The Bunny Years (25 page)

Ashtray with the Femlin motif designed by LeRoy Neiman.

“We'd all take little things home to furnish our apartments, like ashtrays and glasses decorated with the Femlin logo. Well, one girl had a complete set of flatware, dishes, tumblers, candles and ashtrays that she'd taken from the Club. One night she went out with one of the big shots and took him back to her place for the night. The next day, after sleeping with her, he had her fired for stealing all that stuff!

“I married and left Playboy in 1964 to have a baby. I returned to the Club when my son was 3 years old because I needed a good-paying job with flexible hours. Furthermore, the Playboy tuition program enabled me to enroll in a two-year liberal arts course

BUNNIES IN THE VIEUX CARRÉ

Joyce Nizzari opens the doors to the New Orleans Club.

O
n October 13, 1961, a crew of Chicago Training Bunnies opened the brand-new, baroquely ornate Playboy Club at 727 Rue Iberville, just off Bourbon Street in the heart of New Orleans' Vieux Carré. Again, the usual contingent of Bunnies, Playmates, Playboy executives and members of the press flew in from Chicago and Miami for the festivities.

The Chicago Bunnies were the first to notice a problem: “When I worked at the opening in New Orleans, there weren't any black Bunnies,” recalled Alice Nichols. “Blacks and whites weren't allowed to mix, and you were always made aware of that.”

The franchise agreement forced Hefner to cede operational control of the clubs to the new owners. Unfortunately, the Playboy head did not take into account the social realities of the South in 1961, where racial discrimination was still a fact of life. Hefner learned that not only was the Club not hiring black Bunnies, it also was not accepting black membership. It was wholly antithetical not only to the sophisticated, liberal philosophy behind the Clubs but also to Hefner's personal and professional beliefs. Hefner tried to convince the franchise holders to operate within the framework of Playboy's policy, which was completely nonracial.

Linda Wickstrom, Joan Garber, Ellen Stratton, Carol Roski and Bonnie Jo Halpin.

“But we couldn't get to first base,” Hefner recalled.

The new franchise Clubs turned out to be public-relations disasters when the media charged that both Miami and New Orleans were racially biased, prompting comedian and Hefner friend Dick Gregory to quip that “Negroes with Playboy Club Keys found that the locks had been changed.”

Joyce Nizzari and Nat King Cole.

Hefner's solution to the impasse was a costly one. Ultimately, he bought back the franchise in Miami and operated the club himself. The transaction, completed in early 1962,
put a whopping 150 percent profit on the original investment in the pockets of the franchise holders.

“A ridiculous move from the standpoint of good business?” Hefner said at the time. “Sure. But it was worth it. Now the Miami Club is open to every single one of our Keyholders, and I'm proud to say that we haven't had even a trace of a grumble from white members.”

Still, the racial barrier remained in effect at the magnificent 18th-century Franco-Spanish New Orleans Playboy Club in the heart of the French Quarter. There, Hefner was up against a state law that forbade drinking, dancing or any kind of socializing between blacks and whites. “I know this is patently unconstitutional, but we have to have a liquor license to operate,” Hefner explained. “We are doing everything we can to set the matter straight.” In the meantime, Playboy arranged to buy back the New Orleans franchise, too. Once again, the price was steep: The franchise owners wanted a profit of $250,000 on an investment of $175,000. Hefner would not make the same mistake in New York.

The Playboy Club in the Vieux Carré.

C
HINA
L
EE

S
ophisticated. Tough. Straight, no-nonsense. Dangerous. That's how most former Bunnies remember China Lee, the only Bunny who always got to wear a black costume. She was known to the rest of us as a barracuda: Club slang for a Bunny you didn't want to cross.

The very self-possessed Chinese-American beauty, who already had posed as a
Playboy
centerfold by the time the New York Club opened, struck many of the other Bunnies as the ultimate insider. She arrived in New York as a Training Bunny from Chicago and was dating Matt Metzger, the general manager of the New York Club. She had also dated Victor Lownes III, Playboy's promotions director and a close friend of Hugh Hefner. China had been hired in New Orleans in 1960 when she was only 17 years old.

“When one of my brothers showed me the newspaper ad for Playboy Bunnies, I told him maybe I should try for a job. He said they'd never hire me. I bet him they would. During my interview at Playboy I said, ‘Tell me, do I have this job or not? Because I don't want to waste my time.' They hired me.

“I was brought up in an old-fashioned, strict Chinese tradition. It took strength to bump up against my parents. My father was prominent in real estate, politics and the restaurant business [New Orleans' House of Lee], and when I got the job at Playboy, he telephoned every influential person he knew because he didn't want me working there. The gossip in New Orleans was that, as far as my parents were concerned, I was lost to them when I became a Bunny and that they held a funeral for me—which was completely untrue.

New Orleans Playboy Club, 1961.

“On opening night in New Orleans, I was a Door Bunny. The place was jammed, and during the evening a couple of the Bunnies working tables just fell out; they couldn't handle it. Matt Metzger pulled me off the door and told me I'd have to take over their stations in both
the Playmate Bar and the Living Room. I agreed—and then discovered I would be serving 60-some customers by myself! I demanded my own busboy and went to work.

“People stared at me, so I must have been quite a sight. Oriental girls are usually small and fragile-looking, but I was buxom and strong. I came out of the service area carrying a big tray loaded with drinks and food over my head. The busboy followed in my wake with more trays. Matt said, ‘I've never seen a Bunny work like you.' But with my family restaurant background, it was nothing new to me.