Bunnies of 1973

A lot has been happening around the world of Playboy Clubs and Club-Hotels, we found as we begin our annual survey of Playboy's Bunnies, who now number 1000. In Los Angeles, the Club moved this summer from its old Sunset Strip location to brand-new quarters in Century City. Earlier, the Montreal Club had pulled up stakes and gone to new premises on Mountain Street, and plans for relocation of the Detroit Club are expected to be announced soon. After a two-month summer closing for extensive remodeling, the Miami Club is reopening at the same address, on Biscayne Boulevard, but with a completely new look and expanded live entertainment. And overseas in England, the Portsmouth Casino Club is in full swing and the Manchester Casino Club is due to open shortly (with discothèque and restaurant as added attractions). All of this is being enjoyed by a record total of keyholders: just over 1,000,000. Warning: If you're one of them, and you plan to game with Playboy at its English casinos in London, Portsmouth or (soon) Manchester, (text continued on page 142) you must register on the premises 48 hours in advance of play. That's the British law and it's ironclad.

With the addition of the Portsmouth Club, officials for the Bunny Beauty Contest found their job just a bit more difficult. Contestants at the pageant, staged at the Playboy Towers in Chicago, numbered an all-time high of 22--up from 19 when the competition started four years ago. But the judges--comedian George Kirby, actress (and Academy Award nominee) Cicely Tyson, writer-editor George Plimpton, columnists Jim Bacon, Maggie Daly, Irv Kupcinet and Dorothy Manners, Warner Bros. casting director Nessa Hyams and cartoonist-balladeer-poet-humorist Shel Silverstein--duly deliberated and came up with a winner: Bunny Coni Hugee of the Playboy Club-Hotel at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Black and beautiful, Coni received her bachelor's degree in retailing from the University of Wisconsin in May. "You know, I've never had a feeling like that in my life before," says Coni of the moment her name was announced as Playboy's international Bunny of the Year. "I just wanted to throw my arms up and keep jumping around in a circle. I could hardly stand still long enough to get the crown put on." With the title, Coni won a bonanza of prizes, including a replica of the classic Model A Ford and a free trip to Great Britain, which she's already taken. "I fell in love with London," she reports. But first place in her heart still goes to Atlanta, a city in which she hopes someday to use her retailing savvy by opening a women's ready-to-wear shop.

Runners-up in the Bunny Beauty Contest were New York's Bonita Rossi, a veteran of television commercials who hopes to move on into motion-picture roles; Montreal's Maryse Larose, a native of Haiti who's a popular model in her adopted province of Quebec; San Francisco's Nikki Johnson, member of a primitive-dance troupe and a featured dancer at Black Expo '73; Cincinnati's Cher Miller, who first won national acclaim in 1967, when she was a winner of Seventeen magazine's Be a Model contest; and Phoenix' Vicki Snell, who also represented her hutch in last year's contest.

While awaiting the results, the 22 Bunny finalists turned the tables by doing some voting of their own--and choosing their list of the Ten Most Beautiful Men in the World. They were: Muhammad Ali, Clint Eastwood, Senator Edward Kennedy, Joe Namath, Paul Newman, George Plimpton, Robert Redford, Burt Reynolds, Omar Sharif and Mark Spitz. Runners-up were Neil Armstrong, Jim Brown, Robert Evans, JeanClaude Killy and Rod McKuen. It's not surprising that a heavy proportion of the men on the list are in showbiz: That's a field that attracts a heavy proportion of Bunnies, too. New York's Gloria Hendry was James Bond's short-lived love interest in the latest 007 epic, Live and Let Die (see Playboy's July layout); she's also been cast in Black Caesar, Slaughter's Big Rip-Off and Hit Man. But she always comes back to the Club: "Being a Bunny is my security," she says. "Besides, I enjoy working there. It helps me learn more about people--all kinds of people--and that helps my acting." Gloria's hutchmate Jackie Zeman is one of two "K-Girls" on disc jockey Murray the K's television show. Across the continent in Los Angeles, 11 cottontails sing and dance as the Bunnyettes: Ninette Bravo, Niki Chin, Playmate-Bunny Cathy Rowland (who's a songwriter, too), Jaki Dunn, Laurie Cammarata, Barbara Garson, Lynn Moody, Jo Jo Burke, Bevy Self, Pat Holvay and Kandi Keith (who's also been signed to appear in an Italian movie, Sergio Bravo). Bunny Lynn, fresh from TV commercials and Mod Squad roles, is in the film Scream, Blacula, Scream; Ninette was seen in the Alias Smith and Jones series. Community theater interests Great Gorge Club-Hotel Bunny Alyson Merkel, a choreographer who has spent 15 years in dancing lessons and seven in vocal studies; and New Orleans cottontail Linette Burgess, whose local little-theater group, Le Petit Children's Theater, produces plays for youngsters--sometimes as many as 10,000 a day. Linette feels it's more demanding to work before children than before grownups: "You might be able to fool an adult when you blow a line, but children are smarter. They know what's going on, and you really have to be on your toes." Now thoroughly stage-struck, Linette is angling for a transfer to the Los Angeles hutch, where she'll be closer to Hollywood's professional drama coaches.

Bunny thrushes abound, too. Gloria Weems of New York, Sheila Ross of Baltimore, Sher Dixon of St. Louis and Zorina London of San Francisco sing professionally in night clubs (Playboy and others). Gloria recently returned from an engagement at the Palace Hotel in Paramaribo, Surinam; and Sheila has cut two records for Warner Bros. this year. Television provides opportunities for Kansas City Bunnies Leslie Norman--who has, eclectically enough, been Chrysler Corporation's Midwestern regional Dodge Girl and American Motors' Kansas City-area Gremlin Girl--and Barbara Earp, who is daylighting in an ad agency as a producer of commercials. Perhaps the longest-running showbiz career is that of London's Bunny of the Year, Ginger O'Doherty, a native of Londonderry, Northern Ireland, who has been dancing since the age of two. She made her first trip to the United States when she was 11, on tour with the Gaelic Singers. As a competitive Irish dancer, she won more than 30 cups and 300 medals before turning professional.

While some Bunnies are looking to see their names in lights, others are looking to see theirs on diplomas. Boston's Marcy Feinzig was just graduated magna cum laude from Boston University; "I've always been a bookworm," she says. "My brother used to kid me that my idea of light reading was browsing through a dictionary." An education major, Marcy did her student teaching in the field of criminology at Homebase High School in Watertown, Massachusetts, taking her students on field trips to courts and prisons. Marcy hopes to combine her interests in education and criminology by landing a teaching position in a penal institution.

Another Bostonian, Bunny Mei-Yong Tam, enters Columbia this fall with a $6000-per-year scholarship for a six-year course in the university's Medical Scientist Training Program. And Boston cottontails Sara Reynolds and Renée Worthington have been hitting the books at the University of Massachusetts, where both are seniors. In Miami, Joy Hughes is bringing straight A's home from her prenursing course at Charron-Williams Business College; Nana Wagner is attending real-estate school, from which Renée Camper has already graduated and become a licensed realtor. At Arizona State University in suburban Tempe, Phoenix cottontail students include Dawn Grotewold, majoring in ceramics, and Jennifer Edl, who's in graduate school after earning her bachelor-of-fine-arts degree. In an ASU ceramics class, Dawn and Jennifer met--and recruited to Bunnydom--Lee Mar, an elementary education graduate of the university. Though pottery is definitely a side line for Lee, Dawn and Jennifer plan to open their own shop sometime in the future.

St. Louis Bunny Maura Hemann earned a bachelor's degree in special education from Southern Illinois University this spring; her fall schedule is a triple-header, calling for teaching retarded children, working toward a master's degree and Bunny-hopping at the hutch three nights a week. Chicago's Tina Gerard has just completed requirements for her master's degree in teaching, specializing in mathematics, at the University of Illinois' Circle Campus. "Working as a Bunny is a wonderful way to put yourself through school," Tina says, "because the hours are so flexible. I'm looking for a position in high school or junior college teaching, but I may decide to sign up as a substitute teacher and continue working at the Club."

Great Gorge Bunny of the Year Waren Smith has her master's degree in communications from Montclair State College, and hutchmate Bea Edelstein earned hers in speech pathology from Seton Hall university. Bea also studies yoga, plays the violin, dances and holds green-belt standing in karate. Strenuous hobbies are, in (concluded on page 180) Bunnies of 1973 (continued from page 142) fact, rather common among the cottontails. Phoenix Bunny Connie James has earned a purple belt in the kenpo school of karate, and St. Louis Bunny of the Year Rhetta Penninger lifts weights--as does fellow cottontail Joan Egenriether, a lifeguard for the past four years. Miami Bunny Monica White teaches yoga classes at several Miami Beach hotels, including the Playboy Plaza. Los Angeles Bunny Barbara Garson, daughter of ex-race-car driver Joe Garson, is one of the few women in the country allowed in the pits at championship-class events. She's often been a scorer for Dan Gurney's All-American Racers team, for which Bobby Unser is the principal driver. "Having a race-car driver for a father helps," she says frankly. "I consider it a real privilege to work in the pits. That Indianapolis race this year, though, I could have done without. I spent my vacation from the Club in Indy watching it, and I should have stayed home." Having a motorcycle racer for a boyfriend helps, too; Barbara's guy customized an off-road machine for her, and she won an award in the Tridents Custom Car and Motorcycle Show at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. "I don't race it, though," she adds quickly. "I'm strictly a trail biker."

Another Angeleno, Dyane McMath, rises at 4:30 A.M. daily so she can get to Santa Anita race track in time for morning workouts; she's learning to be a horse trainer there. "I've loved horses since I was a kid." Dyane recalls. "I used to sneak into a race track near where we lived, just to be close to the animals." Another equestrienne, London's Gillian Van Boolam has won more than 300 jumping prizes with her horse Charley Brown; Gillian's ambition is to be a veterinarian. In Montreal, Bunny Ilona Wahl is a volunteer social worker, taking underprivileged children on trips to the zoo and ball park. Once or twice a year, the Canadian cottontails stage "clean-out-the-closet days" to provide clothing for Ilona's charges.

On Phoenix' not-uncommon 110-degree days, Bunny Toby Ostreicher goes innertubing down the Salt River. Over in Miami, Chris Adams recently purchased an 18-foot boat, learned to navigate the South Florida waters and is teaching other Bunnies to water-ski. St. Louis Bunny Claudette Eisele, a self-confessed camping freak, makes her own fishing poles from green limbs, tent string and beer-can pull-tabs. Denver Bunny Shelia Winkler, an amateur ichthyologist, has 13 aquariums in which she breeds hybrid guppies; another Denver cottontail, Nancee Walsh, is a pilot. Which figures: Both her parents are, and she and her dad once spent three years building an acrobatic-stunt plane. "My ambition," says Nancee frankly, "is to pilot Hugh Hefner's jet."

There are already cottontails aboard the Big Bunny, of course, but they're there as hostesses, not cockpit crew. The Jet Bunny contingent now numbers 14, all stationed in Chicago--where they work as Club Bunnies when they're not in the air. Of late, these high fliers--Anne Denson, Playmate-Bunny Lieko English, Britt Elders, Kathy Jovanovic, Maynelle Thomas, Leah Anderson (named first runner-up for the Miss Photoflash title in Chicago this year), Karen Ring, Michele Spietz, Joy Tarbell, Sharon Gwin, Pam Gazda, Carole Green, Rebecca Shutter and Sue Huggy--have been speeding about the country with Sonny and Chér, who've chartered the Playboy jet to meet concert commitments.

And within the past year, several other cottontails have been logging flying hours--as traveling representatives for Playboy. Los Angeles Bunny of the Year Bevy Self, Great Gorge B. O. T. Y. Waren Smith, Denver Bunny Judy Berry, Atlanta Bunny Ida Wilson and Chicago Bunny Leslie Moehrle jetted to Japan on a public-relations visit for Playboy Products. As Pureiboi Bani Garu--a rough Japanese version of Playboy Bunny Girls--they became instant celebrities, appearing on six television shows and at five Tokyo department stores; and they were interviewed for uncounted newspaper and magazine stories, in both English-and Japanese-language publications. Halfway around the world, six London Bunnies--Catherine McDonald, Anna Gardiner, Rema Nelson, Rebecca Welnitz, Pekoe Li and Anita Stevenson--paid a good-will visit to Norway; and New York Bunnies Sohelia Maleki and Jackie Zeman toured Brazil on behalf of Playboy Records.

Even if your head's not in a spin from traveling through Bunnydom, you can be forgiven for seeing double in three of the Playboy Clubs. Twin Bunnies Julie Anne and Tomie Winsor work in London; in New Orleans, keyholders often confuse Sherry Crider with twin Merry; and in Atlanta, the same problem arises with Brenda and Glenda Lott. But single or double, the view is fine at any Playboy Club, and it's not too soon to stop by and start thinking about your nominee for Bunny (or Twin Bunnies) of the Year--1974.