Chances are that most of you haven't been to Hoboken, New Jersey. But if you've seen On the Waterfront--and who hasn't?--then you've seen Janet Lupo's home town. When the picture was shot there, she lived just a few blocks away and one of her girlfriends lived in the building used for the rooftop scenes. You may also have gotten the correct impression that Hoboken--despite the fact that the funky neighborhood bars are being replaced by high-rises--is a pretty tough town. Janet learned early, for instance, not to listen to the weirdos who might try to lure her into their cars (she remembers one such incident when she was seven and another--with somebody pretending to be a cop--when she was 11). When she got a bit older, she learned how to dress and walk so that her 39-inch bust wouldn't attract attention. Then, at 16--tired of being kept after school for her chronic tardiness, and despite what her teachers told her was a high I.Q.--Janet quit school, to work (among other not-so-in-spiring jobs) as a long-distance telephone operator ("I think Ma Bell lost a lot of money that year"), a receptionist at a buying office (where she sat, uncomfortably, right under the heating ducts) and a switchboard operator for United Parcel (where the girls were "too catty"). Eventually, Janet applied for a post as a Bunny at our Great Gorge resort, and for the past year and a half she's been working there (and living there, too, in the Bunny Dorm). But while she's happy enough in her job, our restless Aquarian is looking to move up in the world. So she's thinking of leaving her home turf and family--consisting of her mom, her dad, now retired from the Erie Lackawanna Railway, an older sister, who's married, and two brothers, one of whom earned a medal in Vietnam by rescuing four GIs from a burning helicopter ("We didn't know till we read about it in the papers")--and heading for Chicago, where a friend has offered to buy her a seat on the Midwest Stock Exchange and teach her the ins and outs of that business. "After all," says Janet, "I don't have what you'd call a great education, and I do want to make something of myself. I think I could handle that kind of work, so why not give it a try? There's nothing to lose." Well, we at Playboy would be losing something if Janet turned broker. But we believe in upward mobility, and if that's what she wants, we're with her all the way.
