How did you become the sexy host of USA Network’s B-movie show Up All Night?
People think I started doing it in the ’80s, but I was on from ’91 until ’98; a few people did it before me, like Gilbert Gottfried. They were looking for a lustier type [laughs]. I was getting typecast as the sexy chick in other roles, that’s why I was doing comedy at the time, to get away from that. But I couldn’t get out of it, so I just went for it.
But watching the show, it was obvious that you were clever and funny. Was it important to you, to show that you were more than a pretty face?
Yeah, I enjoyed getting to use the humor. People that were just flipping through and didn’t actually watch probably thought, “Bimbo.” But anybody who really watched it realized it was smart and funny and ahead of its time.
Making a decision like posing in Playboy, was that empowering for you or did you just consider it a practical sort of career move?
Playboy followed me since 1978 — I was in a piece, “Girls of the New South,” completely clothed. I got in trouble for that. I was still doing pageants, I was stripped of a title. I always had that thing where if people told me I couldn’t or shouldn’t do something, I had to do it.
In ’91, I was doing stand-up, and it was that time where pretty girls weren’t “supposed” be funny. So I went to Playboy with an idea, the girls of comedy, and they went for it … yeah, it was a career move, and flattering, I was 37. It wasn’t like anyone came up to me [after] and offered me the role of a lifetime, but I loved doing it and I’m glad I did it. Playboy has been very good to me, for practically my whole life. And now I’m doing a clothing line with Hugh Hefner’s wife Crystal.
With your lingerie line, do you feel like you’re helping other women to feel sexy? Is that important to you?
Oh my God, yes. What I do, it’s solution lingerie, it’s not one-minute Valentine’s Day lingerie. Shaping garments. So yeah, some women have self-image problems, and I help a lot of women who have had mastectomies or other surgeries, I’ve had a lot of women thank me for saving their self-image. As much as I loved the fun early part of my life, it’s definitely empowering when somebody thanks you for giving back their femininity.
Have your definitions of sexy changed over the years? Do you still find the same things sexy now that you did in your 20s and 30s?
I don’t really think I’ve changed. I’ve always been a curvy girl. Back then, butts weren’t in like they are now. I’ve felt like I’ve had to fight that image of the super-skinny body, or the hardbody. You have to be a flirt, you have to have a sense of humor about your sexuality, your sensuality. I’m not a Fifty Shades of Grey girl, I’m more Fifty Shades of Pink. I like to keep the fun in it. You’ve gotta love who you are. I still feel sexy at my age. My husband and I are still sexy. Do you know the story about me and my husband?
I was going to ask…
We were high school sweethearts, then we broke up, he broke my heart … then 14 years ago, he reached out to me on classmates.com. After dating moguls, stars, rock stars, you name it, I didn’t know if I was ever going to get married, and I was OK with that. But then he stole my heart again. Fifty days after we got back together, we eloped. And then we started this business [Rhonda Shear Intimates] together. So he missed my years of optimal hotness [laughs], but he says I’m still just as hot and he loves me just as much. When you love someone, you don’t see them aging, you just see the person you love.
This article appears in Feb 12-18, 2015.