Yup...there's my Dad, keyholder # C20744 dancing with a peroxided blonde Disco Bunny to the jazz sounds of the Joe Iaco Trio, circa 1961...(photo: Richard Watters, Sr. dancing to the Joe Iaco Trio at The Chicago Playboy Club in the Sixties).
Hold on to your hat Chicago music makers. Casting musicians to work as paid extras has begun for the NBC TV pilot “The Playboy Club" being filmed here in ChiTown. Joan Philo Casting (Public Enemies, A Nightmare On Elm St.) started searching about three weeks ago for jazz musicians and bands to recreate the 1960's club scene!
The Imagine & Fox Studio pilot, “The Playboy Club," directed by ALAN TAYLOR (Mad Men, Sex in the City) is searching for males to be cast as Musicians. It's the 1960's all over again! True to the times and the look of the Playboy Club we require the following to be considered for these paid, non-speaking extra roles: Male musicians, ages 18 and up, all ethnicities, with instruments to work as a jazz band (playing instruments to recorded playback for a club scene). Pay rate is TBD for this project. If chosen this would include a wardrobe fitting, rehearsals, and the shoot itself. Jeff Hephner has been cast to play the club's founder, Hugh Hefner.
They will be shooting in mid-March for approximately 13 days. The band would need to be available for a set number of days (TBD) for the shoot. They will not be shooting on Saturdays or Sundays. It may be a little late but, if interested, please send photos (ASAP) of yourself and your instrument with your band or without to: [email protected] in the subject of the e-mail put “Jazz musician." Needed is height, weight, clothing sizes, age and experience. PLEASE INCLUDE PHONE NUMBER. If you have pictures of yourself playing on stage all the better!
The jazz connection of course is that the original house band was the jazz-laden Joe Iaco Trio, comprised of Joe Iaco on piano (passed in 2005), Ernest Outlaw on violin bass (passed in 2003), and Chuck Christiansen on drums (one of several). Iaco was the musical director for the club putting in 25 years there.
Another bit of trivia, the darling petite red-head, Lynn, the greeter during weekdays at the door of Andy's Jazz Club at State and Hubbard in The Loop, did a stint at the Chicago Playboy Club as The Photo Bunny! Here is a link to the “Ex-Playboy Bunnies" site to look up those former Bunnies and former employees from the club's past days and to check out the History of the Bunny.
Hefner got the idea for the key-club format from one that was already established in Chicago, The Gaslight Club (which still exists as the lounge/restaurant at the O'Hare Hilton). The first Playboy Club opened in Chicago on 116 E. Walton Street. The doors opened for the first time on the leap year night of February 29th, 1960. Paradise on Earth had arrived. Read more about that famous night in Playboy's own 40th Anniversary Tribute.
Of course being born the year Playboy came into being, JAZZzology editor Richard Watters, Jr. (a chip off the old block) made the 50th Anniversary Party back in 2003 to celebrate his birthday! He's pictured sitting with two Bunnies on Hef's original round bed, not to mention posing with 2001's Bunny Of The Year. 'NufSed.
Hold on to your hat Chicago music makers. Casting musicians to work as paid extras has begun for the NBC TV pilot “The Playboy Club" being filmed here in ChiTown. Joan Philo Casting (Public Enemies, A Nightmare On Elm St.) started searching about three weeks ago for jazz musicians and bands to recreate the 1960's club scene!
The Imagine & Fox Studio pilot, “The Playboy Club," directed by ALAN TAYLOR (Mad Men, Sex in the City) is searching for males to be cast as Musicians. It's the 1960's all over again! True to the times and the look of the Playboy Club we require the following to be considered for these paid, non-speaking extra roles: Male musicians, ages 18 and up, all ethnicities, with instruments to work as a jazz band (playing instruments to recorded playback for a club scene). Pay rate is TBD for this project. If chosen this would include a wardrobe fitting, rehearsals, and the shoot itself. Jeff Hephner has been cast to play the club's founder, Hugh Hefner.
They will be shooting in mid-March for approximately 13 days. The band would need to be available for a set number of days (TBD) for the shoot. They will not be shooting on Saturdays or Sundays. It may be a little late but, if interested, please send photos (ASAP) of yourself and your instrument with your band or without to: [email protected] in the subject of the e-mail put “Jazz musician." Needed is height, weight, clothing sizes, age and experience. PLEASE INCLUDE PHONE NUMBER. If you have pictures of yourself playing on stage all the better!
The jazz connection of course is that the original house band was the jazz-laden Joe Iaco Trio, comprised of Joe Iaco on piano (passed in 2005), Ernest Outlaw on violin bass (passed in 2003), and Chuck Christiansen on drums (one of several). Iaco was the musical director for the club putting in 25 years there.
Another bit of trivia, the darling petite red-head, Lynn, the greeter during weekdays at the door of Andy's Jazz Club at State and Hubbard in The Loop, did a stint at the Chicago Playboy Club as The Photo Bunny! Here is a link to the “Ex-Playboy Bunnies" site to look up those former Bunnies and former employees from the club's past days and to check out the History of the Bunny.
Hefner got the idea for the key-club format from one that was already established in Chicago, The Gaslight Club (which still exists as the lounge/restaurant at the O'Hare Hilton). The first Playboy Club opened in Chicago on 116 E. Walton Street. The doors opened for the first time on the leap year night of February 29th, 1960. Paradise on Earth had arrived. Read more about that famous night in Playboy's own 40th Anniversary Tribute.
Of course being born the year Playboy came into being, JAZZzology editor Richard Watters, Jr. (a chip off the old block) made the 50th Anniversary Party back in 2003 to celebrate his birthday! He's pictured sitting with two Bunnies on Hef's original round bed, not to mention posing with 2001's Bunny Of The Year. 'NufSed.
