Photo: Getty
Hugh Hefner’s Playboy has been known around the world since the 1960s for its instantly recognizable Bunny costume, but the women who served drinks at the famed Playboy Clubs are recalling how painful it could be to maintain the brand’s signature style.
In A&E’s 10-partSecrets of Playboydocuseries, several women who donned the iconic uniform (a snugly tailored satin leotard, tuxedo-style wrist cuffs and choker neckpieces, fishnets, sky-high stilettos, and, of course, rabbit ears and a fluffy bunny tail) detailed the intense scrutiny, physical suffering and emotional fallout underneath the illusion Playboy Bunny glamour.
“When you put on that costume, you thought you could kill the world,” remembers PJ Masten, who worked for Playboy from 1972–82. “You were just magnificent and powerful, and you were, yes, a sex symbol.”
Cultural historian Jamilah Lemieux explained, “Playboy allowed men to indulge in the fantasy of what their life might look life if they were wealthy. It’s these beautiful, extremely young, buxom women that in the role of Bunny somehow seemed like they’re primed for service.”
The Bunny “wasn’t a real person, so to speak — she was an image,” said Susanne Singer, who worked at the Playboy Club in Century City, California, from 1972–84.
Jaki Nett, a Bunny trainer in Los Angeles from 1967–79, reflected, “The perception of what a Bunny is and the reality of what a Bunny was is two completely different things.”
Added Singer, “It was about 95 percent hard work and 5 percent glamour.”
Victor Blackman/Daily Express/FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty
Aside from sustaining bruises from heavy trays laden with drinks — all of which had to be delivered with the flourish a chicly contortedBunny Dip— Playboy’s female staffers were subject to “humiliating” monthly weigh-ins, said Masten. A chart of all the Bunnies' weights was even on display next to the scale for all to see.
“If you gained weight, you were going to have a really bad problem,” said Singer, “because they weren’t going to let that costume out for you.”
Suzanne Charneski, a Bunny at the Playboy Club in Great Gorge, New Jersey, from 1979–82, explained: “The costume has 18 metal stays in, so it took two people to put it on — you would have to hold it in the front and someone would zip it up the back. If you gained 5 lbs., [with] those 18 metal stays, you couldn’t breathe. Literally.”
“I think that was part of it — to humiliate these girls,” noted Masten. “If you didn’t get [your weight] down for next month, you were suspended until you got your weight down.”
She recalled, “A lot of girls had kidney infections ‘cause you were cinched in. We used to go into the ladies room and take our shoes off, which were encrusted with blood, and stick them in the toilet bowl and keep flushing it with, like, a whirlpool to get the swelling down hope that your shoes could fit back on.”
Val Mazzenga/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty
As part of her tenure with Playboy, Masten took on the role of Bunny Mother in 1975. She would judge new bunny candidates and train new hires in the brand’s standards.
Before onboarding new women, “We had to evaluate them on their appearance, and we had a guideline that all Bunny Mothers were given: crepe-y skin, sagging breasts, bags under their eyes, crooked teeth, some really nasty descriptions.”
She admitted, “It was heartbreaking to me and I just I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. I rebelled against. I didn’t check off if they had crepe-y skin, or if they had saggy breasts, you couldn’t tell anyhow, I don’t want to fire somebody for image — that stays with you for the rest of your life, that’s a terrible thing.”
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Secrets of Playboyairs Monday nights at 9 p.m. ET on A&E.
source: people.com
