With New Playboy Clubs opening overseas--most recently in Manila and in Nagoya, Japan--our Bunnies are, more than ever, standard-bearers of a far-flung Playboy empire. The plush Manila Club opened late last year to a celebrity-studded crush of well-wishers, including Imelda Marcos, wife of the president of the Philippines. In addition to a spectacular disco, the Club offers a cornucopia of fun in two bars, two (text continued on page 165) game rooms, a library, a sauna, a whirlpool and a fully equipped gym. In Japan, the Nagoya Club has joined sister hutches in Tokyo and Osaka. Before Playboy's arrival this July, the area around Nagoya was best known as the home of the cultured pearl; a full-scale Bunny hunt, we're told, uncovered more than one pearl to staff our newest Club. Future plans call for another Pacific Playboy outpost--in Hawaii. Negotiations are now under way for a suitable island location.
(concluded on page 224) Bunnies of '79 (continued from page 165)
Checking out the Bunnies back home, we found a profusion of talented cottontails with interests as disparate as law school and Charlie's Angels. As a matter of fact, we've been harboring quite a few Bunnies in sheepskin. Chicago's Maynell Thomas, a February graduate of DePaul University law school, is now working for a Los Angeles legal firm that specializes in the entertainment industry. L.A.'s Kat Flores, who already has an undergraduate degree in criminology, started law school this fall. Meanwhile, Dallas Bunny Karen Criswell continues to plug away at her legal studies. Karen's dad is a Dallas celebrity, TV anchor man John Criswell. Back in Los Angeles, Janette Salerno, R.N., is working on an advanced degree in coronary care; Toyce Ken is also back in school, working on an advanced degree in management.
When she's not Bunny Dipping at the Los Angeles Club, dancer Denise Gallardo performs in television shows, including Leif Garrett and Barry Manilow specials. Another L.A. Bunny, Betty Jean Samuelson, appeared in a Charlie's Angels episode. Judy Bruno and Beverly Whatley regularly sing in the New York Club's Talent Showcase, and Chicago's hutch boasts warbler Rose Dorsey. Cincinnati's Patti Seaman is eying a career as a symphonic flutist. Both our Great Gorge Resort and Country Club and the New York Club have booked Great Gorge Bunny Alyson Michaels for singing engagements, while Bunny Marion Watson often sings in Dallas.
Benefits and other events tend to keep the Bunnies, um, hopping in their off-duty hours. This year, they competed in countless basketball, donkey-baseball and even football games to support numerous causes ranging from the Save-a-Pet movement to a children's hospital. A segment of a CBS-TV Sports Spectacular, The World's Strongest Men (scheduled for late September), features Los Angeles Bunnies--700 pounds' worth--in a contest called Girl Lift. Strong men had to raise a platform full of Bunnies in what another network might call the agony and the ecstasy.
But our L.A. Bunnies were at their most inspiring when, to benefit Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital, the national college fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon rolled a beer keg 3224 miles from Boston to Century City. What was waiting at the end of the trail to encourage the TEKEs to reach their goal? Well, you can bet it wasn't warm, well-churned beer, but a welcoming committee of Bunnies from the Los Angeles Playboy Club. To them and to the hundreds of other Bunnies around the globe, a toast: ¡Sàlud! Prosit! Skoal! Kampài!
