Beaumont, Texas, isn't exactly a small town, and she isn't knocking it. But there simply was nothing happening, and it was just about as square as it could be. So, right after she got her diploma from Forest Park High, Victoria Cunningham set out for Dallas. She didn't stay there long - you see, she
... wanted to see the world and enjoy the finer things in life (who doesn't?), and a job as an airline stewardess seemed to offer both; so, after several interviews, she found herself in flight to Los Angeles, where she began training.
A scant two weeks later, it happened. Victoria was hesitant to tell us about it; she didn't want us to write anything bad about her. We figured that whatever it was, it couldn't have been that terrible. Well . . . training regulations were pretty strict. No drinking, no staying out past a certain hour. Which, as you can imagine, weren't the easiest rules in the world to follow. And it was a bottle of champagne one evening that did the trick: "My friend got hold of it, and I kept telling her to lose it somehow - but we all wound up drinking the stuff, and a bunch of girls got thrown out, including yours truly." Looking back now, our heroine doesn't regret that turn of events: "I was the youngest trainee they had, so they'd have probably sent me back where I cam from, anyway, to Dallas or some other second-string base."
Victoria did go back to Texas - but it was just to pick up some belongings. Then she and a pair of girlfriends drove back to L.A., where she had decided to stick it out. And that was a lucky decision - because, about that time, a new Playboy Club was opening in Los Angeles; Victoria turned up in the dragnet we put out for Bunnies, and she's been a favorite at the Club ever since. She's also got her wings, at last - as a Jet Bunny on Hugh M. Hefner's opulently fitted DC-9, the Big Bunny. She's made only one flight so far - to Detroit, for the opening of a new Club there - but in the past year she's done some traveling, after all: to Europe, Tahiti and Maui.
Her companion on these trips was her boyfriend Noel, with whom Victoria lives in Beverly Hills, just off one of the town's boutique-studded main streets. When Victoria isn't working, and when Noel isn't taking care of his own business - he produces TV and radio commercials - they have a lot of things to do together. Such as: playing tennis ("I wish I could say I was good at it. I have been taking lessons, though. But with one thing and another, I haven't been taking many lessons lately."). Or riding their bikes through Beverly Hills. Or shooting pistols. Did we say shooting pistols? "I couldn't understand it at first," says Victoria. "When Noel's friends would go out to the range to shoot, I would just make fun of it. But now I can handle a .45 or .357 magnum. We don't hunt or kill anything; we don't even keep score, really. It's just fun to hit the target." And do you hit it pretty often? "Oh, yes - that's something I'm very good at." No kidding? Well, Victoria, we sure hope you like our write-up.
