Julie Michelle McCullough (born January 30, 1965) is an American model, actress and stand-up comedienne. She was Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for February 1986, and played "Julie Costello" on Growing Pains until she was fired for having posed in Playboy.
McCullough, who is of Irish descent, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and named after a 1950s song called “Oh Julie”. In addition to Honolulu, she grew up in several states, though she considers herself Southern, having attended high school in Poplar Bluff, Missouri and Allen, Texas.
McCullough worked as a model in her teens before moving to California, where she became a Playboy Playmate. In addition to the February 1985 issue of the magazine, she has appeared in several of its newsstand special editions, including:
In 2004, McCullough voiced as herself in Playboy: The Mansion video game. In the game, McCullough was tutorial guide.
McCullough found work in a number of television and film projects, including Max Headroom, The Golden Girls, Superboy and the 1988 horror movie remake The Blob, before landing the role of nanny "Julie Costello" on Growing Pains in 1989.
McCullough appeared in eight episodes until she was fired in 1990, which stemmed from series star Kirk Cameron's conversion to evangelical Christianity, a conversion that, according to The E! True Hollywood Story episode focusing on the show, served to alienate him from his fellow cast members, as he did not invite any of them to his wedding. He called for McCullough's termination because of his objections to her having posed nude in Playboy, and accused the show's producers of promoting pornography. A decade later, Cameron apologized to his TV family, attributing his prior behavior to his lack of maturity , but did not reconcile with McCullough, who remains critical of him, stating that she lost a lot from the public criticism she endured from the controversy. Although McCullough herself is Catholic, she has criticized the evangelical television programming Cameron has produced, which she has viewed on one occasion, saying on her MySpace page:
McCullough in 2007
Having enjoyed doing comedy on stage her entire life, McCullough now works as a stand-up comedian, and has performed at the Hollywood Improv, the Palms Hotel and Casino, and the Laugh Factory.
McCullough has appeared on the E! reality show The Girls Next Door. She appeared in "Under the Covers", the ninth episode of the first season, which aired in October 2005, and "May the Horse Be With You", the second episode of the third season, which aired in March 2007.
McCullough married Canadian actor David Sutcliffe on November 10, 2001; they divorced in December 2003.
McCullough is a member of the social networking site MySpace, and according to Dave Itzkoff, writing in an article in the June 2006 Playboy magazine, "Playboy's unofficial ambassador to the MySpace nation."
McCullough has been a vegetarian and animal rights advocate for “twenty years”, according to her MySpace bio. McCullough is pro-choice on the issue of abortion, having discussed the matter on her MySpace blog.
She is close friends with Kendra Wilkinson of The Girls Next Door.
