The Bunny Years (30 page)

E
LAINE
“T
E
DD
Y
” T
RE
B
EK
K
ARES

A
lice Nichols, the Bunny Mother, thought that I would be a good spokeswoman for Playboy, probably because I looked more like Twiggy than a voluptuous Bunny. So she sent me to see Hef, who asked me a lot of questions before deciding I was the image they wanted to present.

“When radio stations and newspapers wanted to interview Bunnies, the Club needed someone who wouldn't give them a surprise. I appeared on Johnny Carson's
The Tonight Show, What's My Line
and David Susskind's show
Open End,
among others. I was sent on a lot of promotions and made extra money from these personal appearances. I even went to Labrador with the U.S.O.

“I
was
a good spokeswoman for the Bunnies, and I gave answers that honestly reflected the women working at the Club. For the most part, we were a fairly decent group of wholesome girls, and the few tough, hard-core types were weeded out pretty quickly.

“I first heard about the Playboy job through my modeling agent. I wanted to pick up some extra money. In those days, there weren't many opportunities for a woman to earn the kind of money we did as Bunnies, upwards of a hundred dollars a day.

“But it was hard work. The costumes were so tight that we would go behind the bar and use a fruit knife to cut threads in a side seam. The busboys then helped us pull out the stays; otherwise, those stays pressed against the hipbone in a way that cut off circulation. Your legs would start to go numb.

“On the whole, most of the younger Bunnies were just babes who didn't really know what was going on. We were agog at the older Bunnies working the night shift who tucked the costume up like a G-string in back. On moral grounds, I don't think that management cared if the girls went out with clients or not, but they certainly cared from a business point of view. They did not want to jeopardize their liquor and cabaret licenses. Any time there was a whisper about a Bunny dating a customer, the woman was fired immediately. And, of course, that policy worked to the Bunnies' benefit.

“We had special customers who came in every day, and we got to know them well. Emmanuel—we called him Ed—was a sports handicapper. Frank was a big-game hunter from Africa who used to send me souvenirs. And, of course, Giles Copeland, a widower who was in perpetual mourning for his wife, a former Billy Rose showgirl. He loved being around the tall, willowy Bunnies.

“For the most part, we didn't really notice men in any personal way, which surprises people. You would refer to a particular man at one of your tables by whatever he was drinking; the ‘Chivas on the rocks' in the corner. I was nice to all my customers, despite the fact that we always said and heard the same things.

“We were major cock teasers, and that was our image as Playboy Bunnies. We never got too familiar, but we flirted. I remember that I once perched on a table—a major no-no in Bunny decorum—and Keith Hefner walked by. He was furious, and sent me upstairs to report to Alice Nichols that I'd been given a three-week suspension.

“You always heard the night-shift girls talk about the after-hours parties. Limos waited outside the Club after work to ferry certain Bunnies to Victor Lownes' penthouse in the St. Moritz Hotel. Finally, one night I went there. When I walked in, I saw group sex going on, an orgy. A Bunny I knew from the VIP Room called out, ‘Hi, Teddy, come on in.' I couldn't help noticing there was a guy going down on her. I was shocked, but I still tried to appear sophisticated and ignore people all over the room in twos and threes, some heading off to bedrooms.

After leaving Playboy, Elaine Trebek Kares moved to Canada, where she became a talk-show hostess. Back in the U.S. she founded Adsert, a niche advertising firm, in 1985, and Scent Seal, a fragrance-sampling company, which she sold in 1995 to her largest competitor, Arcade. “I just can't seem to get away from Playboy. My Scent Seal offices in Manhattan were on the 24th floor of the same building that housed Playboy: I would look out my window every day and see their balcony below me.” Elaine was married to game show host Alex Trebek for seven years, and is now married to film producer Peter Kares.

“Still feigning sophistication and not knowing how to leave gracefully, I walked to the bar and ordered a drink, striking up a conversation with a young guy who seemed to have chosen the bar for the same reasons I had. Neither of us wanted to be pegged as judgmental or moralistic, so we sat and pretended that these things were not happening all around us. It was like being in a Woody Allen movie. Today's young woman would probably say, ‘I'm outta' here!' and leave, but I was intimidated and couldn't come up with a good exit line. My solution was to sit there and get smashed.
My bar pal eventually did find the proper exit line: ‘I think I'd better get you out of here'—not surprisingly, since I'd just thrown up all over the wet bar. He found a cab, dropped me off at my apartment building and I never saw him again.

“Most of us were young and innocent, but in the club atmosphere, we savvied up pretty quickly. We knew how to draw the line on what to do and what not to do. There were only 125 of us, at most, working as Bunnies in the New York Club, and we were, at least in the early days of the Club, treated like celebrities all around Manhattan. For that brief time in our lives, we had a chance to savor the taste of being a ‘star.' I was treated like a movie queen when I was on promotional assignments. Even though I would wear a white pleated skirt and black sweater with the Bunny logo on it rather than the satin Bunny costume, people would stop me and ask for an autograph. Inside the Club, we paraded like starlets in our showgirl costumes—we were the show.

“I worked there two years, and then left to get married. Years later, after I moved to California and had founded my own company, I was invited to the Playboy Mansion on a Sunday night to see a movie. I remember walking in the garden with Hef and Victor Lownes. I liked Hef and Victor; both of them were intelligent and charming. I thought of Victor as a kind of bright, charismatic villain.

“As we walked into the mansion aviary, I said, ‘I don't belong here. It's 20 years later. You guys are still the same, the scene is still the same, and you're still with 23-year-old girls. When I was in my early 20s, you guys were in your 40s—and we had the best of you. Now you're in your 60s and the new girls are still in their 20s. I've outgrown this.'

“Victor stopped and looked at me. ‘Teddy, you're no fun anymore,' he said.”

S
ABRINA
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CHARF
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CHILLER