The Bunny Years (47 page)

Gloria, a dedicated bodybuilder, has co-starred in 14 motion pictures, appearing opposite Roger Moore in the 1973 James Bond film Live and Let Die.

“I left when the realization finally hit me that I couldn't be a Bunny for the rest of my life. I wasn't going to be young forever, and I couldn't waste time. I began studying acting in earnest in the late ‘60s. Before long, I was doing print work and filming television commercials.”

D
EEDEE
B
RADLEY

P
eople forget that young women working in trendy New York restaurants and cocktail lounges in the mid-'60s usually wore some funny, skimpy outfit with high-heeled shoes. My first job was at the Flick Ice Cream Parlor, where I had to wear a silly shorts outfit. At the Rolling Stone I wore a leotard and black tights. At the Gaslight Clubs, the girls were wearing Gay '90s-style satin corsets.

“I left Baltimore at 18 to study acting in New York, but once I got there, I was so intimidated I just couldn't handle it. I studied with Bill Hickey at the Herbert Berghoff School for a while, but I remember becoming terrified my first day in class hearing everybody talk about auditions. I didn't even have an agent. It wasn't until several years later, after I had moved to Los Angeles, that I really pursued an acting career.

“In New York, becoming an actress took a back burner; the social life at Playboy soon took precedence over any ambition I had. I went out every single night, and that became my life. I would get off work at 2 or 2:30 in the morning, stay out until maybe 7 or 8, then sleep until about 3 and go back to work in the late afternoon. I had a great time, lots of friends, pretty clothes and plenty of places to go.

“There were a lot of women working at the Club who were going to school. Playboy liked the idea that women who worked as Bunnies were interested in pursuing other careers. Girls were always given flexible schedules and time off to pursue careers; that policy enabled the Club to hire more interesting, intelligent women. It was fascinating to see schoolgirls come into the dressing room, just as plain as could be—no makeup, straight hair—and turn themselves into Bunnies.

Hollywood casting director Deedee Bradley in her Warner Bros. office.

“I worked at the Club nearly four years, and I think I saw the last of the best of it. By the time I left in 1970, there was no longer a crush at the door. The psychedelic phenomenon was sweeping the country by then; there were discos and topless bars. Bunnies were no longer special.

“The Playboy Club was not for everybody, and it was clear that some people just didn't approve of it. I think the point of view expressed by the women's movement is healthy and necessary—and so is Play-boy's—in our society. Eventually a middle ground is found. I think you can be a feminist, and also be sensual, sexy and your own woman. We need both Gloria Steinem and Hugh Hefner in our lives.

“I left Playboy to get married and move to Florida. I applied for a receptionist's job with a Miami pediatrician and gave the Playboy Club, my last employer, as a reference. The doctor looked over my application and started laughing. ‘I've got to hire you!' she said. The following year, she delivered my son.”

D
ENISE
S
CHWEIGHARDT
M
CADAMS

I
was in nursing school, living in New Jersey in a dorm with a strict curfew, almost the entire time I worked as a Bunny. My schedule was insane.

“I would leave the New Jersey College of Nursing and Dentistry at 3 o'clock on Friday afternoon, run home, slap on makeup, whip on the hairpieces, false fingernails and eyelashes, then drive into the city to get there by 4:45 p.m. so I could work as a Bunny until 4 a.m. I'd stay in town to work the late shift Saturday and an early private party in the Party Room Sunday—and be back at school again by the 10 p.m. curfew.

“Once I was back in the dorm, I'd strip off everything that didn't belong to the ‘Bunny' me and go back to being a student. I'd part my waist-length hair in the middle and slick it back in a bun for emergency-room duty. But I had a lot of trouble getting up on Monday morning after a weekend working at the Club.

“At first, the other nursing students didn't know where I worked. I wanted to avoid the notoriety. And let's face it, I wanted to be asked out on dates because maybe someone found me bright, funny or charming—not because I was a status symbol, a Playboy Bunny. But one Sunday night, the Big Sister assigned to me at school called my parents to find out where I was. My father accidentally let it slip that I was a Bunny. The news spread like wildfire. One instructor gave me a hard time, but my grades were excellent. My mother even wrote a letter to the school to back me up.

Student nurse Denise Schweighardt.

“I completed the three year program and became an R.N. in 1969. Then, while continuing to work as a Bunny, I went for the two-year baccalaureate degree through a private program at Farleigh Dickinson University. Later, I got my master's degree in psychiatric nursing.

“I was caught in an incredible period of change during the eight years I worked as a Bunny. The antiwar, flower child/hippie movement was followed by the feminist
movement. It was a time of activists working to stop the war, while others wanted to just drop acid and drop out. Drugs and dropping out didn't appeal to me because I had gotten a taste of what money and independence could do for me. The Bunny job was the best thing that could have happened to me at the time. I could make my own decisions because I was earning enough to pay for everything. Even those girls working the Playmate Bar and Living Room, not the Showrooms, were making a hundred to a hundred-and-fifty dollars in cash a night. It was an awful lot of money in those days. I knew that as a woman, I could never make that kind of money any other place. In a nutshell, that was the lure of being a Bunny. Where else could I make that much money an hour—unless I was a psychiatrist?