The Bunny Years (32 page)

“I was good at shorthand and typing, thanks to a high school class I took in order to earn money for college. I got a job as an executive secretary, which paid $75 a week.

This job included, before any such practices were questioned, personal shopping for the boss, after-hours work, charming clients at lunch and whatever other chores needed to be done. I hated feeling like I was owned, so I started taking temporary office jobs.

“Then in 1962, one of my roommates was working as a secretary for a lawyer representing the Playboy corporation. She told me about the Bunny jobs. To me, that executive secretary job was far less honest than being a Bunny—and I earned a hell of a lot less money. I figured I had to wear high heels and look good as an executive secretary, so what was the difference? I went to one of the early huge cattle calls, although I had never thought of myself as glamorous or particularly pretty. I probably wouldn't have gotten the job if the lawyer hadn't put in a good word for me.

“At the time, my roommates and I were all poverty-stricken. At the end of the week, literally starving, we'd go out for dinner with guys we would never have dated if we weren't so hungry. When I began work at the Playboy Club, I wasn't used to the amount of money that we were making in tips—in cash. We were living in this crummy place on Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village and when I came home from work, I would throw the tip money into a dresser drawer in my room. One day, one of my roommates came in to borrow something. She opened my drawer and gasped, ‘Oh, my God, where did this come from?' The drawer was full of cash, hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

“The whole time I worked at the Playboy Club, I felt like a fish out of water. There was a track for those girls who you knew were going to be asked to pose for the centerfold, and then there were the shleppers like me—you know, just hop into the Bunny suit and go wait on tables. I was a 32D, so I was well enough endowed without padding. But
a lot of girls weren't so they would stuff plastic cleaning bags into their costumes and then wonder, after a busy night running around waiting on tables, what had happened to their breasts. One girl said to me, ‘What's with this? My breasts are getting even smaller!'

“I never went to the parties or dated customers. But a couple of girls I worked with intimated there was more going on than I knew about. Early one morning, we were all called in for a Bunny meeting in the Penthouse. The Bunny Mother got up on stage and, in very dramatic tones, said, ‘Somebody—we won't name names—was caught last night soliciting.' Three-quarters of the Bunnies there didn't even know what the word meant. While girls all over the room were murmuring, ‘What's she talking about?' one of the tougher, older Bunnies bellowed, ‘Hooking!'

“A musician I was dating at the time kept saying, ‘Oh, I'd really like to see you in your Bunny outfit.' I was glad he wasn't a Keyholder, because I didn't particularly want him to see me in my costume. But one night he managed to get into the Club and surprised me as I was walking down the stairs from the Penthouse. He looked at me in my orange satin outfit with the ears and said, ‘You look awful.' I started to cry. When I told that story, everybody's reaction was, ‘How cruel of him.' But at the time, I understood how he felt and shared his assessment. I could never enjoy being a Bunny, and had a hard time smiling when men said things like ‘Hey, can I touch your tail?'

“However, I never apologized for working as a Bunny, either. For me, it was completely pragmatic, a means to an end. There were girls there, of course, who wanted nothing more than to marry someone rich, wear diamond rings and live a glamorous life, which is what they thought Playboy was all about. That was fine. That was what they wanted. As in every job I've ever had in my life, you are thrown together with people completely different from yourself, people you wouldn't think in a million years you'd have anything in common with, but you find you do and you like them.

“At first glance, you would think Tony, a room director who was the sweetest guy in the world, was a gangster. He would often drive me home, and he never, ever came on to me. He'd tell me, ‘Barbara, listen, you gotta be careful where you live. Dere's a lot of drugs down dere.' Then he'd make sure I got home safely.

“Finally, in 1964, when I'd earned enough money, I auditioned for the acting program at Carnegie Tech. By the time I enrolled, I was a 26-year-old freshman. After my junior year, I decided to transfer to the San Francisco Playboy Club to earn the money for my senior year at Carnegie. On my way to the Club, I happened to pass the theatre where The Committee, an improvisation company that did political satire, performed. There was a casting session going on. I walked in as the director was saying, ‘Have I seen everybody?' I said, ‘No.' I went up onstage, auditioned and got the job.

“The Committee was very prestigious and a difficult company to join. The
San Francisco Chronicle
asked for an interview, during which I mentioned that I had come
to San Francisco intending to work at the Playboy Club. The next day's article was all about [how] the new Committee member is a Bunny! In the entire piece, there was nothing about college or being an actress, just my job as a Bunny. As a result, of course, everyone in the company tormented me about it for a long time. But the Committee marked the beginning of my professional acting career and the end of my days both at Playboy and Carnegie Tech. I stayed with the company for three years, eventually moving with the show to the Tiffany Theatre in Los Angeles. Stephen Bochco, whom I'd known as a classmate at Carnegie, came to see the show and we started dating.

Barbara Bosson on the set of
Scattering Dad
, a television film she wrote and produced (CBS, 1998).

“Stephen and I married, raised a son and daughter, and worked together
[Hill Street Blues, Cop Rock, Murder One]
. Three or so years ago, I stopped being really fulfilled by acting and started to write. I wanted to create and deliver a whole piece of work, to participate in every aspect of production, rather than just wait to be hired as an actress.
Scattering Dad
, a CBS telefilm, which I wrote and produced in 1997 and which aired in 1998, was one of the most incredibly fulfilling experiences of my life—a lot like having my children.

“Looking back, maybe I don't credit Playboy enough. Being a Bunny got me where I needed to go to have a life that I have really loved. I didn't have a lot of options when I started out. Nobody did. But all the rules that applied in those days don't apply now.

“When the New York Playboy Club closed in 1985, CBS
Morning News
asked me to be a guest on the show with Gloria Steinem. Gloria's point of view was that this bastion of male chauvinism was closing and that it was indicative of the times—how much better things were for women now and all of that. I had about one-and-a-half minutes to speak, and I didn't want to say to her, ‘You're wrong,' but I wanted to make my point that the rewards were worth it. Working at the Club gave me the opportunity to do something I had always dreamed of doing, which would probably not have happened otherwise. Everybody has to make their own deal in life. Working as a Bunny enabled me to go to drama school and have the career I wanted so much.”

LINDA
“J
ILL
” D
URHAM

F
rom my first day as a Bunny, I thought someone had made a mistake hiring me. I never felt in the least attractive enough. My recurring fear was that Hugh Hefner would one day appear in the Club, see me across a crowded room and point a finger saying, ‘What is
she
doing in a Bunny suit?' Then he would tear my ears off and send me home.

“Eventually, I was chosen Bunny of the Week many times. I still felt insecure. No one ever said, ‘She's too ugly to be a Bunny,' but I could never shake the notion that I wasn't pretty enough to have been chosen in the first place.

“I was one of the original New York Bunnies. I was 19 years old and a theatre major at Ithaca College when I decided to get married and move to New York City with my husband. I had been a professional actress from the time I was 13 and had started working in musical theatre, but I couldn't hold out for an acting job. I needed to work. An employment agency found me a job dressing up in a pussycat suit and handing out flyers in front of Macy's department store. Someone stopped me on the street and asked if I'd like to be a Bunny. At first I thought it was a joke.

“But I was hired in November and began training almost immediately for the Club's opening. Playboy brought Kelly Collins from the Chicago Club to train us, and, boy, did we have a lot to learn. When Ed Sullivan ordered a Scotch and soda from me in the Penthouse on opening night, I served him tonic water instead of club soda. I didn't mistake the bottles. I just didn't know the difference. He was furious.

Training Bunny Marion Barker demonstrates the Bunny Dip to Bunny Jill prior to the New York Club's opening in 1962.

“I was relegated to the lunch shift, anyway, because I was too young to work nights. Among my regular customers in the Living Room was a businessman who would brief me in advance about the clients he would be bringing in. As a prank, he'd have me pretend I recognized one of them as an old acquaintance.