Supersexy Amber Heard (“Pineapple Express,” “Zombieland,” “Drive Angry”) has signed to play the lead “Bunny” in NBC’s new 1960s hourlong set in and around Manhattan’s Playboy Club dorms. She’ll play an orphan from Fort Wayne “with an untethered sexuality and a dark past,” according to Deadline Hollywood.
Additionally, Naturi Naughton (“Fame”) has been cast as an African-American Bunny. Which is wild, because she played a Bunny working at the same 1960s Manhattan Playboy Club on “Mad Men” last year.
Chad Hodge, who created The CW’s short-lived 2006 fugitive-family drama “Runaway” (starring Donnie Wahlberg, Leslie Hope and a 15-year-old Sarah Ramos), scripted the “Playboy” pilot.
Since it’s on a broadcast network, the Playboy project may end up reminding viewers less of AMC’s “Mad Men” and more of NBC’s “American Dreams,” which followed the teens who danced on Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” in the 1960s.
The first Playboy club opened in 1960 Chicago. After the Playboy Club in Lancing, Mich., closed in 1988, the United States remained Bunny-free until a new Playboy Club opened at Las Vegas’ Palms Casino in late 2006.
A 1985 TV-movie, “A Bunny’s Tale,” starred Kirstie Alley as journalist Gloria Steinem and depicted Steinem’s brief employment as a Bunny in 1963.
Find all of Deadline’s story on the matter here.
Sorkin’s Latest: $12.99/$16.99!!
