The Playboy “Guru”

The Playboy “Guru”
@Asim Deb

The article is dedicated to the Indian Playboy Guruji, Sangjoni Saha.

Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American magazine publisher, who was the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles, successfully establishing the Playboy brand into a world network of Playboy Clubs. He then built a luxury mansion where the “Playboy Playmates” could enjoy his wild partying life, fueling media and common peoples’ interest.

After his basic education from Sayre Elementary School and Steinmetz High School, he served as the US Army Writer from 1944 to 1946 for a military newspaper. Then he graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (Bachelor of Arts, in Psychology) in 1949 and a double minor in creative writing and art, earning his degree in two and a half years. In the spring of 1950, he took a semester of graduate courses in Sociology but dropped out soon after.

In January 1952, Hefner left his job as a copywriter for Esquire magazine as he was denied a $5 raise. In 1953, he took out a mortgage loan of $600 and raised $8,000 from 45 investors (including $1,000 from his mother” to launch his Playboy magazine, which was initially called Stag Party. The first issue was published in December 1953 featuring Marilyn Monroe, copied from a 1949 nude calendar shoot that she did under a pseudonym. The issue used her previously unpublished nude calendar photograph who also appeared (in clothing) on the cover. That first issue sold more than 50,000 copies, but Monroe was not paid for the photos. Hefner never met Monroe, but in the year 1992 he bought the crypt next to hers at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery for $75,000.). The Playboy founder died on 31st December 2012 and was cremated next to that of Marilyn Monroe, the woman who appeared on the very first cover of his magazine in 1953.

“Jay Leno suggested that if I was going to spend that kind of money, I should actually be on top of her,” Hefner said in a 2000 Playboy interview. “But to me there’s something rather poetic in the fact that we’ll be buried in the same place. And that cemetery also has other meanings and connections for me. Friends like Buddy Rich and Mel Torme are buried there. So is Dorothy Stratten.”

Playboy, aimed at men, thus became the first to present female nudity and sexual contents in a so called sophisticated format.

In 1953, a time when states could legally ban contraceptives, when the word “pregnant” was not allowed on I Love Lucy, Hefner published the first issue of Playboy, featuring naked photos of Marilyn Monroe and an editorial promise of “humor, sophistication and spice.” The Great Depression and World War II were over and America was ready to get undressed.

Esquire magazine rejected Charles Beaumont’s science fiction story “The Crooked Man” in 1955, so Hefner agreed to publish in Playboy. It highlighted straight men being persecuted in a world where homosexuality was the norm. On receiving angry criticism, Hefner responded, “If it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society then the reverse was wrong, too.” In 1961, Hefner found Dick Greogory performing at the Herman Roberts Show Bar in Chicago, and he hired Gregory to work at the Chicago Playboy Club. Gregory attributed the launch of his career to that night.

Hefner promoted a “bon vivant” lifestyle in his magazine and television shows, Playboy’s Penthouse (1959-60), and Playboy After Dark (1969-60). He also became the Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprise.

On June 4, 1963, Hefner was arrested for publishing obscene contents in Playboy featuring nude shots of Jayne Mansfield in bed with a man. The case went to trial and resulted in a hung jury.

In the 1960s, Hefner created “private key” clubs that were racially diverse During the civil rights movement of 1966, Hefner sent Alex Haley to interview American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell, much to Rockwell’s shock because Haley was black. Rockwell agreed to meet with Haley only after gaining assurance that he was not Jewish, although Rockwell kept a handgun on the table throughout the interview. In Roots: The Next Generation (1979), the interview was recreated with James Earl Jones as Haley and Marlon Brando as Rockwell. Haley also interviewed Malcom X in 1963 and Martin Luther King, Jr in 1966 for “playboy interview”.

From 1950s to the early ‘70s, Playboy Circulation (including subscription and newsstand sales) and advertising revenues steadily increased, reaching 7.2 million copies sold in November 1972 and average sales of 5.6 million copies per issue in 1975. In the 1980s, however, the magazine’s readership declined steeply, partly because the sexual contents were rendering its image less daring and less provocative and also because of new competition from Penthouse, which featured more-explicit nude photography.

In 1971, Hefner moved to The Playboy Mansion, also known as the Playboy Mansion West and lived there until his death in 2017. Barbi Benton could convince Hefner to buy the home located at Los Angeles, near Beverly Hills.

From the 1970s onward, the mansion became the location of lavish parties which were often attended by celebrities and socialites. After he permanently relocated to California in 1975, his company eventually let the mansion for a nominal rent to the School of Art Institute of Chicago and then donated it to the school outright. The school later sold the mansion, which was then redeveloped for luxury condominiums. It is currently owned by billionaire investor Daren Metropoulos.

In his later years, Hefner’s star dimmed, but he remained a well-known personality, often appearing in cameo roles. In 1999, he financed Clara Bow documentary Discovering the It Girl. “Nobody has what Clara had,” he said. “She defined an era and made her mark on the nation.” Hefner guest-starred in the 2000 Sex and The City episodes of “Sex and Another City”. In 2006 episode of Seth Green’s Robot Chicken on late-night programming block Adult Swim, and in 2007 Family Guy episode “Airport 07”. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television and made several movie appearances as himself. In 2009, he was nominated fo a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor for his performance as himself in Miss March. On his official Twitter account, he joked about this nomination: “Maybe I didn’t understand the character.”

Brigitte Berman’s documentary Huge Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel was released on July 30, 2010. He had previously granted full access to documentary filmmaker and television producer Kevin Burns for the A&E Biography special Hugh Hefner: American Playboy in 1996 Hefner and Burns later collaborated on numerous other television projects, most notably The Girls Next Door, a reality series that ran for six seasons (2005–2009) and 90 episodes.

In 1049, he married Northwestern University student Mildred (“Millie”) Williams. They had a daughter Christie (b. 1952) and a son, David (b. 1955). Before the wedding, Mildred confessed that she had an affair while he was away in the army. He called the admission “the most devastating moment of my life.” The couple divorced in 1959. A 2006 E! True Hollywood Story profile of Hefner revealed that Mildred allowed him to have sex with other women.

He admitted to being “‘involved’ with maybe eleven out of twelve months’ worth of Playmates” during some years. Donna Michelle, Marilyn Cole, Lillian Muller, Shannon Tweed, Barbi Benton, Karen Christy, Sondra Theodore, and Carrie Leigh were a few from the list. Leigh had filed a $35 Million palimony suit against him. In 1971 he acknowledged that he experimented in bisexuality.

Other big names that appeared in Playboy include Pamela Anderson, Bettie Page, Carmen Electra, Anna Nicole Smith, Jenny McCarthy, Marge Simpson, Kim Kardashian, and Rochester native Chyna. American President Donald Trump was on the cover in 1990 with Playmate Brandi Brandt.

On March 7, 1985, Hefner had a minor stroke at age 58, whereupon he reevaluated his lifestyle, making several changes. He toned down the wild, all-night parties, and his daughter Christie took over the operation of Playboy’s commercial operations in 1988.

The following year, he married Playmate of the Year Kimberley Conrad; they were 36 years apart in age. The couple had sons Marston Glenn (b. 1990) and Cooper (b. 1991) The E! True Hollywood Story profile noted that the Playboy Mansion had been transformed into a family-friendly homestead. But in 1988, they were separated after which she moved into the house next door to the mansion Hefner filed for divorce from Conrad in 2009 after an 11-year separation, citing irreconcilable differences He stated that he only remained nominally married to her for the sake of their children and their youngest child had just turned 18. The divorce was finalized in 2010.

Hefner became known for his ever-changing coterie of young women into the Playboy Mansion, including twins Mandy and Sandy Bentley. He concurrently dated as many as seven women. He also dated Brande Roderick, Izabella St. James, Tina Marie Jordan, Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt, and Kendra Wilkinson. Madison, Wilkinson, and Marquardt appeared in The Girls Next Door depicting their lives at the Playboy Mansion. In October 2008, all three of them decided to leave the mansion.

After the end of his seven year relationship with his previous “Number One Girlfriend” Holly Madison, in January 2009, Hefner began a relationship with Crystal Harris, she joined Shannon Twins. On December 24, 2010, Hefner became engaged to Harris, but she broke off their engagement on June 14, 2011, five days before their planned wedding. The July issue of Playboy reached store shelves within days of the wedding date; it featured Harris on the cover, and in a photo spread as well. The headline on the cover read “Introducing America’s Princess, Mrs. Crystal Hefner”. Hefner and Harris subsequently reconciled and married on December 31, 2012.

After Hefner’s death at the age of 91, Crystal said, “He was an American hero. A pioneer. A kind and humble soul who opened up his life and home to the world. I felt how much he loved me. I loved him so much. I am so grateful. He gave me life. He gave me direction. He taught me kindness. I will feel eternally grateful to have been by his side, holding his hand, and telling him how much I love him.” The 31-year-old adds, “He changed my life, he saved my life. He made me feel loved every single day. He was a beacon to the world, a force unlike anything else. There never has and never will be another Hugh M. Hefner.”

In January 2016, the Playboy Mansion was put on the market for $200 million, on condition that Hugh Hefner would continue to work and live in the mansion. Later that year it was sold to Daren Metropoulos for $100 million. Metropoulos planned to reconnect Playboy Mansion property with a neighboring estate that he purchased in 2009, combining the two for a 7.3-acre (3-hectare) compound as his own private residence.

In May 2017, Eugena Washington was the last Playmate of the Year to be announced by Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.

In charity, Hefner donated $100,000 to the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts to create a course “Censorship in Cinema”, and $2 million to endow a chair for the study of American film. In 2007, the university’s audiovisual archive at the Norris Theater received a donation from Hefner and was renamed to the Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive in his honor. On April 26, 2010, Hefner donated the last $900,000 sought by a conservation group for a land purchase needed to stop the development of the vista of the Hollywood Sign.

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