The Bunny Years (28 page)

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“I came from a small town in Pennsylvania,” Sandy Kolosinsky Capasso recalls, “and it was a big deal to even think of auditioning to be a Bunny. In those days if a girl wore a short skirt, she was ‘asking for it.' There was always that attitude. Women didn't wear bikinis to the beach; they wore two-piece bathing suits. Imagine what it was like writing home to your folks to tell them you'd gotten a job as a Bunny!”

In October the opening was postponed until Friday, November 23. The Club was nowhere near completion. Lee Hase, a tall, 20-year-old brunette, posed for a photographer, dressed in her satin Bunny costume and
ears and wielding a blowtorch at the construction site.

In early November, Hefner and Kasten still needed more Bunnies, and the auditions continued. The ads showing B.J. Halpin appeared again in the New York dailies:

Step into the spotlight . . . Be a Playboy Club Bunny. If you are pretty, between the ages of 18 and 23, married or single, and want a fun-filled, pleasant and always exciting job while you enjoy a new measure of financial independence, apply in person Wednesday through Saturday, between 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. . . . Please bring a swimsuit or leotards.

Keith Hefner had pneumonia, so Shelly Kasten handled the remaining auditions on his own in a growing atmosphere of anticipation.

“Playboy coming to town was a big deal by then, and I had reporters and network TV crews all over the place while I was seeing girls,” recalls Kasten. “I would go home hoarse from talking all day. Who would believe seeing hundreds of girls in bathing suits could be such hard work? I had one girl show up who must have weighed 300 pounds, stuffed into a bathing suit—and the cameras were on us, so I had to be really straight about it. ‘Why do you want to be a Bunny?' I asked seriously. She couldn't even fit in the chair.”

Shelly Kasten and Keith Hefner interview a prospective Bunny, 1962.

Finally, after six months of delays and rescheduling, the Playboy Club opened its doors at 5 E. 59th St. on Saturday, December 8, with a gala, black-tie benefit for the Parkinson's Disease Foundation. The entertainment, liquor and food for the event were donated by Playboy. But the Club's problems were far from over. At the last minute, both the liquor and cabaret licenses were pulled.

“The problem was that when Playboy came in to New York, they were told that certain people expected payoffs to make things happen,” Barbara Harrison explained. “Playboy tried to act in good faith—when in Rome do as the Romans do—but they acted on bad advice. They were eventually vindicated during the State Liquor Authority fraud trials the following year, but it was a bad way to open the Club. It didn't help that Victor was not particularly diplomatic, nor interested in what people thought of him. During a big press conference Playboy called to announce its difficulties in acquiring the cabaret license, we prayed Victor would simply read a statement and not make things any worse. Fortunately, he was on good behavior. Acquiring those permits was a tedious process that required some finesse. There were also several court appearances that involved Bunnies displaying the costume, which was specially altered for the occasion. Aside from problems with the liquor and cabaret licenses, there was also a newspaper strike that prevented any coverage at all. Everything seemed to go wrong.”

New York Club opening, December 8, 1962.

But, seemingly, nothing could stop people from coming. The Keyholder applications swelled, and customers lined up outside the Playboy doors well into the night. And all proceeded under the capricious authority of Victor Lownes III, Hef's consigliere, confidant and alter ego.

“It was so different back then; men and women related differently,” explained Harrison. “Victor Lownes was interested in any attractive woman who crossed his path, and women generally responded to him. He was funny, charming and attentive to the woman he was with—at least while he was with her. But his span of interest was very short. Lownes was the living image of the swinging bachelor playboy, the embodiment of the magazine, and lived that lifestyle. Stylish. Urbane. Lots of women. Living well, with no particular regrets. And no long-range romantic plans.”

Victor Lownes III reads a statement to the press concerning the procurement of a state liquor license.

After Playboy cleared out of the temporary space on 55th Street, Lownes opened offices on 53rd Street and later moved to quarters in the St. Moritz Hotel. There, he threw notorious parties, always packed with an eclectic mix of musicians, writers, artists, entertainers and, of course, lots of Bunnies. “I remember the manager of the St. Moritz calling Victor down to his office and telling him, ‘We can't have this. You people have to leave. There's too much going on!' “ recalled Harrison. “And I sat there trying to look demure, certainly not at all like a party animal, and promising the manager that there would be no more parties, no more noise, no more carrying on. And, of course, that wasn't the case. In the mornings when I came to work, I would find Polaroids of the previous night's activities displayed on the coffee table. The parties continued, and I found myself almost daily insisting to the manager that we would mend our ways and not cause any more trouble.”

It was not all harmless fun. Some of the young girls who had come from less sophisticated backgrounds could not handle the pressure or the temptations of the new lifestyle. “Hefner didn't come into New York all that often, but when he did, there were rounds of parties,” Harrison says. “I remember a party at his suite in the Waldorf Towers with the usual mix of
celebrities, old friends and Bunnies. The following morning, long after Hefner and his friends had departed, I got calls from both the manager of the Club and the hotel manager that there were two Bunnies left over from the party the night before. I went to the hotel and found that one of the girls was hysterical. Words came tumbling out of her. She had come to New York with dreams of becoming an actress and thought being a Playboy Bunny was the launching pad. It was the old idea that someone—a producer, a celebrity—would walk into the Club or the party and see her and say, ‘That face, I must have that face!' And she would be ‘discovered.' It hadn't happened that way for this young woman.

“There were other girls who got themselves involved in romances with guys who were way over their heads. The most serious incident of that sort involved a Bunny who had become infatuated with one of the C-1 Keyholders and took LSD in his company. While under the influence of the drug she stood in front of a mirror and could not see her image reflected. She began to scream that she had lost her identity, that she was going to kill herself by jumping off the terrace.

Keyholders line up for the New York Club, January 1963.

“There were strict rules about Bunnies not dating the customers, and for the most part, that policy was enforced, but it was always difficult with celebrities. One young girl got involved with a well-known comedian who was often at the Club, and that relationship ended badly. The girl expected
more would come her way because she was a Playboy Bunny.”

Gloria Steinem's article in May 1963 seemed to confirm the worst fears not only about Lownes but also about his friend Hefner's club. Ironically, it put Harrison in a very difficult situation, personally as well as professionally.

“I was then dating Paul Desmond, who played sax with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, and was a friend of Gloria's. He used to come to the Club sometimes in the evenings as I was about to leave and we'd have a drink together. I had been talking to him about writing a novel based on Playboy, which I ultimately did write some years later. But one night at the Club, a Bunny came up to our table and said, ‘I'm your Bunny Marie, may I serve you?' When she left the table, Paul said to me, ‘You know, if you want to write your book, you'd better do it in a hurry.' I didn't know what he was talking about until Gloria's article in
Show
appeared. Paul then admitted that Gloria had sworn her friends to secrecy and he didn't feel he could reveal to me what he knew.

“We were absolutely blindsided by that article. Gloria Steinem made a dramatic impact because of the way she looked and the manner in which she did the story. She was the first to focus on these issues of exploitation—and it was good that she did—but the article itself, I think, was unfair and demeaning to the women who worked at the Club. The great majority of the Bunnies were using the income they earned there to pay for schooling and prepare for a career. They had goals. I felt that her article ignored that aspect and was distorted and self-serving.

“At the time, I felt the best way to deal with the issue was to have various Bunnies do radio interviews and appear on television shows, such as David Susskind's
Open End
, to answer the comments inspired by her article.

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