The Bunny Years

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An illuminating look at a controversial icon,
the Playboy Bunny

The Bunny Years

“We were young women on the move, out there pushing a new frontier. We were like sisters learning together how to take charge of our own lives.”

—Lauren Hutton, supermodel and actress

“When I look back at it, I'm glad I had the experience. . . . So much of life goes by with a sameness, but the experience of being a Bunny has a sharp, electric blue kind of color. The same color as my costume.”

—Susan Sullivan, actress

“Being a Bunny involved a rare combination for a woman in the workplace—beauty, femininity, sexuality, and at the same time, ambition and intelligence. . . . Bunnies
were
the Playboy Club.”

—Deborah Harry, musician

“I didn't have a lot of options when I started out. Nobody did. . . . Working at the Club gave me the opportunity to do something I had always dreamed of doing, which would probably not have happened otherwise.”

—Barbara Bosson, actress

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Copyright © 1998 Kathryn Leigh Scott

The Rabbit Head Design is a mark of Playboy Enterprises
International, Inc. All rights reserved, including the right of
reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Photos are from the Archives of Playboy Enterprises, Inc. Copyright © 1964,
1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1979, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1998 by Playboy.
Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Originally published by Pomegranate Press, Ltd. book

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portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address
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First Gallery Books trade paperback edition October 2011

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Designer:
Cheryl Carrington
Photography Editor:
Ben Martin
Editors:
Smae Spaulding Davis, Rodger Claire

Manufactured in the United States of America

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-4516-6327-3
ISBN 978-1-4516-6328-0 (ebook)

For Mother

____________________________

and Geoff, with all my love.

T
hanks to a stimulating and rather nostalgic dinner conversation one evening with two close friends and former Bunnies, Susan Sullivan and B.J. Ward, and their mates, Connell Cowan and Gordon Hunt, and my husband, Geoff Miller, the notion of writing
The Bunny Years
was born. I thank them all for the inspiration, and even more for their steadfast encouragement during the four years it has taken to produce this book.

I also want to extend my gratitude to Hugh M. Hefner, who generously and graciously provided me with access to his personal library, and to the many people at Playboy Enterprises who helped me with the research and preparation of this book. I'm especially grateful to all of them for never once attempting to influence me in the telling of this story. My special thanks to Richard Rosenzweig and Jonathan Black for their wonderful support and assistance throughout this project, and to Steve Randall, Tom Staebler, Gary Cole, Gretchen Edgren, Tim Hawkins, Elizabeth Georgiou, Marcia Terrones, Barbara Hoffman, Cindy Rakowitz, Elizabeth Norris, Bill Farley and Diane Stefani, without whom I could not have completed this book. My warm appreciation to LeRoy Neiman for his beautiful illustrations, and to William Hamilton for providing me with my favorite Bunny cartoon.

I thank my mother, Hilda Kringstad, for, among many things, saving all the letters I wrote home, and for continuing to be such a loving and inspiring influence on my life. I also thank Kari Kringstad and my brothers Orlyn and David for their love and support. My gratitude to Duane Poole for always being there for me. My heart felt
appreciation to my publishing partner, Ben Martin, for photographing the former Bunnies profiled in this book, and for his adept production assistance throughout this project.

Among the many other people I want to acknowledge for their support and assistance are my publishing pals that I can always turn to for advice in times of need: Heather Cameron, Kimberly Cameron, Roy Carlisle, Patrice Connolly, Ginger Curwen, Laurie Fox, Jonathan Kirsch, Carol Judy Leslie and Lisa See. My thanks to the divine Smae Spaulding Davis (as always!), Rodger Claire and to designer Cheryl Carrington, who helped more than anyone to shape and pull this book together. Thanks also to Robert Sanders, Patrick DeBlasi, Jim Pierson, David Schwartz and Larry Worth for helping out in times of need. A special thank you to Sunnie Choi, Katie Hennig Bucklin and Shana Ting Lipton, three wonderful and talented young women who have assisted me over the years with research and office support.

Above all, my love and gratitude to the many former Bunnies who trusted me, confided in me and shared memories of their own Bunny years.

I
didn't meet Kathryn Leigh Scott when she worked as a Bunny in the New York Playboy Club in 1963. By then, we had Clubs in Chicago, New Orleans and Miami, and the array of young women who had donned the ears and cottontail numbered, in the roughest of estimates, at least 1,000. I pride myself on my ability to remember names and faces—female ones, at least—but even I could never hope to know all the Bunnies.

By the time Kathryn and I met in 1997, she was not just a former Bunny but also an accomplished actress and writer, and was well into her reserach for the labor of love that would become this book. I was hardly surprised to hear that a Bunny had gone on to do great things—you may already know that Lauren Hutton, Susan Sullivan and Deborah Harry (of the rock group Blondie) had been Bunnies. Kathryn had already interviewed more than 200 former Bunnies, including some of the original Chicago Bunnies, who had lived with me in the Mansion, and others who had worked as Jet Bunnies aboard my DC9-30, the Big Bunny. Among other former Bunnies, there were doctors, lawyers, teachers, entrepreneurs—and to a woman, they all saw their own Bunny years as crucial to their personal and professional development.

Was I surprised at the Bunnies' success? No. Was I proud of them? You bet.

I knew I had to give Kathryn access to my personal library of Playboyalia to continue her research, and I did. I don't do that for just anyone.

The result was
The Bunny Years
, Kathryn Leigh Scott's true, behind-the-scenes stories of life in the Club that embodied the
sexual revolution, and the women who led the way. Donning the iconic Bunny costume meant not only appearing beautiful and desired; it also meant being confident and daring. For many Bunnies, working at the Playboy Club was the first step to financial independence—in a job where a girl fresh out of high school could earn as much as her father, while attending college or even starting a business of her own. Bunnies learned to handle their money and handle men. A Bunny was always a lady and never a plaything. In the following pages, you'll meet famous actresses, rock stars, restaurateurs and scientists, and you'll get an inside look at how working as a Playboy Bunny prepared hundreds of young women to enter a dramatically challenging world.

I am happy to say that the Playboy Clubs are still going today. After 25 years in hibernation, the Bunnies are back in a Playboy Club at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas. The Playboy Club is once again the hottest ticket in town. We've expanded our operations to Cancún, Macao and London (and along the way celebrated the Bunny's fiftieth anniversary) and everywhere we go people are as crazy about the Bunnies now as they were when they first appeared in the original club in Chicago on February 29, 1960. And just as Bunnies were featured in
Playboy After Dark
, the late-night television series I hosted in the 1960s, the Bunnies are back in an NBC prime-time series,
The Playboy Club
.