Hugh Hefner

Hugh Hefner
Hefner attending Glamourcon #50, Long Beach, California, on November 13, 2010
Born	Hugh Marston Hefner (1926-04-09)April 9, 1926 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Alma mater	Steinmetz High School University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (B.A.)
Occupation	Magazine publisher
Known for	Editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine, chief creative officer of Playboy Enterprises
Home town	Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Political party	Independent
Board member of	Playboy Enterprises
Spouse(s)	Mildred Williams (m. 1949; div. 1959) Kimberley Conrad (m. 1989; div. 2010) Crystal Harris (m. 2012)
Partner(s)	Barbi Benton (1969–76) Brande Roderick (2000–01) Holly Madison (2001–08) Bridget Marquardt (2002–09) Kendra Wilkinson (2004–08)
Children	4, including Christie Hefner
Website	Playboy.com

Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American "men's lifestyle" magazine publisher, businessman, and playboy. He was best known for publishing numerous photographs and videos of partially or completely nude women in various tasteful or fantasy-like settings; usually softly lit, slightly out of focus, and airbrushed. Hefner was a native of Chicago, Illinois, and a former journalist for Esquire, before becoming the founder and chief creative officer of Playboy Enterprises. A multi-millionaire, his net worth at the time of his death was over $43 million due to his success as the founder of Playboy. Hefner was also a political activist who supported numerous progressive social and cultural causes, though his work has recently been condemned what with the increasing radicalization of the political left, otherwise known as "The Great Awokening." He has also been condemned by the "woke" for views and actions that were considered politically correct at the time, but are now considered less politically correct.

Through his publications and public persona, Hefner became one of the Western world's greatest proponents for the practice of serial monogamy, whereby men of all ages were encouraged to have promiscuous sex with numerous young women. In reality, this practice more resembled a limited form of polygamy, where approximately 20% of the highest-status men have 80% of unmarried sexual intercourse. As such, Hefner's main contribution to the USA's sexual culture was to increase the country's apparent male surplus, thereby also increasing the demand for masturbation aids among the men unable to partake in the Playboy lifestyle.

Early life and education

Hefner was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 9, 1926. He is the first child of Grace Caroline (née Swanson; 1895–1997) and Glenn Lucius Hefner (1896–1976), who both worked as teachers. His parents were from Nebraska. He had a younger brother, Keith (1929–2016). Hefner's mother was of Swedish descent, and his father had German and English ancestry. Through his father's line, Hefner stated that he was a direct descendant of Plymouth governor William Bradford. He described his family as "conservative, Midwestern, [and] Methodist". Though he was frequently claimed to be Jewish-American, no evidence has been found for this.

He attended Sayre Elementary School and Steinmetz High School, then during World War II, served as a writer for a military newspaper in the U.S. Army from 1944 to 1946, making him a US military veteran. Hefner graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign with a bachelor of arts in psychology and a double minor in creative writing and art in 1949, earning his degree in two and a half years. After graduation, he took a semester of graduate courses in sociology at Northwestern University but dropped out soon after.

Career

Hefner with his trademark Playboy Pipe in 1966

While he was working as a copywriter for Esquire, Hefner left in January 1952 after being denied a $5 raise. In 1953, he took out a mortgage, generating a bank loan of $600, and raised $8,000 from 45 investors, including $1,000 from his mother ("Not because she believed in the venture," he told E! in 2006, "but because she believed in her son."), to launch Playboy, which was initially going to be called Stag Party. The first issue, published in December 1953, featured Marilyn Monroe from her 1949 nude calendar shoot and sold over 50,000 copies. (Hefner, who never met Monroe, bought the crypt next to hers at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in 1992 for $75,000.)

After the Charles Beaumont science fiction short story "The Crooked Man" was rejected by Esquire magazine in 1955, Hefner agreed to publish it in Playboy. The story highlighted straight men being persecuted in a world where homosexuality was the norm. After the magazine received angry letters, Hefner wrote a response to criticism where he said, "If it was wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society then the reverse was wrong, too." In 1961, Hefner watched Dick Gregory perform at the Herman Roberts Show Bar in Chicago. Based on that performance, Hefner hired Gregory to work at the Chicago Playboy Club; Gregory attributed the subsequent launch of his career to that night.

On June 4, 1963, Hefner was arrested for promoting obscene literature after an issue of Playboy featuring nude shots of Jayne Mansfield was released. The case went to trial and resulted in a hung jury.

In the 1993 The Simpsons episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled", Hefner guest-voiced himself. In 1999, Hefner financed the Clara Bow documentary, Discovering the It Girl. "Nobody has what Clara had. She defined an era and made her mark on the nation," he stated. Hefner guest-starred as himself in a 2006 episode of Seth Green's Robot Chicken on the late-night programming block Adult Swim. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television and has made several movie appearances as himself. In 2009, he received a "worst supporting actor" nomination for a Razzie award 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."

A documentary by Brigitte Berman, Hugh 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 on The Girls Next Door, a reality series that ran for six seasons (2005–2009) and 90 episodes.

Personal life

File:Holly Madison 6.jpg

Hefner with his then-partners Holly Madison (left) and Bridget Marquardt, 2007

In 1949, Hefner married Northwestern University student Mildred ("Millie") Williams, who was also born in 1926. They had two children: daughter Christie Hefner (born 1952) and son David (born 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." A 2006 E! True Hollywood Story profile of Hefner revealed that Mildred allowed him to have sex with other women, out of guilt for her infidelity and in the fond hope that it would preserve their marriage. The two were divorced in 1959.

Hefner remade himself as a bon viveur and man about town, a lifestyle he promoted in his magazine and two TV shows he hosted, Playboy's Penthouse (1959–1960) and Playboy After Dark (1969–1970). He admitted to being "'involved' with maybe eleven out of twelve months' worth of Playmates" during some of these years. Donna Michelle, Marilyn Cole, Lillian Müller, Shannon Tweed, Barbi Benton, Karen Christy, Sondra Theodore, and Carrie Leigh — who filed a $35 million palimony suit against him — were a few of his many lovers. In 1971, he acknowledged that he experimented in bisexuality. Also in 1971, Hefner established a second residence in Los Angeles with the acquisition of Playboy Mansion West and, in 1975, moved there permanently from Chicago.

Hefner had a minor stroke in 1985 at the age of 59. After re-evaluating his lifestyle, he made several changes. The wild, all-night parties were toned down significantly and in 1988, daughter Christie began to run the Playboy empire. The following year, he married Playmate of the Year Kimberley Conrad; they were thirty-six years apart in age. The couple had two sons: Marston Glenn (born 1990) and Cooper Bradford (born 1991). The E! True Hollywood Story profile noted that the notorious Playboy Mansion had been transformed into a family-friendly homestead. After he and Conrad separated in 1998, she moved into a house next door to the mansion.

In January 2009, Hefner started dating Crystal Harris, joining the Shannon Twins after his previous "number one girlfriend", Holly Madison, had ended their 7-year relationship. On December 24, 2010, he became engaged to Harris, to become his third wife. Harris broke off their engagement on June 14, 2011, five days before their planned wedding. In anticipation of the wedding, the July issue of Playboy, which reached store shelves and customer's homes within days of the wedding date, 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". It was later covered on newsstand issues with a sticker that read "Runaway Bride". The two later reconciled, and on December 31, 2012, Harris and Hefner married at the Playboy Mansion in a small private ceremony; he was 86 and she was 26.

His younger brother Keith succumbed to cancer at the age of 87, one day before Hefner's 90th birthday.

Playboy Mansion

Main article: Playboy Mansion

Hefner became known for moving an ever-changing coterie of young women into the Playboy Mansion, including twins Sandy and Mandy Bentley. He dated as many as seven women concurrently. He also dated Brande Roderick, Izabella St. James, Tina Marie Jordan, Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt, and Kendra Wilkinson. Madison, Wilkinson and Marquardt appeared on The Girls Next Door depicting their lives at the Playboy Mansion. In October 2008, all three girls decided to leave the mansion. Hefner soon began dating his new "Number One" girlfriend, Crystal Harris, along with identical twin models Kristina and Karissa Shannon. The relationship with the twins ended in January 2010. After an 11-year separation, Hefner filed for divorce from Conrad, citing irreconcilable differences. Hefner has stated that he only remained nominally married to her for the sake of his children, and his youngest child had just turned 18. The divorce was finalized in March 2010. On December 24, 2010, Hefner presented an engagement ring to Crystal Harris, publicly announcing the proposal the following day. Hefner and Harris had planned to marry June 18, 2011. Harris called off the wedding just 5 days before they were due to be wed. Twenty-six-year-old Harris and eighty-six-year-old Hefner reconciled and were married on December 31, 2012.

In 2012, Hefner announced that his youngest son, Cooper, would likely succeed him as the public face of Playboy.

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. It was later sold to Daren Metropoulos, a principal at private equity firm Metropoulos & Co, for $100 million. Metropoulos plans to reconnect the 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.

Politics and philanthropy

The Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award was created by Christie Hefner "to honor individuals who have made significant contributions in the vital effort to protect and enhance First Amendment rights for Americans."

He donated and raised money for the Democratic Party and other left-wing and progressive causes. More recently he referred to himself as an independent due to disillusionment with both the Democratic and Republican parties. However, in 2012 he supported Barack Obama's reelection campaign. In 2016, he was pleased at the Republican Party's willingness to nominate Donald Trump over more puritan candidates, but at the end of his life he allegedly regretted putting Trump on the cover of Playboy, due to Trump's political incorrectness.

In 1978, Hefner helped organize fund-raising efforts that led to the restoration of the Hollywood Sign. He hosted a gala fundraiser at the Playboy Mansion and personally contributed $27,000 (or 1/9 of the total restoration costs) by purchasing the letter Y in a ceremonial auction.

Hefner donated $100,000 to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts to create a course called "Censorship in Cinema", that analyzed cultural censorship against generally left-wing causes, and $2 million to endow a chair for the study of American film.

Both through his charitable foundation and individually, Hefner also contributed to charities outside the sphere of politics and publishing, throwing fundraiser events for Much Love Animal Rescue as well as Generation Rescue, a controversial anti-vaccinationist campaign organization supported by Jenny McCarthy.

On November 18, 2010, Children of the Night founder and president Dr. Lois Lee presented Hefner with the organization's first-ever "Founder's Hero of the Heart Award" in appreciation for his "unwavering dedication, commitment and generosity" in favor of mainstream liberal causes. 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 famed vista of the Hollywood Sign. Sylvilagus palustris hefneri, an endangered subspecies of Marsh rabbit, is named after him in honor of financial support that he provided.

Hefner supported legalizing same-sex marriage, and he claimed that the fight for gay marriage was a fight for "all our" rights, adding that "Without it, we will turn back the sexual revolution and return to an earlier, puritanical time."

Death

Hefner died at his home in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, California on September 27, 2017, at the age of 91. The causes were cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, sepsis and an E. coli infection.

He is interred at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, in the $75,000 crypt beside Marilyn Monroe. "Spending eternity next to Marilyn is an opportunity too sweet to pass up," Hefner had told the Los Angeles Times in 2009.

Criticism

After his death, left-wing journalists praised Hefner's commitment to female rights and empowerment, and his strong support of feminism. However, they criticized him for not doing enough to discourage lower-status men from practicing sexual harassment and other forms of unwanted sexual contact with women; this message being only indirectly incorporated in many Playboy articles.

In The Guardian, journalist Suzanne Moore claimed Hefner threatened to sue her for calling him a "pimp". Moore argued that "he was a man who bought and sold women to other men". "Hefner's business acumen was to make the selling of female flesh respectable and hip, to make soft porn acceptable."

Writing for The Independent, Julie Bindel stated that Hefner "caused immeasurable damage" by turning "the buying and selling of women’s bodies – into a legitimate business." Writing for Christianity Today, Missiologist Ed Stetzer wrote that during his lifetime, when Christie Hefner visited the Playboy Mansion, he would have the residence systematically cleaned in order "to keep the realities from his own daughter". Stezer further lamented the consequences of Hefner's role as a "general" of the sexual revolution:

It’s hard to fathom that anyone would have known what this would have turned into. Parents growing up today are fighting to keep their children pure. Spouses are fighting to keep their marriages intact. And many enslaved and trapped in the adult entertainment industry have been figuratively and literally stripped not only of their clothes, but their very value as people made in the image of God. If this does not concern us, what will?

Hefner's former girlfriend Holly Madison accepted his polygamous lifestyle while she lived in the Playboy Mansion, but complained that Hefner "would encourage competition—and body image issues—between his multiple live-in girlfriends."

External links

• Hugh M. Hefner Foundation
• Hugh Hefner on Playboy.com
• Hugh Hefner at the Internet Movie Database
• Hugh Hefner: The Ultimate Lifestyle Entrepreneur (About.com Entrepreneurs)
• Hugh Hefner on Biography.com.
• Hugh Hefner interview from 1966