During the early and mid- 1950s, Vargas took on many commercial assignments, including a pin-up of Shelley Winters for the RKO film Behave Yourself, a deck of Vargas Girl playing cards called "Vargas Vanities", and a series of pin-ups for the pocket-sized British magazine Men Only. In 1957, Playboy magazine published a pictorial feature on Vargas' nudes, which drew the attention of publisher Hugh Hefner In August 1958, Vargas and Anna Mae travelled to Lima, Peru, for a highly successful exhibition of his paintings. They were greeted upon their return with a personal invitation from Hefner to have Vargas' work appear monthly in Playboy.
