Charlie O'Neale

Solero's Stunning Ice Cream Lady

	I had to lie there for five hours on about a million strawberries...I came home with pink hair and my body dyed red. It took ages to scrub it all off

To fans of the Maxim Photo Jokebook, 21-year-old Charlie O'Neale needs no introduction. Having spent many happy hours working with Charlie at close hand, we knew the Hertfordshire lass had much more to offer than the ample filling of a comedy nurse's outfit.

Which was why we weren't surprised when the creative brains behind the new Solero Ice campaign decided what would really shift lorryloads of lollies was to produce a massive poster campaign featuring Ms O'Neale enjoying a satisfying mouthful while reclining naked on a bed of strawberries.

To appease the Mary Whitehouse fanclub, and keep the posters within Advertising Standards, additional strawberries were tastefully applied - American Beauty style - to all Charlie's important nooks and crannies. Eye-catching? Undoubtedly. Enjoyable? It appears not.

'I had to lie there for five hours on about a million strawberries,' Charlie remembers painfully. 'Five bloody hours! I came home with pink hair and my body dyed red. It took ages to scrub it all off.' Just think about that for a moment. We are.

But it's not all pain and spoiled fruit in the modelling game. The odd glamorous assignment has been known to come the young lady's way. 'I did a shoot with the main man from The Sopranos recently.

I was supposed to be his sexy gangster's moll, only I think he took the idea a bit far. He's a hero of mine, but I had to blow him out - he's got a wife and kids back home.'

It's not just Mafiosi who go off the rails in Charlie's presence. Not so long ago the blonde glamour puss found herself rubbing shoulders with goateed Virgin tycoon Richard Branson at some media launch or other when the hairy-faced one came over all peculiar.

'He started making these really odd throat-clearing noises,' Charlie remembers. 'Like 'Mmffgh, mmffgh' all the time. Someone told me he has a problem with wind, so he might have been trying to keep something in that needed to get out.' Could be. But we're not beyond speculating that it wasn't simply a belch.