Bunnies of 1974

For bunny Watchers, it's been a very good year. Not only could everybody's favorite two-legged cottontails be seen in their natural habitat, at Playboy Clubs and Club-Hotels from San Francisco to London, but 23 of them--each of whom had been voted Bunny of the Year from her home hutch--entered viewers' homes in some 80 cities, via a colorful television spectacular. The 1974 Playboy Bunny of the Year Pageant, syndicated nationwide, was a smash success--beating out such tough competition as Saturday-night prime-time favorites in several markets. Featured in the hourlong show, besides the Bunny contestants, were host Don Adams, veteran entertainer George Burns, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue and the comedy team of Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber. The panel of judges, too, consisted of celebrities: syndicated columnist Earl Wilson, pro-football star Larry Csonka, comedian Bill Cosby, artist LeRoy Neiman, author-critic Rex Reed, motion-picture star Timothy Bottoms and singer-actress Connie Stevens. After (text concluded on page 140) due deliberation, they came up with a winner to fit the gold-lamé costume reserved for the International Bunny of the Year--1974: Angie Chester, a 21-year-old native Chicagoan.

Angie, a Chicago Playboy Club Bunny since 1972, will spend a good part of her year's reign as International Bunny of the Year visiting Playboy Clubs and Club-Hotels in the United States, Canada, Jamaica and England. After that, she'd like to give showbiz a whirl. She already has, in fact, having landed a small part in Three the Hard Way, starring Jim Brown and Fred Williamson. "It was just a walk-on, but it's a great beginning," Angie says. A screen test with Playboy Productions--one of her many Bunny of the Year prizes--may give her another boost up the entertainment ladder. "And," she remarks philosophically, "if I don't make it, I can always go back to school and become an X-ray technician."

Angie's runners-up for the top Bunny title were Debra Whitaker, Cincinnati; Ginette Pelissier, Montreal (named Miss Photogenic by the Los Angeles Press Photographers Association in a pageant preliminary event); Kacey Cobb, Los Angeles; and Nancy Turner, Miami. The Bunny contestants themselves voted one of their number, Magali Brajdic from Miami Beach, Miss Congeniality. Other finalists were, from Atlanta, Karin Sims: Baltimore, Sheila Ross; Boston, Renee Ann Worthington; Denver, Susan Sturm; Detroit, Terry Bellant; Great Gorge, Alyson Merkel; Jamaica, Judy Dalrymple; Kansas City, Niki Gentemann; Lake Geneva, Mary Hardt: London, Fleur Patterson; Manchester, Sharon Longworth; New Orleans, Debi Brown; New York, Naomi Lee; Phoenix, Camilla Johnson; Portsmouth, Jo Campbell; St. Louis, Jackie Sabatino; and San Francisco, Jan Seratt.

Playboy's is not the only beauty pageant that's been drawing cottontail entrants. Portsmouth, England, Bunny Lynne Plested, as a matter of fact, started her winning ways at the age of three, when she won a baby contest. She's since garnered such titles as Miss Fareham, Miss Southsea and Miss Southern Television and has represented Portsmouth in the finals of the Miss England, Miss Britain and Miss United Kingdom TV beauty contests. New York's Karen Hill, Miss Bucks County, was first runner-up for the title of Miss Pennsylvania in last year's Miss Hemisphere contest; and Great Gorge Bunny Renée Walitis was Miss Teenage New Jersey in 1973. Lake Geneva Bunny Greta Marshall was a finalist in the 1974 Miss Illinois-Universe pageant. Randi Stewart, another Great Gorge Bunny, and Kim Bowers from Atlanta also made the finals in teenage beauty contests.

Nor is Angie Chester by any means the only Bunny to break into show business. Los Angeles cottontail Jan Hughes has appeared in the films Uptown Saturday Night and Coffy. She also played a TV role in The Odd Couple, as did fellow Hollywood Bunnies Rosemary Melendez and Tricia Williams. Hutch sister Ninette Bravo has been seen on three TV series--The Streets of San Francisco, Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law and The FBI--as well as in the screen feature An Act of Vengeance. Due to appear in Funny Lady, Barbra Streisand's sequel to Funny Girl, is another L.A. Bunny, Brenda "B. J." Miller, a veteran of TV exposure on the Mannix series. Down New Orleans way, Vanessa Hutchinson landed the role of voodoo queen Marie Laveau in the film Marianne, which was shot on location in Louisiana. When the Banacek series shot an episode in Boston, local cottontails Dina McDermott, Ann Marie Messano and Fabien Walters were recruited for on-camera duty. And Denver's Cheryl French, who jumps and shows horses for fun, worked in Barquero with Lee Van Cleef. You may not have recognized her onscreen, though--she was a stunt woman. Working on the other side of the camera is Boston Bunny Jennifer Ellis, who directed a Chamberlayne Junior College production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler on Boston's television channel two.

Modeling is a field attracting increasing numbers of Bunnies. One Bunny who has made it to the pages of Playboy is New Orleans' Laura Misch, featured in Divers Pleasures on pages 141, 142 and 143 of our June issue. "Some of my friends asked me if that was Mark Spitz in the pictures with me," Laura reports. "Of course, it was a male model, but if they want to think it's Mark. I let 'em believe it." Since that Playboy layout was photographed in the Dominican Republic, Laura got an expense-paid trip to the Caribbean out of the deal--something she considers an additional plus afforded by her Playboy connections.

Six very special cottontails--the Jet Bunnies who staff Hugh M. Hefner's Big Bunny DC-9 jet--are up in the air on the job a good part of the time. Current members of that high-flying contingent are Anne Denson, Maynell Thomas, Joy Tarbell, Sharon Gwin, Karen Ring and Sue Huggy. All have gone through airline-hostess school as well as Playboy Bunny training and are based at the Chicago Playboy Club when not on out-of-town assignment.

One nominee for busiest Bunny of the year might be Great Gorge's Alyson Merkel. She's the featured vocalist with her own group, A-T & T, which has been appearing in the Club-Hotel's Playmate Bar; lead singer with (and choreographer for) the eight-member Bunnyette aggregation there; star of four ten-minute programs on radio station WNNJ in nearby Newton each week (two offering travel tips and two presenting book reviews); and she's studying for her third-class FCC license in preparation for a career in broadcasting. All this, of course, in addition to her regular Bunny assignments. "Social life?" asks Alyson. "None. Don't have time." Former hutchmate Waren Smith, now Bunnying in the New York Playboy Club, has already earned her master's degree in radio-television and moonlights as a disc jockey for station WPSC.

There's no dearth of dancing cottontails, either. Montreal's Bunnies Suzie Prenovost and Lou-Ann Uyeda have appeared with the Keigo Imperial Japanese Dancers; Great Gorge's Marilyn Bridges is an ex-Rockette. Debbi Crowe of Atlanta appears with the Decatur-DeKalb Civic Ballet and performed with Gene Kelly in a Theater of the Stars production this past summer. New York Bunny Dana Dixon, a ballet teacher for three years, won a two-year Ford Foundation scholarship to study the dance in 1966--1967.

Bunnies are, in fact, studying just about everything, at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Los Angeles cottontail Munyin Choy just received a master's degree in education from UCLA, and Becky Yates is working on her master's degree in social work at St. Louis University. Debbie Dimes of Boston is getting her degree in civil engineering from Northeastern University, while Simone Pertuiset, Montreal, is finishing requirements for a B.S. in ecology from Sir George Williams University. As Detroit's Terry Bellant points out, "Working for Playboy is a perfect way to put yourself through school, because the money's good and the hours are so flexible. I plan to enroll at Wayne State University here and take a course in medical technology; after class, I can go down to the Club and work a night shift."

Those flexible hours also make Bunny hopping an ideal two-career job, especially for a girl who's trying to get her own business enterprise started. Bunny Portlyn Mason owns a health-food store in the city of Lake Geneva, near the Playboy Club-Hotel, where she works; while down in New Orleans, Bonnie Williams operates an organic-baking business. "Best customers for her homemade bread and oatmeal cookies, all baked to order, are her fellow Club employees," Bunny Mother Barbara Page reports. New York Bunny Jane Ball is pursuing a slightly different tack: writing a cookbook, to be published by Simon & Schuster. Denver's Cheryl French, the equestrienne mentioned above, is doing research in biofeedback and the physiological effects of color. Perhaps least-likely second job is that held by another Denver Bunny, Susan Sturm, who works as a paraole officer. Viewers who saw Susan on the Bunny of the Year telecast would volunteer to be in her custody any day.

Plans are already under way for next year's Bunny Beauty Contest; check in at your local hutch for the schedule in your area.