Playboy Bunny flogging her tail

2008-03-06 23:36

Port Elizabeth - A retired Playboy Bunny will auction her yellowing tail for charity on Friday, four decades after she gave up mixing with movie stars and settled for suburban life in South Africa.

"I am 65 years old, I won't need it anymore," said Heidi Vos from her home in Port Elizabeth.

Born in the former Czechoslovakia in the dying throes of World War 2, Vos lost her parents to disease in a refugee camp and was smuggled to Germany as a toddler by an aunt.

She was sent to the United States as a teenager to au pair for other family, who decided she should go to work in a factory as soon as she finished school.

She refused, left their home, and eventually travelled to New Orleans at the age of 19 to become a Playboy Bunny at the recommendation of a boyfriend smitten with her looks.

"They were good times," she recalled, saying the worst part involved bleeding toes from double shifts in high heels.

Having spent one year of school in a Roman Catholic convent, getting undressed in front of other women also took some getting used to.

"But, I made a lot of money," says Heidi. "The year before, I had a job in the insurance industry, making $50 a month. As a Playboy Bunny, I made $52 on my first night."

She describes her job, which she held for three years, as that of a "glorified cocktail waitress", rubbing shoulders with stars the likes of 1960s crooner Pat Boone.

"I looked gorgeous," she says of her erstwhile uniform comprising a tight fitting black corset, stockings and spiked heals - topped off with bunny ears and a fluffy cotton tail.

"We were at the forefront of the sexual revolution."

Chilli Festival founder

Heidi says she later became one of the world's first women disc jockeys, and has written numerous cook books.

She is also the founder of Port Elizabeth's annual Chilli Festival, at which her tail is to be auctioned off on Friday night for a local charity providing food for the underprivileged.

The tail was supposed to have been returned to the Playboy club with the rest of her costume, says Heidi, but "this one fell through the cracks".

"It has got quite yellow over the years, and I have had to whiten it a few times."

She hoped the tail would fetch as much as R10 000 (about $1 300).

"I would imagine there are some people out there who would love to have a Playboy Bunny tail sitting on their bar.

"But then again, one never knows what one's tail is worth."

- SAPA