in three months, I developed,” says Karen who now has an all-natural, F-cup bosom. “Needless to say, they created some gymnastics problems; as you can imagine, large breasts throw off your balance.”

Our Playmate’s voluptuous chest may have caused her problems in the gym, but it definitely helped her with her modeling and stuntwoman careers. After being crowned our Miss January 1981, Karen went on to work in Hollywood as a professional stuntwoman. She fought and flipped her way through Eddie Murphy’s The Golden Child, Steven Seagal’s Above the Law and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Running Man. In total, the buxom sweetheart from Pasadena has performed in almost 30 films, and she now has her sights set on tumbling in love. “I’m very simple when it comes to things that turn me on sexually. I like the basics—gentleness, romance, kissing. And I don’t like to call it sex; I call it making love,” explains Karen. With a beauty like Playmate Karen Price in your bed, who wouldn’t consider it love making?

California health fanatics, Karen keeps in shape with a standard balanced diet (hold the bean sprouts), plus lots of athletic involvement. At the ripe old age of 12, she was introduced to the rigorous sport of gymnastics and took to it immediately. At the time, her father – who is now a drummer for Rich Little and has played with such greats as Oscar Peterson and Stan Kenton – wanted young Karen to be a musician, too. She diligently practiced her scales but soon found that while two hours at the piano were almost unbearable, spending four or five hours at the balance beam was a snap. After winning first prize in several local competitions, Karen became a teacher of gymnastics – and developed an interest in acrobatics as well. (Gymnastics is an individual sport; acrobatics involves two or more people.) Karen loves children; since she was 15, she has been coaching youngsters in the sport, and recently she tutored a 14-year-old in reading and writing. She also has a definite soft spot for stray animals. When we met her, she had just adopted a baby squirrel, which she named J.R. (after her boyfriend, not Larry Hagman). Does Karen Price have any vices? “Sugar,” she says. “I’ve got a serious sweet tooth. And I do swear sometimes. But I guess my only real vice – if you want to call it that – is making love.” Actually, we wouldn’t call it that.