The Bunny Years (56 page)

“In 1972, I was studying theatre at Los Angeles City College when I decided to join friends attending San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre. I packed up my little VW, drove to San Francisco and moved in with my brother. I needed a job working nights, and a girlfriend who was working in the Manhattan Playboy Club suggested that I get a job as a Bunny.

“It took a stretch of the imagination to believe that someone my brothers had called ‘a surfboard' would fit the Playboy image. I was tall and so skinny that in high school, I used to eat something called ‘Weight-On' to build myself up. I was shocked when the general manager of the San Francisco Playboy Club called to tell me I was hired.

Bonnie Katz is completing her B.A. degree. She plans to earn a master's in psychology and practice marriage, family and child counseling. She recently produced the play, Daughters, at the Hudson Theatre in Hollywood.

“I was born in Brooklyn, the youngest child in a traditional Jewish family; college, marriage and raising a family were the Things to Do. Becoming a Playboy Bunny was not. Although I knew the men in my family would not approve, I was surprised by my mother's rage. When I called to tell her about the job she was so upset she called me a slut. We didn't talk for weeks. My father and older brother eventually learned where I was working, but they never discussed it with me. Even my sister, who is 10 years older than me, disapproved.

“After two years in San Francisco, I transferred to the new Los Angeles Club in Century City, where I worked as a Bumper Pool Bunny. I got all the shots down from playing every night and, after a while, I could beat any man at pool. On Sunday nights, Bunnies were invited to the Playboy Mansion for dinner and a movie with Hef. I loved throwing on blue jeans and driving up to the gates of the Mansion in my red VW. My name would be on a list, along with those of celebrities and other Bunnies, and I felt like
part of the family. The buffet was always wonderful, and it was great fun having butlers serving you chocolate-chip cookies. I made so many close friends among the Bunnies.

“It was also at this time that my life took a spiritual turn toward my Jewish heritage. I became kosher and began studying Hebrew. One of the Club's chefs, a German named Hans, made me special dishes.

“I was saving money to go to Israel and Greece with my sister when one of my Bunny friends introduced me to a man at a Beverly Hills disco, the Candy Store. I had noticed this man on several occasions, but we hadn't met. The night my friend brought him to our table to meet me, I discovered he was an Israeli. He offered to teach me Hebrew. We dated for about two months and I fell in love. Shortly before I was to leave for Israel, I told him jokingly that we should get married. On an impulse, he called an airline and booked tickets to Las Vegas. It was a very nontraditional ceremony! I called the Playboy Club to tell the Bunny Mother I was getting married and wouldn't be coming in to work that night. Afterward, we told our mothers and they set about planning a second wedding, a traditional Jewish one. For 20 years, we've celebrated the two anniversaries.

“Certainly one thing Playboy taught me was not to judge people quickly. There was such a myth about girls who worked as Bunnies I would never tell a man I was dating that I worked at the Club. I didn't like the preconceived ideas people had. In social situations even after I was married, people who discovered that I worked at Playboy began to treat me differently. Conversations would stop because everyone was curious to know what it was like to work as a Bunny. Women felt threatened. Men thought you were easy. In either case, I felt there was a stigma.

“When my older daughter was about 14 and learned that I had been a Bunny, she was appalled. ‘Mom, I can't believe you did that!' she said, with visions of Playboy magazine in her head and no knowledge of what the experience of being a Bunny was actually like. I explained that while I was a Bunny in the 1970s, I also identified myself as a feminist and supported the causes of the Women's Movement. My sense of integrity and moral values certainly didn't go down the drain when I put on a sexy little costume to work as a Bunny. Now that my daughter is 21 and a film major at NYU, she has a different perspective and put her earlier remarks down to youthful prejudice.

“One day I worked in the VIP Room at a private party for Hadassah, a Jewish women's organization. That was a unique situation for me because those women got such a kick out of having a Jewish Bunny serving them—and none of them gave me a hard time. They just couldn't get over the fact that there were Jewish Bunnies.”

 

U P, UP AND AWAY
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Hef with the Jet Bunnies, 1970.

T
he original Jet Bunnies selected from various Playboy Clubs to be flight attendants aboard the “Big Bunny” were trained in Los Angeles by Continental Airlines hostess supervisor Darlene Fuentes (who also trained stewards for Air Force One, the Presidential jet), with a postgraduate course from Purdue Airlines (the certified carrier operating the DC9-30) in Lafayette, Indiana. Tonia Shipley, from the Kansas City Club, headed the Chicago crew, and Avis Miller, from the Phoenix Club and a 1970 Playmate, headed the Los Angeles-based crew. Among the other original crew members were Britt Elders, Kathy Jovanovic, Shawn Ferguson, Rosemary Melendez and Marsha Morris.

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F
ormer Atlanta Bunny Britt Elders, who moved to Chicago when she was selected to be one of the original Jet Bunnies, says, “I will always think of Hef on board the DC-9 with a Pepsi in one hand and Monopoly dice in the other hand.

“On one of our trips to Europe, Hef wanted apple pie, and I had to carefully explain to the European catering staff how to make an American-style apple pie. While his guests dined on chateaubriand and lobster with fine wines, Hef preferred simpler fare. He liked my meat loaf and fried chicken, with canned Green Giant-brand baby peas, so much that he asked me to send my recipes to the chef at the Playboy Mansion.

“Hef was always extraordinarily thoughtful toward the flight crew. After we flew Hef and his guests to a skiing holiday in Colorado, the Jet Bunnies stayed behind to finish chores aboard the aircraft, while several limousines ferried his party to the slopes. It came as a complete surprise to us when, a half-hour later, another limousine pulled up to the Big Bunny and we discovered Hef had arranged for us to ski in Aspen.”

Britt Elders now owns J & B Acres, Hunters & Jumpers, an equestrian school in suburban Chicago

Equestrian trainer and dog breeder Britt Elders at J & B Acres with two of her Doberman pinschers.