The Bunny Years (55 page)

Maria Roach and Astronaut Scott Carpenter on their wedding day, 1970.

“I imagine feminists may find this convoluted, but being a Bunny empowered me. I tapped into a new awareness of myself. I felt a certain amount of power as a woman that I was never in touch with before. Say what you will, I've always thought Hugh Hefner was a feminist, and way ahead of his time. He genuinely cared about women and gave them career opportunities within the Playboy corporation. Sexual harassment was an issue for him long before feminists or the media were focusing on it. No one could touch the Bunnies; if a guy hit on you, all you had to say was, ‘I'm very sorry, we are not allowed to socialize with customers.' The management always backed you up, and as a result we all developed ‘attitudes.' If a customer was in the least snippy toward me, I'd think, ‘Why are you doing this? I have your evening in my hands.' Another result of those years is that I am a serious over-tipper.

“I left Playboy in 1970 when I graduated from UCLA. I was offered an opportunity to go into a management training program with Playboy in Chicago, but opted to take a job as a film production assistant. I then met Scott Carpenter, the astronaut, when he was the host and narrator of a TV pilot I was working on. My father, who had great expectations for me, once said, ‘I hope you are not going to ruin your life by marrying and having kids.' But once I married Scott and made a commitment to my family, I temporarily gave up my career aspirations until our two children were in school. With both children now in college, I feel a sense of renewal and vibrancy about forging a new career.

Maria Roach at home in Los Angeles.

“I still sometimes have dreams that I'm working at the Sunset Boulevard Playboy Club—I can't find my tray and my feet hurt—and it's kind of fun to look back on it now. Of all the things I've done in my life, I don't think anything would have turned out as it has without my experience working as a Bunny. It's an experience I treasure.”

J
ULIE
C
OBB

A
t the time I got the job, I was unsophisticated, insecure and very modest. When I left the Los Angeles Playboy Club less than a year later, being a Bunny seemed to me like a character role I had played in a five-month run. It was a performance and I wore a great costume. And getting that gig did a lot for my self-esteem.

“My parents, actors Lee J. Cobb, and Helen Beverly, divorced. I grew up with my glamorous mother as my role model. I don't think I really had any idea how I looked. I just didn't know myself then.

“Getting the job was good for my ego for five minutes. That little question that I had about myself being an attractive, feminine, sexually alluring woman was satisfied.

Actress and stage director Julie Cobb.

“However, I worried there would be some stigma attached because, finally, it's a cocktail waitress job. But everybody sort of took it in stride. I remember telling my father, and his concerns seemed to be about me working nights and coming home late. I was living with my boyfriend at the time, and he was supportive, too. Actually, he was more than fine about it because he could say his girlfriend was a Playboy Bunny, and they gave us a copy of the magazine to take home every month.

“The fact is, so many cocktail waitresses back then wore something skimpy, even skimpier than the Bunny costume, but this was the Playboy Club as associated with Playboy magazine. That notoriety made all the difference.

“I went through all the training, but I really only served drinks two or three times. I couldn't take it. I had never been around people who drank, and I had no experience as a waitress. I found it very hard work and became so flustered that I spilled things. The
Bunny Mother assigned me to the gift shop, and I also worked as a Door Bunny. I didn't make as much money, but I was able to handle it.

“I was on the TV show Playboy After Dark a couple of times as part of the background. I did a Playboy photo session, but not nude. I was approached about doing test shots to be a Playmate, but I could not do it. I never even considered whether it would damage or enhance my acting career. I just couldn't get past the personal hurdle of posing nude.

“I was also asked if I wanted to be a stewardess on Hefner's airplane. I didn't want to do that either. The truth is, I wasn't really mature enough to hold down a job for any length of time. The Bunny Mother was sweet, but very firm with me when I would miss work or phone in sick. I quit when I started getting television work as an actress.

“In retrospect, I realize working as a Playboy Bunny represented an important transition for me. I'd quit college, gained weight and had little self-esteem. Working as a Bunny forced me to confront personal issues, physically and emotionally. I kept my costume when I left, but I don't know where it is today. I wish I did. Mine was green satin. It would be fun to look at it again and show my teenage daughter. I wonder what she'd think.

“Today, the Playboy Club is a complete anachronism. Men and women wear white shirts, pants and long aprons to serve drinks and food. Everyone is so very conscious of what is acceptable that I can't even imagine a world in which my daughter would be a Bunny. But looking back, the innocent playfulness and flirtation of being a Bunny conjures up a time for me when there wasn't so much political strife between the sexes. There was glamour and a touch of naughtiness, and it was fun to be on the receiving end of admiring glances.”

Julie is the wife of James Cromwell, a 1996 best-supporting actor Oscar nominee for his role as Farmer Hoggett in Babe. Julie won a 1994 Dramalogue Award in Los Angeles for her direction of Twelve Angry Men, the stage version of the 1957 film that starred her father, Lee J. Cobb. She also contributes a column, “The Path,” for Country Connections magazine

B
ONNIE
M
AZRIA
K
ATZ

Y
ears after I left Playboy, I joined a UCLA extension class called Women's Voices and wrote ‘I Was a Kosher Bunny,' a one-woman piece in which I did the Bunny Dip while serving Snapple to my kids. In 1994, I performed the piece on a cable television program. I chose to write about being a Bunny because it's part of my life's story as a woman—and it was a wonderful experience.