The Katz Meow 04-21-11

HEAD: Playboy is a Horse of a Different Color

DECK: Claire Sinclair is hot to trot in Crazy Horse once again

Claire Sinclair is a young woman who is “posed” for success.

She was not only the October 2010 Playmate of the Month, as well as the August, September-October 2010 Playboy Pin-Up of the Month, but she also made her first-ever guest appearance in MGM Grand's Crazy Horse Paris last October as well. Now she’ll take the guest reins once again in the show from April 20-27, where audiences will have the opportunity to see her in numerous burlesque stances

Claire Sinclair

“There's a lot of ballet in Crazy Horse and I've never performed dance before,” the 19-year-old Sinclair, who is currently also appearing in E! Network’s Holly World and is also the face of the trendy Bettie Page Clothing line, says. “The girls in the show are all classically trained and have been doing ballet since they were kids. Posing is a series of poses – it’s something that has always come naturally to me so they're letting me focus on that in the show rather than dancing.

“'Crazy Horse is burlesque and very vintage,” she continues. “Even my Playboy shoot was vintage-inspired. The 40s-60s eras are of particular interest to me but even if I'm thrust into a dress from the art deco era or from the turn of the century or surrounded by 1920's architecture, it's almost like deja vu for me. Those feelings bring me back to that vintage era, as in my Playboy shoot, and it's a lot more fun and interesting for me.”

Sinclair is truly excited about appearing again in the show, which focuses on “l'art de nude” and on the raw beauty and talent of the girls, and says that she has always wanted to do cabaret. She says she has no reservations about appearing topless in the revue, calling it “the art of the tease,” and says that doing it appealed to her because it's not “in-your-face nudity.” She finds the show classic and classy in every way and will appear in the same four vignettes she performed in last time. Admittedly, she was very nervous the first night of her debut last October because her family, Hugh Hefner and some of her Playmate friends, including ex-Playmate Holly Madison, were in the audience and she didn’t want to let anyone down. But the evening – and her whole engagement – went off without a hitch.

“I was always surrounded by pin-up,” says Sinclair. “I have always loved the paintings of Olivia, who took over for Vargas and paints the pin-up artist every month for Playboy. It was my dream to be painted by her. My dad knew her husband and he had a meeting at her house and wanted me to come. He told me to dress up like a pin-up doll and see if she would be interested in painting me.

“So I did, even though I felt ridiculous,” she continues. “I was dressed like I was going to the prom, with the hair and makeup, too. Olivia and her husband answered the door in their pajamas and were looking at me like, what the hell? I was embarrassed and the two hours we were there were excruciating for me. Before we left, Olivia asked my dad how old I was. He said 18 and she responded that she had never painted anybody that young because a girl that age wouldn't know how to pose in front of a camera.”

As it turned out, De Bernardinis called the next day and asked Sinclair to do a test shoot. That night, she told Sinclair she was going to paint her and invited the teenager to Movie Night at the Playboy Mansion, which takes place every Sunday. It was there that Hugh Hefner approached Sinclair with a pen and paper and asked for her name and number. The next day, she got a call from Playboy asking her to do a test shoot. Sinclair found out that she was going to be the October 2010 Playmate a month later, in November 2009.

As for Playboy, Sinclair, who has modeled jeans and other things since she was 14, says that she is comfortable posing nude and that she is uninhibited.

“All I have to worry about is my body and how it looks,” she explains. ”It's an aspect that makes modeling easier because I don't have to worry about the clothes and how they look.”

Sinclair, who makes her home in the Bunny House across the street from the Playboy Mansion, says that her parents support her in whatever she does. She also notes that she and the other Playmates at the house are all friends but that they are not girlfriends of Hugh Hefner. Sinclair has a boyfriend who is part of the Playboy family and Hef has a girlfriend living at the mansion with him, a Playboy Playmate named Crystal Harris.

“Hef is sweet and funny and every good adjective you can think of,” Sinclair expresses. “He's still incredibly sharp. You would never know he's 84. He's incredibly protective of us and doesn't want anything bad for any of us girls. He's even a little more protective of me because I'm so young. I'm the youngest Playmate right now.”

Sinclair says that Hef is helping to open doors for her and that she wants to be a big name in pin-up, desiring it to lead her into other areas of entertainment as well.

“I have some dreams,” she admits. “Maybe I'll be the voice of a cartoon character or the host of a show like Access Hollywood. Or maybe I'll act. I would like to do a PETA ad or an ad for MAC makeup or for Guess jeans. Hopefully, I can do at least one of those. I have a lot of interests and I don't know where they're going to take me.”

Perhaps to a different stage of her career, just like the one at MGM Grand Crazy Horse Paris.

This article appears by courtesy of Vegas Insider Daily.com.