"A Bunny's Tale" - Gloria Steinem - Show Magazine

Image of Gloria Steinem going undercover as a Playboy bunny for her article "A Bunny's Tale."

Description

Gloria Steinem's two-part series chronicling the eleven days she spent undercover as a Bunny in Hugh Hefner's New York Playboy Club in 1963.

Authors

Subjects

Effects and Outcomes

Show Magazine is long forgotten but not this story; it lives on among the most amusing and talked about of undercover exploits. It was instrumental in stopping Hugh Hefner's clubs from giving physical examinations to applicants. It also made Steinem a celebrity, drawing some attention she did not find altogether welcome. She returned an advance for a book contract to expand the idea, and at about the same time, rejected an assignment to expose high-end prostitution by posing as a call girl, an idea she found as insulting as it was frightening. For a long time, Steinem saw her 11 days as Bunny "Marie Ochs" (hired under her grandmother's name and social security number) as a huge career blunder. It led to no serious new assignments and became her least-favored but often-invoked characterization. Only later did she understand the usefulness of the ruse that allowed her to expose Playboy's "phony glamour and exploitative employment policies." In autobiographical notes included in her collection of writings, the book Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, she lists the project among her personal celebrations, saying, "My expose of working in a Playboy Club has outlived all the Playboy Clubs, both here and abroad."

Media History

The reporting was intended for these media types: Magazine

II-"A Bunny's Tale" - Gloria Steinem - Show Magazine

1963-06-01

"Editor's Note: As you will remember from last month, our intrepid reporter had adopted a false name (Marie Ochs), answered a classified ad ("Yes, it's true! Attractive young girls can now earn $200-$300 a week at the fabulous New York Playboy Club...") and survived two interviews and a tryout in costume to be hired as a Playboy Club Bunny. After a fitting for false eyelashes, a physical examination, a Bunny Mother Lecture, a Bunny Father Lecture, two indoctrination sessions in Bunny School to learn drink-serving rituals, a study of the Bunny Bible and the revelation that nearly all Bunnies are required to stuff their bosoms, Marie had been called into emergency service at the hat-check stand. "As the story reopens, our undercover Bunny is preparing for her very first night's exposure 'on the floor.'"

I-"A Bunny's Tale" - Gloria Steinem - Show Magazine

"Show's First Expose for Intelligent People"

1963-05-01

"What really goes on in their 'glamourous and exciting world'? To find out, Show chose a wirter who combines the hidden qualities of a Phi Beta Kappa, mane cum laude graduate of Smith College with the more obvious ones of an ex-dancer and beauty queen. A few weeks ago, she started her investigations armed with a large diary and this ad: GIRLS: DO PLAYBOY CLUB BUNNIES REALLY HAVE GLAMOROUS JBOS, MEET CELEBRITIES, AND MAKE TOP MONEY?..."