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How Hugh Hefner changed the world
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At 86 years old, Hugh Hefner has legacy on his mind. He has recently been pouring over his scrapbooks, in which he has compiled over 2,000, to find material for a six-volume illustrated biography that will come out next month. Coinciding with Playboy's 56th birthday, only 1500 of these magnum opus' will be sold, with a hefty price tag of $1300.
The first volume will be the most captivating, as we witness Hefner's adolescence growing up in Chicago where his father worked as an accountant and his mother a teacher. Mementos of his past, like his first library card and self-drawn comics and picture illustrate his childhood complete with charming Rockwellesque scenes:
"we see him haunting newsstands, devouring comics; lying on his bedroom floor scratching out his own versions of Jekyll & Hyde for his friends" and "he is charming on the subject of his childhood, sprinkling the story with a confection of period detail: soda fountains and hayrides; ping-pong in the basement; girls named Candy and Betty who he tried to impress by jitterbugging in his 'red flannel shirts, yellow corduroy pants and saddle shoes.'"
In the post World War 2 era, after Hefner had been to college and the army, he waited for a radical cultural change to take place like the 1920's had seen. When the society saw an increased emphases on stability and conservative family life, Hefner wanted to show America a way to tastefully embrace literature, progressive culture, and sexuality.
I just thought there was another way of living a life,” says Hefner. “Under all the conservatism and the repression there was this yearning for something different. That’s the reason the magazine was successful, why people embraced it from the very outset. There were also all these outdoor adventure magazines that advocated healthy pursuits for family men who never dreamed of thrashing through thickets or wading rivers. They sat at home playing cards and watching television.
The first issue of Playboy had a stunning photo of Marilyn Monroe on the cover. After hitting the shelves in December 1953, it sold 53,991 copies on it's first printing. The famous Playboy bunny logo, initially intended to be an endpoint for articles, became so widely known that after just five years a New York reader was able to send a letter to the corporate office with a hand-drawn bunny logo on the front of the envelope. Hefner's editor's letter from the first issue explains Playboy's intentions of light-heartedness and refinement:
“If you’re a man between the ages of 18 and 80, Playboy is meant for you. If you like your entertainment served up with humour, sophistication and spice, Playboy will become a very special favourite… a pleasure-primer styled to the masculine taste… We like our apartment. We enjoy mixing up cocktails and an hors d’oeuvre or two, putting a little mood music on the phonograph and inviting in a female acquaintance for a quiet discussion on Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex.”
There are facets to Hefner's life that are lost to some who solely focus on his extremely young girlfriends and his habit of lounging around his Californian mansion wearing a silk robe and velvet loafers. Throughout the years, he has been affiliated with many humanitarian causes, including "eroding racial boundaries (through the inclusion of black performers in his clubs), and supporting many feminist causes, including abortion rights and the Equal Rights Amendment". Hefner is an avid supported of the First Amendment and donated $100,000 to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts to create a course called "Censorship in Cinema", and $2 million to endow a chair for the study of American film. “We just literally live in a very different world and I played a part in making it that way,” he has said. “Young people have no idea about that".
Two articles on Hefner: here and here
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