The Bunny Years (53 page)

Hugh Hefner, a
Saturday Night Live
host in 1977, with “Bunnies” Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman.

A
mong the many actors and celebrities who have dressed up as Playboy Bunnies over the years: Steve Allen, Kirstie Alley, Chastity Bono, Johnny Carson, Carol Channing, Cher, Jane Curtin, Bill Dana, Phyllis Diller, Farrah Fawcett, Sally Field, Carrie Fisher, Bob Hope, Penny Marshall, Tatum O'Neal, Laraine Newman, Dolly Parton, Gilda Radner, the Smothers Brothers, Nancy Walker and Flip Wilson. In 1963, Barbara Walters donned the Bunny costume and worked in the New York Playboy Club to report on her experiences. Appearing in Bunny ears on the Today show, she commented to Hugh Downs, “secretly I was kind of pleased.”

Bunny Sheralee Conners gives Bunny Steve (Allen) instructions in the Bunny Dip, 1961.

Bing Crosby and “Bunny Geraldine” (Flip Wilson).

“Bunny” Nancy Walker with Durward Kirby and Carry Moore on the
Carry Moore Show,
1963.

“Bunny” Johnny (Carson) celebrating his first anniversary as host of the
Tonight Show,
1963.

Sonny and Cher and their daughter Chastity Bono, 1965.

Kirstie Alley as “Bunny Marie” (Gloria Steinem) in
A Bunny's Tale
(ABC-TV, 1984).

Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs on the
Today
show, 1963.

Hugh Hefner with Betty White and “Bunnies” Carrie Fisher and Penny Marshall on
Laverne & Shirley,
1982.

Academy Award-winning actress Sally Field posed in the Bunny costume for the March 1986 cover of
Playboy,
which celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Playboy Bunny.

BUNNIES ON THE SUNSET STRIP

Joyce Nizzari conducting Bunny auditions for the Los Angeles Club, November 1964.

T
he Los Angeles Playboy Club—the 11th in the nationwide chain that claimed more than 300,000 Keyholders—opened New Year's Eve 1964, in the heart of the Sunset Strip. At the celebrity-packed, black-tie charity benefit, guests Tony Bennett and Count Basie joined the bandstand in the Penthouse just for fun, while Jack Jones and Sammy Cahn were introduced to the audience in the Playroom. Just before midnight, as party favors were handed out to the guests, the Bunnies were asked to leave the floor as a safety precaution—and returned to work moments after the boisterous revelry that brought in the New Year. Within a month, more than 40,000 Keyholders and their guests visited the new Club.

P
ATTI
M
URPHY