“I’m no cookie-cutter,” declares Shera Bechard. “If there’s a bandwagon, I’m not on it.” Indeed, it is impossible to categorize our Miss November, a French Canadian beauty who likes to chill in jeans and a tank top and go horseback riding in the countryside.
“I’m no cookie-cutter,” declares Shera Bechard. “If there’s a bandwagon, I’m not on it.” Indeed, it is impossible to categorize our Miss November, a French Canadian beauty who likes to chill in jeans and a tank top and go horseback riding in the countryside. “I’m a shy girl who hates pretension,” she says. And though Shera scored a best actress award last year at the Austin, Texas-based Fantastic Fest – the country’s largest genre-film festival — for her avenging-angel turn in the grind-house thriller Sweet Karma, she actually abhors gory movies. Instead, she prefers the crooning of Roy Orbison and DVD binges of Seinfeld. She also finds bliss in the snowy quietude of her birthplace, Kapuskasing, a tiny slice of northern Ontario. “I adore the cold. As a kid I would build forts under six-foot-high snowbanks.”
At the age of 18 Shera packed her bags and hit the urban hustle of Toronto in pursuit of a modeling career. “It’s strange that I wanted to become a model, because I’m such a private person,” she confesses. “But I feel confident in front of the camera.” A few years later she had a chance encounter with Playboy cartoonist Doug Sneyd, which led to the pictorial currently before you. “Becoming a Playmate was a huge compliment, because the most beautiful women in the world appear in Playboy.” Don’t presume, however, that our snow angel’s good fortune will cause her humility to drift. “When people see me they think I’m going to be full of myself, but they quickly find out otherwise,” she says. “I love proving them wrong. When people say I’m beautiful, I always say thank you! But I can promise you I’m not thinking, Yeah, I know. I will always be flattered.”
Shera Bechard is a lot of things. She’s a French Canadian, aspiring perfumier, entrepreneurial visa recipient, Hef’s former girlfriend, animal lover, and most notably, a Playmate. A lithe blonde with soft, greyish green eyes, Shera has been an all-time favorite since her very first feature. Hailing from the river town of Kapukasing, a French-speaking town in Ontario, Shera moved to the city of Toronto at eighteen to pursue a career as a model. On the way, she became something of an actress – in 2009, she took a star turn in the indie thriller Sweet Karma, a role for which she won the Best Actress at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. Shera loves animals – she lives with two cats and a rabbit, thou she’d welcome many more – and is passionate about animal rights and the environment. She’s spoken against hunting and promotes the conservation of polar bears in her native Canada. But not fish. She admits that her favorite thing to eat is sushi, and that she loves eel, giant clam and raw scallop. Shera is a busy girl – when she’s not working, she’s traveling, and hopes to return to school to continue her studies in perfumery – but for now, you can catch her on Twitter, where her go-getting Frisky Friday feature is a huge hit.
