Background
Gretchen (Grondahl) Edgren was born on March 17, 1931, in Portland, Oregon, United States to Jack W. and Alice Belle (Wells) Grondahl.
She graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Oregon.
Gretchen (Grondahl) Edgren was born on March 17, 1931, in Portland, Oregon, United States to Jack W. and Alice Belle (Wells) Grondahl.
Gretchen was a member of the Pendleton High School class of 1948. She then graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Oregon.
Gretchen worked on newspapers The Oregonian in Portland and the San Juan Star in Puerto Rico. She moved to Florida in 1992 from Oak Park, Illinois. Gretchen Edgren served as an editor for a number of years for Hugh Hefner and Playboy Magazine. Playboy established a niche in the men's magazine market as being a source of sophisticated articles and nude images of beautiful women for a largely masculine audience.
Edgren's books about Playboy and the Hefner empire give the reader a glimpse into the world of the magazine and its evolution. The Playboy Book: Forty Years - The Complete Pictorial History encapsulates four decades in the magazine's life, including the gradual appearance of African American women and smaller breasts within its pages during the 1970s. Edgren also compiled the book Inside the Playboy Mansion: If You Don't Swing, Don't Ring, a collection of one thousand photos from the magazine as well as text, newspaper clippings, and parts of interviews. The book is the third in Edgren's series about Playboy. She died on September 16, 2015 in Holmes Beach, Florida, United States.
Gretchen and her husband, Alvin Edgren, served for a dozen years as coordinators of the Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch program. She was also fond of singing and traveling.
Gretchen married to James McNeese on October 22, 1955 with whom she had two children. They divorced on November 1974. She married second time to Alvin H. Edgren on December 14, 1984.