PROFILE

Cancer brought new meaning
to life of former Playboy bunny

By ELIZABETH GORDON
This Week Contributor

ilingual, vivacious
Nicole St. Denis
has survived the
death of the
mother she adored,
profound anxiety attacks
and breast cancer. Now
she’s an award-winning
college student, profes-

creative craftsperson.

Born in Ottawa, convent-
trained Nicole was swept off her
feet at 17 by a naval officer who
was also studying psychology at
the university. Two sons, Daniel
and Denis, later rounded out the
Ouellette family. Then one day
she answered an ad for Playboy
bunnies.

She laughs about it. “Bunnies
are a dead species. Theyre ex-

sional homemaker and __ tinct now,’ she says.

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The maximum age was 25, so
Nicole had to keep secret her 27
years. Of the 3,000 applicants,
only 127 were chosen. Bunnies
on the job were checked every
day by a “bunny mother” who
examined fingernails, ears and
armpits and checked stockings
for holes. Qualifications for the
Montreal bunnies included
bilingualism and a high level of
education. For a year Nicole en-
dured the tight, boned-waist
costume and three-inch heels,
but made no friends.

“Competitiveness and back-
biting were rife,” she says.

She left to work as a recep-
tionist for a law firm for three
years. It was not until she gave
her notice there that she real-
ized her employers were groom-
ing her for the assistant
personnel manager’s job, which
she is sure she would have liked.
But she'd already accepted a
position at Revlon Cosmetics
and refused to go back on her
word.

She liked training the Revlon
salesclerks at the Bay, Eaton’s
and Simpson’s in cosmetics dis-
play and makeup techniques.
The company manager offered
her a job in which she would
divide her time between Califor-
nia and Europe, but Nicole
declined as it would involve
leaving her husband.

After five years at Revlon, she
undertook the responsibility of
managing three restaurants at
the Ramada Inn in Montreal.
Her mother, an Ottawa-based
RCMP employee, retired but
hated the enforced idleness.
Nicole’s visits to Ottawa every
second weekend became the
focus of her life. Later Nicole
took her mother to the home in
Montreal she shared with her
husband and sons. But her
mother’s “cold that never went
away’ was a symptom of cancer,
which remained undiagnosed
until it was too late. Nicole spent
from 7 a.m. to midnight every

- day at her mother’s side for four

months. Her mother’s death
started Nicole on a downward
spiral. 5

She escaped to Miami where
she acted as social director in a
hotel. She claims that in some
places small packets of cocaine
were offered as casually as tea
or coftee.

“Cocaine was used by some

PLAYBOY BUNNY no longer. Nicole St. Denis found a focus for ¢
her life after she battled breast cancer.

people to keep their weight
down, but I never touched it,”
she said.

Deciding against the Miami
lifestyle, Nicole returned home,
80 pounds heavier. She had no
job, her marriage was over, her

ms had left, her mother was
dead. She suffered from anxiety
and depression.

“T didn’t realize that the weight
was the result of what was
wrong with me; I thought every-
thing was wrong because of the
weight.”

She went on a supervised 30-
day fast. She saw a psychiatrist
and a hypnotherapist, but
“nothing worked.” She'd used up
her savings and was becoming a
recluse, refusing phone calls and

avoiding friends; covered with a
cloud of depression. Then cagte
the dream.

“It was about 3 a.m. when I
dreamed my mother said to me,
‘Nicole, there is something
wrong with your left breast.’

Turning on the light, I saw a
lump the size of an egg.”

A lumpectomy and more than 4
ayear of chemotherapyremoved ~
the cancer, but her thick hair
came out in clumps. Fortunate-
ly, she had such an abundant
thatch that any thinning is not
now evident. Throughout the or-
deal Nicole forced herself to
walk every day.

A social worker at the Cancer
Clinic at Montreal advised

Continued on Page 7

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