Going contrary to the cogent advice of Horace Greeley, July Playmate Gay Collier -- a pleasingly proportioned (36-23-35) Californian with keen hazel eyes for a dancing career -- plans to go as far East as her talented footwork will take her. Twenty-two-year-old Gay was born in New Orleans, lived in Guam and Nagasaki while her father -- currently a North Hollywood attorney -- fulfilled his Service stint in the Judge Advocates Corps, then gravitated to the Golden State, where she has been diligently developing her ballet and modern jazz-dancing techniques for the past eight years. As she told us: "My first objective is to land a dancing role in a Broadway musical. After all the years I've put in on toe shoes, I figure it's time I started making the rounds of New York agents' offices and tried putting some of that practice to work. Eventually, I hope to go to Europe and try out for one of the finer ballet companies, like the Ballet Russe or the Royal Ballet, and I've already put my Playmate-photo prize money in a special oversees 'ballerina-or-bust' savings account." Our artful July miss spends her few dateless nights decorating her new Burbank bachelorette pad in a Spanish Baroque motif, reading Durrell's Alexandria Quartet and knitting ski sweaters (Anything's better than TV). Her favorite kind of evening includes Cantonese cuisine, a Peter Sellers movie, and "a guy who doesn't try to make an impression." We're impressed.

--- Photography by Mario Casilli

AMBITIONS
I want to dance in a Broadway musical.

TURN-ONS
Watermelon, summertime on the beach.

TURN-OFFS
Strangers asking personal questions to start a conversation.

FAVORITE PERFORMERS
Sammy Davis Jr. and Ella Fitzgerald.

IN MY FREE TIME
I knit ski sweaters!

HIGHER ED
I'm studying theater arts at UCLA.

GROWING UP
When I was a teenager, I lived in Guam and then Nagasaki, Japan.

LOVE, MATCH
Tennis is my favorite sport, although I don't play it well.

SOMEONE I ADMIRE
Elizabeth Taylor, because she's experienced so much in her life.

IMPRESS ME WITH
Sincerity and manners.

IN MY FUTURE
I'd love to visit Europe someday, and also to raise a family.