The Bunny Years (44 page)

D
uring the Vietam War, the Club sponsored special evenings in the Penthouse for disabled soldiers. It was heartbreaking to see the horrifying injuries these young men had suffered. At first, I didn't know what to say to them. One young man smiled shyly at me when I brought food and drink to his table—and I then realized he was paralyzed. As I fed him and held his drink so he could sip it through a straw, we began talking, both of us enjoying the conversation and feeling at ease. That experience, and many other encounters like it, taught me so much about dealing with people.

“Playboy really was the best of times for me. I was 19, married and already had a 2-year-old child when Bunny Mother Lynn Smith hired me in 1966. I grew up in Queens, in an extended, loving family. I'm American born, but my parents and grandparents had come from Calcutta and West Bengal, India. When I told them I would be working at Playboy they were absolutely shocked. They tried to persuade me to find another job, but I loved being a Bunny. For the first time I had some sense of independence.

“I went to school throughout my eight years working at Playboy, earning an associate degree in early childhood education and a four-year degree in humanities. After I left in 1974, I taught inner-city children in pre-kindergarten classes. Many didn't have the stable home life that I grew up with and had provided for my own children. Some of these kids didn't even know how to eat with a spoon or fork. It was incredible to me that I had to teach basic skills that most kids learn in a family environment.

“I now have a master's degree in elementary education, and I'm working toward a master's in school psychology while teaching fifth-graders. Teaching children is my vocation in life; listening to them, giving a hug and letting them know somebody cares are the most important lessons I've learned.”

I
came from the sticks and wasn't at all sophisticated. I was born in Florida, but grew up in New Jersey. The Bunny job had an aura of glamour. I thought I'd give it a try, figuring that it might be interesting and fun, certainly lucrative.

“Before Playboy, I'd worked as a waitress at Max's Kansas City, a major ‘60s hangout. The backroom became famous as the hangout for Andy Warhol's crowd. After Max's, I joined a band for about a year and a half and recorded an album. After a second album we recorded didn't go anywhere, the band broke up.

“I sampled a lot of things trying to find out what to do next. Becoming a Bunny in 1968 was part of that period. I was quiet. I did my job and I kept my eyes wide open to everything. Bunny training was more complicated than I expected. I wondered how I'd remember everything and if I could carry all that stuff on a tray without spilling anything. The usual doubts. Then, once I got going, it all became routine. I was very much in my own little world during that time, and I wasn't very sociable. But sometimes I'd hang out with a few of the girls after work and go up to this pizza place on Third Avenue.

Hatcheck Bunny Deborah Harry.

“Playboy was smart in constructing its operation. There were strict codes of behavior for both employees and customers. Bunnies had to maintain a certain decorum in relating to customers; if you overstepped the parameters, you were out of the game. The rules worked both ways. If a customer got out of line, he lost his Club membership. You knew that management backed you up and that
you were protected. As someone who had worked as a waitress before, that was a shocking revelation!

“The Club was popular and especially busy on weekends. The girls who had worked there for a while had the prime spots, the Showrooms, where the money was really good. Initially, I worked downstairs in the Playmate Bar. I also worked in the Hatcheck and as a Door Bunny. By the time I'd been at the Club long enough to be scheduled in the Showrooms on the weekends and make the big money, I was ready to move on. The experience had been worthwhile. But the time demands were excessive for a job that wasn't leading anywhere. Besides, I broke up with a boyfriend and decided to leave New York. I tended to move in radical leaps at that time. I quit, packed up and left for California. It wasn't a decision I spent time considering, but I remember that period of my life as fun and intriguing.

The lead singer/songwriter for the band Blondie has been touring for the past three years with the Jazz Passengers, and pursuing her acting career. She starred with Liv Tyler in Heavy, a film written and directed by James Mangold, in 1995, and Six Ways to Sunday in 1997.

“There's no one now that I really stay in touch with among the Bunnies. I know Lauren Hutton from just being on the scene in New York. When I was a guest on her television show Lauren Hutton and . . . , we talked briefly about both being Bunnies. But I told her my wildest experience was a pre-Bunny one at Max's when I had sex in the phone booth with rocker Eric Erickson while I was supposed to be waiting tables.

“Being a Bunny involved a rare combination for a woman in the workplace. It was an unusual perception of women that they could be beautiful, feminine and very sexy, and at the same time ambitious and intelligent. At Playboy those women had a place where they could use those attributes to make money—and also be really valued as employees. Bunnies were the Playboy Club.”