"I don't regret anything I've done, and I've learned from everything." That may sound like a grandiose statement for an 18-year-old to make. Many a girl her age hasn't done anything much, let alone anything to regret--or to learn from. But Bridgett Rollins has been growing up fast. A Tennessee native who's lived in various places--her dad was a career man in the Air Force--she dropped out of high school, in a Chicago suburb, when she was 15: "The kids did nothing but fight all the time, and the teachers did nothing but try to keep them in their seats." She went to modeling school instead, with the encouragement of her mother, and worked in fashion shows. A year later, after a three-month courtship, Bridgett married her 21-year-old beau and they moved to Houston, where he kept the books for his folks' apartment complex while she got modeling jobs. It wasn't long before she realized how badly she wanted a career and he realized that he needed a stay-at-home wife. Bridgett broke the stalemate herself by going to Mexico and getting unmarried. She and her ex-husband are now good friends, and Bridgett winces if you call her a divorcee: "I want to be a light, happy person, and labels like that just drag you down." Indeed, anyone who knows her can tell you that she's a most positive individual--intense, articulate and incurably optimistic, even under trying circumstances; when she was a kid, and her mother and father would argue all the time, she chose to believe it was all an act. She did run away from home several times, because she felt she wasn't getting enough attention from her mom--whose own troubles, she now realizes, were beyond her comprehension at the time. Bridgett's father is now dead and she considers her mother--who has remarried and is living in Ocala, Florida--a very good friend. She's also friends with her three siblings, especially her sister Yvonne, who drove back to Chicago with Bridgett after a recent family get-together in Ocala. The two girls currently share a Windy City apartment. Bridgett was working for a finance company; she's quit that job, though, and is training to be a Bunny. Her original intention was to head for Los Angeles after her Playmate appearance and learn about acting; now, despite her basic confidence, she feels that she ought to get experience first with some of the smaller theater groups in the Chicago area. That makes sense to us--and, of course, we're delighted that the precocious Miss Rollins has decided to stick around the Midwest awhile.
