Gloria Root

Infobox Playboy Playmate
name = Gloria Root
issue = December 1969
birthname =
birthplace = Chicago Illinois, United States
birthdate = birth date|1948|5|28|mf=y
deathdate = death date and age|2006|1|8|1948|5|28|mf=y
deathplace = San Francisco, California, United States
bust = 34"
waist = 23"
hips = 34"
height = height|ft=5|in=2
weight = convert|105|lb|kg st|abbr=on|lk=on
preceded = Claudia Jennings
succeeded = Jill Taylor
website =
pmoy-year =
pmoy-preceded =
pmoy-succeeded =
website =

Gloria Root (May 28, 1948 in Chicago — January 8, 2006 in San Francisco) was "Playboy" magazine's Playmate of the Month for the December 1969 issue. Her centerfold was photographed by Pompeo Posar.

Biography

Before her Playboy appearance she worked as a telephone company servicerepresentative in Chicago.

Education

Root started her higher education at the University of Illinois, but later transferred to Northwestern University, to major in political science. She graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with degrees in fine arts and architecture. She then took a Master's Degree in City Planning and Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley.

Drug offense

With the money from Playboy she decided to tour Europe.Root went to Afghanistan, traveled to Turkey, and then to
Greece. In January 1970, Root was detained in a Greek jail on a charge of marijuana smuggling. She was arrested with her boyfriend, Cory Parker, in a Volkswagen loaded with 17.5 kilos of hashish, then valued at $50,000. She was sentenced to eighteen months in jail. Parker received a term of five years.

Both appealed their sentences. While imprisoned in Corfu, Greece the Playmate was interviewed by journalist Georgie Anne Geyer. Root denied knowing about the hashish, which was beneath the car seat. She disclosed that her boyfriend knew it was there. She told Geyer that even if she had known about it, "I wouldn't have done anything about it. I'm not sorry we did it but I'm sorry we got caught."

Geyer talked with Root's parents who lived in Flossmoor, Illinois. They were worried that their daughter was sick. Root said she was all right but had run out of birth control pills shortly after her arrest, and feared she might become pregnant because she was upset. In jail she was occasionally allowed to walk outside in a small courtyard. She claimed to have funds on hand from her Playmate fee. Root believed her problems began when she worked with the telephone company. "I was bored to death. I couldn't stand it. Then one day I tried methadrine, and I just never went back to work again."

Career

In 1980, she opened her own planning firm, Planning Analysis and Development, in San Francisco. She headed the firm until 1998, when she relocated to New York. While in New York, Root headed the strategic planning services division of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. She returned to San Francisco in 2002 to a job as a project manager for Auberge Resorts. She later took a senior position with RBF Consulting.

From 1990 to 1998, Root was a board member of San Francisco Urban Planning + Research Association, a public-policy think-tank promoting good government and sustainable urban planning.

Private life

She was married to Richard Dodson in 1984; they were divorced at the time of her death. Her daughter, Francesca, was born in 1986.

Death

Gloria Root died of cancer in 2006.

References

* cite news
publisher=Los Angeles Times
title=Playmate Tells of Life in Greek Jail
date=1970-01-18
page=A7

* cite web
url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/01/22/MNROOTGLOR36.DTL
publisher=San Francisco Chronicle
date=2006-01-22
title=Gloria M. Root
accessdate=2006-10-27
Gloria Root's Obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle

ee also

* List of people in Playboy 1960-1969

External links

*
* [http://www.spur.org San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association]