Elle Parrino On Life at the New York Playboy Club

David Gerlach: This is Blank on Blank and thank you for tuning in as we build this  archive of lost American interviews. I’m David Gerlach.

[MUSIC: The Larry Page Orchestra - “Zabadak”]

Back in the 1960s the Playboy clubs were hot. Hugh Hefner’s nightclubs in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles… all the big stars came out. The feminists hated the clubs. But the bunnies who waited tables in those custom-made, tight-fitting, satin get ups, well these bunnies made a pretty good living.

Elle Parrino: We were bringing in $500 a week, no problem. You know you’d sit there and the door bunny would just say, ‘Good evening. How are you this evening? May I see the Playboy key?’ And they would look at the key and say ‘Thank you mister so-and-so’ and direct them. And they would throw you a hundred dollar bill. It was unbelievable.

David Gerlach: That’s Elle Parrino. I wrote a profile on her for a weekly magazine in New York back in the early 2000s. Elle was approaching 60 at the time. Yet life, her life at the Playboy Club, was clearly still with her. So the story begins in 1965. Elle was almost 20 and she needed to find work. I taped conversation on one of those old school microcassette recorders. Enjoy the tape.

Elle Parrino: I couldn’t get a job, because in those days to work in an office the only thing I was qualified for essentially was to be a receptionist. And they still wanted navy blue suits and the little white gloves in those days. I just didn’t fit the bill. So one day I walked myself into the New York Playboy Club and ended up being there for 17 years. You know when I first started there they called me the lone virgin (laughs), because I had an Italian–American father. And even though I had my platinum blond hair and too much makeup on, I was very naïve. I think I was more of a romantic than naïve. But it was just you know….

[MUSIC: Juan García Esquivel - “Miniskirt”]

Elle Parrino: Even the way they served a drink was totally their style. The bunny dip you’ve heard of?

David: That’s how you had to serve a drink a certain way.

Elle Parrino: Yeah. When you walked up to the table. You had to… You weren’t allowed to show your front. You would walk up to the table and tail the table. You would stand there like this.

David Gerlach: Now right here at this point in the interview Elle stood up. She grabbed a tray and moved away from the table. Right there she pulled off the bunny dip with ease almost 40 years after she first sauntered up to a table. I was pretty tempted to order a Manhattan.

Elle Parrino: And that was the bunny dip. Knees together and this roll forward kind of thing.

David Gerlach: What did you go by?

Elle Parrino: Elle. E-L-L-E. I was Bunny Elle. You weren’t allowed to argue with the customers. You had to just stand there. They were not allowed to touch you. You were not allowed to give them any personal information about you at all. As liberal as the magazine is, that’s how conservative the clubs were. Because they had to be. … I gotta tell you that bunny dressing room was a magical place. It had anything you needed from mascara to a shoulder to cry on. And there’s something about standing stark ass naked next to another person, another human being, day after day. It is kind of as basic as you can get. … I was Bunny Mother for the last six years the club was open on 59th street. It was a silly title, but it was also meant so that the girls could always feel comfortable to talk to me about absolutely anything. The idea was to keep them happy. I learned one lesson: if you treat ‘em like ladies, they’re going to act like ladies. If you treat ‘em like whores, they’re going to act like whores. I treat all my girls like they are going to do the right thing. That is part of my Playboy training. It was really brilliantly thought out.

[MUSIC: Piero Piccioni - “Isabel”]

Elle Parrino: These women’s liberationists used to picket in front of the Playboy Club. What is liberation? It is freedom. How dare you tell me what I can and cannot do. Isn’t that what you are fighting for? If I want to walk into this place and make gazillion dollars wearing a skimpy costume and high heels, who are you to tell me I can’t?

David Gerlach: That’s Elle Parrino on life as a bunny at the New York Playboy Club during its heyday in the 1960s. I do have some sad news to report. After I produced this interview with Dave McGuire, I learned that Elle had passed away just a few weeks earlier. She died after a long battle with cancer. You know, Elle really was the perfect mix of sweet and salty and I’m really glad you got to hear her story. This is Blank on Blank. I’m David Gerlach.