Delores Wells obit

Not Forgotten: Centerfold remembered as loving mother

 She was not on the list.

Delores Wells always kept handy a couple of her trading cards, tucked into her wallet, on the chance that she'd ever meet someone wanting an autograph.

They weren't sports cards, but rather souvenirs from her June 1960 issue of Playboy magazine, when the Reading native was Playmate of the Month.

"They actually had Playboy centerfold trading cards," Delores' daughter, Stephanie Wolfe, said. "Like baseball cards."

One day, Delores went to cash a check, only to realize that she didn't have her ID.

"So she whipped out the trading card," Wolfe recalled with a laugh over the phone recently from her home in Phoenix. "The woman was like, 'I can't use that.' "

Delores' eager departure from Reading at just 17 would mark the start of a colorful life that would lead her onto the silver screen, into the pages of magazines, and to stints as adult film actress Linda Lovelace's personal secretary and Alice Cooper's makeup artist.

Delores was 78 when she died Feb. 9.

One of four siblings born in Reading, she had an unstable and often difficult upbringing, spending nine years in an orphanage in the city after their father's death at 27 left their mother a young widow.

"My mom couldn't wait to get out of Pennsylvania," Wolfe said. "She got a job with this dance group called the Holiday Girls, and they traveled around and danced for the troops and stuff."

Delores would land in Chicago, dancing at the city's most popular nightclub, Chez Paree.

"She met all kinds of people there: Nat King Cole, mafia," Wolfe said.

At the time, Delores was living with the girlfriend of famed Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana.

"My mom said the FBI would be constantly questioning them," Wolfe recalled, adding of Giancana's mob activity, "They'd go on dates and have to be blindfolded and wait in the car."

Delores posed for Playboy after meeting Hugh Hefner, later becoming a "Bunny Mother" at Playboy Clubs across the country, where she'd train new Bunnies whenever a new club opened. She'd spend the 1960s appearing in minor roles in a host of "Beach Party" films and TV shows.

"If my mom had continued on, she would've really gone somewhere," Wolfe said. "But she kind of gave it all up to raise me."

Delores, her daughter said, had an awesome life.

While she looked happy in pictures, however, "she was really lonely and miserable inside," Wolfe added. "But she did a really good job of raising me. All the love she wasn't getting when she was growing up, she made sure I had tons of it."

Delores would later work as the makeup artist for Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare Tour in 1975, then worked for the Oakland Raiders in the business office in the 1980s.

"She designed the makeup that Alice Cooper wears above and below his eyes," Wolfe said. "She had a lot of really neat jobs. It was all fake it till you make it. She never really had the experience or anything for these jobs, but she pulled it off."

 

Filmography

Actress

Jill St. John, Robert Wagner, Susan Clark, and Anjanette Comer in Banning (1967)

Banning

5.7

Girl at Pool (uncredited)

1967

 

A Guide for the Married Man (1967)

A Guide for the Married Man

6.6

Very Attractive Woman (uncredited)

1967

 

The Time Travelers (1964)

The Time Travelers

5.2

Reena

1964

 

Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello in Bikini Beach (1964)

Bikini Beach

5.4

Sniffles (as Dolores Wells)

1964

 

Muscle Beach Party (1964)

Muscle Beach Party

5.1

Sniffles

1964

 

Gene Barry in Burke's Law (1963)

Burke's Law

7.4

TV Series

Dream Girl (as Dolores Wells)

1963

1 episode

 

Beach Party (1963)

Beach Party

5.7

Sue

1963

 

The Dick Powell Theatre (1961)

The Dick Powell Theatre

7.4

TV Series

1st Twister

1963

1 episode

 

John Derek, Richard Jaeckel, and Chill Wills in Frontier Circus (1961)

Frontier Circus

8.0

TV Series

Marie (as Dolores Wells)

1962

1 episode

 

Thriller (1960)

Thriller

8.2

TV Series

Flo

1962

1 episode

 

87th Precinct (1961)

87th Precinct

8.2

TV Series

The Clerk

1961

1 episode

 

Robert Cummings in The Bob Cummings Show (1961)

The Bob Cummings Show

7.2

TV Series

1961

1 episode

 

Makeup Department

Linda Lovelace for President (1975)

Linda Lovelace for President

4.2

makeup artist

1975