Bunnies of 1972

It should come as no surprise to James Bond fans that 007 is, among other things, a Playboy Club keyholder. In Bond's latest film escapade, Diamonds Are Forever, audiences got a glimpse of the secret agent's wallet, containing the familiar Rabbit-crested Playboy Key-Card. Bond's taste, always impeccable, is shared by some 800,000 men around the world. That's the current number of active Playboy Club keyholders; if you add those who, because of distant location or lack of opportunity, visit the Clubs and Club-Hotels less frequently, the number climbs to over 1,000,000. These men join Playboy for varied reasons--because they enjoy good food, generous drinks, fine entertainment and all the sports and recreational facilities afforded by first-class resorts. But Playboy's unique attraction, now as when the first hutch opened its doors in Chicago in 1960, is the Playboy Club Bunny.

This year, there are more Bunnies than ever: at last count, 1024. Some 200 of them have signed on since our most recent survey of the cottontail kingdom, Bunnies of 1971, in August 1971. That's because of the continued growth of the Playboy empire: the opening of a $30,000,000 resort complex--the Playboy Club-Hotel of Great Gorge, in McAfee, New Jersey; the debut of the lavish new Chicago Playboy Club in the Playboy Center at 919 North Michigan Avenue and expansion of our Lake Geneva Club-Hotel property. And there's more to come: A new Club is scheduled to open in the seashore town of Portsmouth, England, sometime between October and the new year, and a third English hutch is planned for Manchester--target date April 1973.

Among the cottontails at Playboy's 17 Clubs and four resort hotels, and aboard Hugh Hefner's DC-9 jet, with its crew of eight specially trained Jet Bunnies, are a number of girls who have also starred in Playboy's centerfold. Since our last Bunnies feature, six more (text continued on page 146) gatefold girls--Crystal Smith (September 1971), Danielle de Vabre (November 1971), Karen Christy (December 1971), Marilyn Cole (January 1972), P. J. Lansing (February 1972) and Deanna Baker (May 1972)--have joined the ranks of Playmate-Bunnies. Special promotional appearances for these girls--and for all other Playmates--are arranged, incidentally, by Jo Collins, Playboy's 1965 Playmate of the Year, who was recently named Playmate Promotions Manager.

Besides being singled out as Playmates, our cottontails have been scoring high in outside beauty pageants. If one could add up all their contest triumphs, they'd reach into the hundreds. Possibly the current champion is Great Gorge Bunny Elizabeth Wanderman, who boasts no fewer than 30 titles, including that of Miss New Jersey World 1971--1972. Coincidentally, Chicago Bunny Leah Anderson was in the same Miss U. S. A.-World competition, as Miss Illinois World 1971--1972. "I guess I've been in six or seven beauty contests," Leah says. "In the most recent one, in May of this year, I was first runner-up as--are you ready for this?--Miss Antique Airplane. I expected to start sprouting wings or something." Leah's pleased with her prize from the aeronautical event, however. "I won free flying instruction, and I'm working toward my pilot's license. Since I'm also going to be signing up for the next Jet Bunny training class, I think that will be a marvelous combination--learning about aircraft from both the flying and hostessing standpoints."

Being a Bunny, Leah feels, is "a glamor thing--hard work but a nice way to be noticed." The same, in her view, is true of beauty contests. "Let's face it, winning is an ego trip," she admits. "But few people realize how much goes into it--how much time you have to spend on your make-up, your hair, the way you stand."

Great Gorge Bunny Michele Voyer, this year's Miss Delaware in the Miss Universe contest, agrees. "Our contest finals were in Dorado Beach in Puerto Rico. We were there for two weeks and I think we only got outside once--and that was to pose for publicity pictures. All the rest of the time was spent in rehearsals, fittings, hair-styling sessions, and so on. It was an experience, but for now I think I've been in enough contests." Michele, who also reigned as Miss Pennsylvania Hemisphere in 1971, was a model, a health-spa instructor and an executive secretary before joining cottontail ranks last November. "Becoming a Bunny is the best thing I've ever done," she says. "It pays extremely well; the people are nice and the location here at Great Gorge gives me a chance to pursue my hobby--I'm a certified scuba diver--in the mountain lakes all over this area."

Other Bunnies have placed high in contests ranging from Miss United Kingdom through Mademoiselle Quebec. Out in Los Angeles, cottontail Sasha Geiger was pinned by the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members of Cal State at Long Beach as a Little Sister of Minerva--an honor previously won by such luminaries as Mae West, Carol Burnett and Phyllis Diller. (Sasha, in our book, is the prettiest of that lot.)

San Francisco Bunny Edith McGeough competed in the California segment of the Miss Black America contest; Boston Bunny Carol Kemp considered entering but turned down active competition in favor of serving as its mistress of ceremonies. "I emceed three portions of the Miss Black Massachusetts pageant, including the finals in July," Carol told us. "It was mostly ad-lib, but a lot of fun. The contest organizers knew I had toured through 78 cities with the Ebony magazine fashion show last year--and that I had been a scholarship student in fashion and design at Garland Junior College. So I guess they thought I had picked up enough poise and know-how to handle the assignment." Carol became a Bunny on a whim. "I was going on an interview for a fashion job last March," she says, "and I passed the Playboy in Boston and decided to apply on the spur of the moment." She tried it and she likes it. Eventually, Carol plans to return to college--this time taking up what she calls a "more serious" subject: governmental studies. The topic, she admits, is influenced by the fact that her fiancé works in that field.

College and postgraduate studies, in fact, attract many cottontails. New York's Dana Clark, who speaks Italian, Spanish and French as well as English, earned straight A's as a freshman psychology major at Hunter College last year; she was scheduled to enter New York University this fall. Miami Playboy Club Bunny Kim Moser has compiled A's at two colleges--"You can tell I really like school," she says--and is contemplating a junior year abroad, possibly in London. "If everything works out right, maybe I can get a job through the London Club." At Playboy's British outpost, Bunny Gillian Van Bolan has been accepted at Cambridge and plans a course of study to qualify herself as a veterinary surgeon. In Los Angeles, cottontail Alyse Trostler is celebrating a brand-new B. S. in physical therapy from the University of Southern California, while Playmate-Bunny Gwen Wong looks forward to getting hers in interior design from Los Angeles' Woodbury College.

The girls of Playboy's Canadian Club are bidding adieu to Gili Ethier, who passed her bar examination and is leaving the hutch to practice law, but welcoming new Bunny Claire Pimpare, who was among 16 of 200 applicants accepted for a three-year course in modern dance, singing and acting at the Montreal Academy of Fine Arts. Claire, who had the lead in the French-Canadian film L'apparition, has studied drama privately for two years. "I enjoy competition," she explains in her French-accented voice. "That's why I applied to be a Bunny. My brothers buy Playboy, you know, and I see all these pretty girls, and I think it will be a challenge to try." Now that she's a cottontail, Claire has become a Playboy Club enthusiast. "I'd like to be able to work at every Club--starting maybe next summer in Jamaica," she says. "I'm learning many things. You know, my English, it was not so bad when I came, but it's better now!"

Another new Bunny, Boston's Mei-Yong Tam, is an MIT graduate who combines cottontailing with working as a technician in the research laboratory of 1968 Nobel Prize winner Dr. H. Gobind Khorana. "I've been working for Dr. Khorana, who's doing studies in nucleic-acid chemistry, since January of 1971," Mei-Yong told us. "My work consists of isolating single strands from virus DNA." Born in Canton, Mei-Yong came to the United States in 1961 by a circuitous route, via Hong Kong and Havana. When she got her biology degree at MIT in June, she was afraid she'd find herself with time on her hands. "I was so used to working hard in the evenings at my studies that I decided I might as well make some money at night. I could have been a waitress, but being a Bunny is much nicer. And the people at the lab think it's wild." Mei-Yong, who speaks and writes Cantonese, some Spanish, French, Russian and German, is saving her money to go to medical school--where she wants to earn dual Ph. D. and M. D. degrees, leading to teaching and research. "I've actually been accepted at several places, but I still need a more solid financial stake."

Show business, as might be expected, attracts many girls from the Playboy realm. Bunny Ava Faulkner of New York--who appeared in the opening shot of Bunnies of 1970--now has her own musical aggregation, Ava Faulkner and Manhattan, with Ava's singing backed by organ, guitar, drums and bass. Ava, who's been a Bunny for five years--first in Miami--started out singing for fun, with the Earl May Trio in the Party Room of the Playboy Club of New York. About a year ago, she got her group together--and things, she says, "are going very well. We've appeared in several places around New York, including Play Street, The Lorelei and the Playboy Party Room; right now, we're hoping for a recording contract, featuring some original stuff the guitar player, John Krasusky, and the bassist, Louis Menga, wrote. That's (continued on page 200)Bunnies of 1972(continued from page 146) really the only way you can get a contract these days--to do your own thing."

Another vocalist is Baltimore Bunny Sheila Ross (for five years lead singer with The Royalettes), who's now playing the Playboy Club circuit as a single. "I guess you'd have to call my style contemporary," Sheila says. "I do standards, rock--sorta mix 'em up." As a cottontail, Sheila's described by her Bunny Mother, Carole Schwerdt, as "one of our most popular"; as a singer, she's scoring points with keyholders and guests not only in Baltimore but in Chicago, New York, Cincinnati and Boston--the last of which has had her back three times.

Films, television and commercials draw talent from among the ranks of the Hollywood Bunnies. Marsha Morris and Ninette Bravo won leads in two independently produced films; head Training Bunny Jaki Dunn has been seen frequently on Love, American Style and Room 222. TV viewers have probably seen Mercy Rooney's commercials for Volkswagen, Breck and Dippity-Do, or seen her on Laugh-In or Truth or Consequences. Lately, Mercy's showbiz career has taken a different twist: She assisted Sandy Dvore, one of Hollywood's best-known movie-title experts, in writing a script treatment for a proposed film, Frasier the Sensuous Lion--based on the true story of the astoundingly virile beast who recently died at Lion Country Safari in San Diego.

"Working with Sandy on the script was fascinating," Mercy says, "but actually, I consider myself primarily a fashion designer. I've designed clothes for Zsa Zsa Gabor, for the Dean Martin family, leather outfits for rock-'n'-roll groups like Chicago--and I also upholster furniture professionally. One reason I became a Bunny was that I wanted something consistent, disciplined, instead of being my own boss." Somehow, in the midst of all this activity, Mercy finds time to fly a plane and raise plants--"about 50 of them in my apartment. My mother says anybody can have a green thumb, but I must have something more--she calls it a green toe. Everything grows for me."

Bunnydom seems to exert a special attraction for ballerinas, among whose number are New York's Nancy Keosayian and Tina Redecha, Great Gorge Bunny Sharon Bowser and Cincinnati cottontail Laura Rzasa. Laura thinks she knows why: "Ballet and Bunnying require some of the same strength, grace, balance. Those trays are heavy, you know." Both Bunny and dancer, she admits, are also meant to be looked at. Laura, who is currently with the Cincinnati Ballet Company, is studying for her master of fine arts degree at the University of Cincinnati.

When we surveyed this year's crop of cottontails, we discovered some offbeat hobbies. Miami's Starr Maddox and Cincinnati's Lou Ann Annis are both practicing witches. "I've studied five years with various white-witchcraft cults, in English and Spanish," says Starr with a straight face. "I can read another person's thoughts, which is very helpful to me as a Bunny, because I often sense what a guest is going to order." Lou Ann, who has recently been promoted to Bunny Mother, should have a prime opportunity to use her occult powers on Bunnies' recalcitrant zippers.

Paula Gandy from Denver, Shawn Truett from Baltimore and Lynn Liebelt from Cincinnati are part-time auto mechanics. Lynn, who also holds three beauty titles from her days at the University of Cincinnati, explains: "I hate helpless women--and helpless men even more. I don't see anything unfeminine about being able to repair a car."

Off-duty entrepreneurs include Lake Geneva's Mary Lou Hilgers, who with a friend has just opened an antique shop and art boutique, The Original Sun; Atlanta's Sunny Miller, who serves as forewoman of a 301-acre Charolais cattle ranch and recently purchased a grocery store--gas station--souvenir shop near the entrance to Rock Eagle State Park; and New York's Patti Reynolds, who with fellow Bunny Lynne Corey opened Tummyluvs, a health-foods cart based in Central Park, last year. Lynne has since retired from the venture, but Patti pushes on; the enterprise has attracted enough local attention to merit appearances on What's My Line and To Tell the Truth.

The Playboy Plaza's Nancy Webb owned a race horse, Apero, and has ridden professionally. "But I felt I wouldn't make it as a jockey, because it's a very tough circuit." Plaza Sommelier Bunny Kathleen Tarpe, another horse fancier, works as a part-time groom at Pompano Park harness track; Denver's Dianne Wilson breeds Persian cats; and Detroit's new Bunny Shawn Barnett meets planes.

"I hate to see people get off an airplane all alone," Shawn explains. "It's happened to me and it's a terrible feeling. So sometimes I take off for a day and go to the airport. If I see people who look especially lonely, I go up and talk to them. If they don't think you're some kind of a nut, they'll talk to you." Shawn, who is studying languages at Oakland Community College in suburban Farmington, hopes to become a Spanish translator; it's a career she thinks will help her combine her passions for travel and meeting people.

Meeting people is the reason most Bunnies give for liking their jobs. Anita McLaughlin of St. Louis is particularly glad she met Tiny Tim, who sang a week at the Club there. Tim was so taken with her that he composed a song, Anita, dedicated to her and recorded it.

Opportunities to travel also rank high with Playboy's girls, who make full use of transfers to other hutches and their own flexible schedules to see as much of the world as possible. New Orleans has especially peripatetic Bunnies this year: Kathy Ennis backpacked from Louisiana to California and home again; Carol Bruno and Stefanie Henry are on leave to tour Europe; and Abby Craft and a girlfriend have been seeing the United States and Mexico via VW microbus.

Unquestionably the most unusual trip was that made to Cuba by four Bunnies--Stefanie Sokol, Lola Fernandez, Nancy Webb and Joyce Bennett-Odlum--along with Bunny Mother Bev Russell of the Playboy Plaza. They went as guests of the U. S. Navy to be official hostesses at the dedication of the new N.C.O. Club at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base June 29--July 3.

Altruism appeals to many Bunnies. Joyce Bennett-Odlum is a volunteer for the Miami Beach HELP suicide-prevention program. San Francisco's Peggy Berry, that city's Bunny of the Year for 1970, is active in the Big Sister movement, aiding underprivileged girls. Andrea Doukas teaches disadvantaged children at the Free School of New Orleans; she took some of them on a field trip to the Great Smoky Mountains. And in London, Bunny Tracey Hudson is a weekly volunteer at the Paddington Clinic and Day Hospital, where she gives massages and beauty care to psychiatric patients. "Tracey is absolutely marvelous," says Mrs. Joyce Allsworth, who runs the beauty-care service operated by the Red Cross in London. "She has a real understanding of people and their problems."

Boston's Dollie Shelton hopes to make a career of helping prison inmates. Besides Bunny-hopping three nights a week, she works with young first offenders as a parole agent for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is in her final year as a premedical psychology major at Brandeis University. "I'm working on my senior honors thesis, on music therapy for schizophrenics," Dollie says. "Eventually, I plan to be a criminologist-psychologist on the staff of some prison."

Organized charity activities, of course, have long been part of the Playboy Bunny program. Usually, the cottontails participate in sports events--Softball, basketball, volleyball, broomball hockey--for the benefit of various causes. In Baltimore, Bunnies this year stroked their way through a 48-hour marathon swim to raise funds for the Y. M. C. A. Kansas City's Lydia Wickman was a standout in Bunny basketball, scoring 30 points in one game, in which the cottontails trounced the faculty of Kansas City Junior College 80 to 59. "We've almost reached the point where we no longer keep score," reports Lydia's Bunny Mother.

London Bunnies have participated in charity soccer matches, fought a Donkey Derby engagement against the Penthouse Pets and entered the annual Waiters and Waitresses race at Battersea--which Bunny Barbara May won. Phoenix cottontails sponsor a softball team of 8-to-12-year-old girls who call themselves The Playboy Bunnies.

As befits an international entertainment empire, Playboy draws Bunnies from Japan (Atlanta's Jade Williams) to Spanish Honduras (Atlanta's Georgina Bullock). Hutchmate Paulette Coté, of French-Canadian descent, grew up in France. Miami's Leana Goussen's birthplace was Nicaragua. From India come London's Katie Mirza and Carmen Gillespie; fellow cottontails Jolana Lucas and Marika Tarabova are from Czechoslovakia. The London hutch also boasts Adria Aung, a native of Rangoon, and four Australian sisters: Bunnies Erin, Tricia, Carmel and Loretta Stratum.

Montreal Bunny of the Year--1972, Louise Blondin, was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, "but that was only because my father was a magician who was touring the West Indies." Blondin père is now a Montreal PR man, and Louise grew up in Canada--where she's been seen in three films and 32 TV commercials.

Los Angeles Bunnies Patty Maski and Tiana Mayo hail from Bangkok and Saigon, respectively. Tiana's father is a semiretired South Vietnamese diplomat who, she says, "gave his children a good traveling background and provided us with the knowledge of several languages." The family lived in Thailand, France and Canada before coming to the U. S. "Father's whole ambition was to settle his children in the United States, so that we could all benefit from the great educational opportunities in this beautiful land," Tiana told us.

Life in the United States is even more precious to Los Angeles Bunny Gisela Moseman, whose family remains in East Germany. To get out to the West, Gisela crawled through a sewer that drained into a border river, which she swam across. Formerly a pastry chef, she's worked as a Bunny seven and a half years in New York and Hollywood.

We think you'll agree that the Bunnies of 1972 are a remarkable group. We'd be proud to present any of them as candidates for next season's Bunny of the Year title. The contest, to select a successor for the currently reigning Ruthy Ross of Los Angeles, will be coming up in March. Next time you visit your Club, take a good look around and start thinking about casting your vote for the Bunny of the Year--1973.