L'essor et la chute du Playboy Club de Montréal, 1967–1976

On July 15, 1967, Hugh Hefner stepped off a plane at Dorval and into a scrum of journalists, a live set by Les Classels, and a welcoming committee of women in satin corsets and rabbit ears. Showered with kisses from his newest employees, the Playboy boss offered his first review of the city: "This is a kissy, kissy city!"

That same day, a few kilometres east at the corner of Aylmer and President Kennedy, the doors opened on the first and only Playboy Club in Canada.

Timed alongside Expo 67, Hefner wanted a piece of the action. At his press conference, he explained that the World's Fair had drawn him here, along with the city's sophistication (a compliment the assembled press lapped up). He was less charmed by Expo itself, reportedly throwing a fit when staff at the fair's press lounge turned him away for lacking accreditation.

The city, for its part, was ready to play along. Proceeds from the opening gala went to muscular dystrophy research, La Presse covered the Bunnies' appearances at the racetrack, and by the end of August the club had signed up 13,000 members with celebrities among them.

(Above) Photograph: Centre d’archives de Laval

Two thousand hopefuls and 57 tails

Getting hired was reportedly harder than getting in. The job of assembling the inaugural corps of Bunny waitresses fell to Keith Hefner, Hugh's younger brother, working alongside a "Bunny Mother" dispatched from the Chicago head office. More than 2,000 women applied, some travelling from as far as Sweden and Italy, and 57 made the cut.

The standards were peculiar to Montreal. As the club's Bunny Mother, ex-Bunny Shirley Purdy, told the Gazette in 1969, most applicants washed out because they weren't bilingual, lacked personality, or couldn't manage the costume and the three-inch heels that came with it. Roughly one candidate in ten was hired, then put through a three-week training program to learn the Playboy way of doing things.

The pay, upwards of $125 a week, was serious money at the time, but the job was closer to boot camp than magazine marketing work. Sharon Rose Anderson, one of the original 1967 Bunnies, later described a workplace of whalebone corsets, nightly costume cleanings, and a demerit system that tracked every move: the tray carried one-handed with fingers spread, never touched with the other hand, never set on the table. Shifts ran six to eight hours, during which sitting down was forbidden; the closest thing to a break was an approved lean against a railing.

There were weekly weigh-ins, a confidential rating file that scored each woman's looks from one to four, and—per a 1968 CBC visit to the club—an entire grooming culture around the tail itself, which Bunnies fluffed with pet brushes and dabbed with perfume so a scent trailed them between tables.

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