Hugh Hefner: “I wanted to publish a men’s magazine because ‘lots of sex’ has been my dream since I was a teenager.” Since Playboy's first issue in 1953, hundreds of stars have appeared on its covers.
“Publishing a men's magazine seemed like the best opportunity for me to fulfill my dream, which I had had since I was a teenager, to have a lot of sex,” Hugh Hefner once said. He released the first Playboy magazine in 1953, and one of the most famous women of all time, Marilyn Monroe, appeared on the cover. Since then, hundreds of stars have appeared on the covers of Playboy. Some of them fought for the opportunity to undress for the scandalous magazine, others tried with all their might to avoid it.
1953: Marilyn Monroe became the very first Playboy cover model. The magazine with her photograph was published 22 times in 13 countries - from Romania to Taiwan.
1977: Barbra Streisand appeared on the cover of Playboy for the first and only time shortly after her song "Evergreen" won her second Academy Award.
1978: Singer Dolly Parton made one Playboy cover the same year that her twentieth album, Heartbreaker, was released.
1978: Actress Farrah Fawcett was featured on 15 Playboy covers in ten countries, including four in the United States. In 1995, Playboy, with 48-year-old Farrah on the cover, became the best-selling magazine of the decade.
1985: Madonna graced the covers of Playboy in ten countries, including several times in Spain.
1989: La Toya Jackson appeared on the cover of Playboy 24 times in 15 countries, including twice in the United States.
1989: Pamela Anderson graced the cover of Playboy 151 times in 31 countries, including 12 times in the United States between 1989 and 2007. In addition, she became the first Playmate - a model featured in the magazine's centerfold.
1993. Actress Anna Nicole Smith was on the cover of the famous men's magazine 47 times in 20 countries, including five times in the United States.
1995. Drew Barrymore graced the cover of Playboy in ten countries, from Japan to Russia.
1999. Charlize Theron appeared on the covers of Playboy three times in Japan and the United States. The magazine with her photograph was bought in incredible quantities - 100,000 copies in the USA alone.
1999. Black Panther - Naomi Campbell - graced the Playboy Christmas issue. Her photo was published on 18 covers in 16 countries.
2003: Carmen Electra appeared in Playboy 44 times in 21 countries, including three times in the United States between 2000 and 2009. It is believed that it was this magazine that made her famous.
2004: Denise Richards was a Playboy cover model in six countries. The actress posed for the American version of the magazine just five months after giving birth to her second child.
2005: Actress Jenny McCarthy appeared on the cover of Playboy 32 times in 14 countries, including six times in the United States, most recently in 2012 - shortly before her 40th birthday.
2005. The famous heiress and socialite Paris Hilton was on the Slovak and American covers of Playboy.
2006. Jessica Alba appeared on the cover of Playboy once in the USA and Japan. For the American cover, a photograph of the actress from a promotional shoot for the film “Welcome to Heaven!” was used. Jessica Alba filed a lawsuit, claiming that she did not consent to the use of the photo. The lawsuit was dropped after Hugh Hefner agreed to make a large donation to the charity of the actress's choice.
2007: Mariah Carey graced the cover of Playboy for the only time that year, when her 11th album “E = MC²” was released, which equaled the singer's popularity with Elvis Presley.
2007. Playboy with Kim Kardashian on the cover was published shortly after the premiere of her reality show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”
2009. Comedian Chelsea Handler made one Playboy cover the same year when she appeared in Maxim magazine's Hot 100. A magazine with her photo was published shortly after the publication of her best-selling book “Vodka, are you there? It's me, Chelsea."
2010: Film actress Tara Reid appeared on the cover of Playboy in nine countries, from Colombia to Slovakia and Lithuania.
2012. Lindsay Lohan covers Playboy in five countries. The photographers were inspired to shoot for the American version of the magazine by the image of Marilyn Monroe from the very first cover of Playboy.
2013. Kate Moss graced the 60th anniversary issue of Playboy magazine. The 39-year-old model appeared on the cover in the image of the branded bunny, the Playboy mascot.
The history of the creation of the famous magazine “for adults” began in 1953.
The cover of the very first issue of Playboy featured the young actress Jean Mortenson, later known as Marilyn Monroe. The pilot issue of the magazine did not have a cover number because creator Hugh Hefner doubted that the first issue would be followed by a second.
From Stag Party to Playboy
Hefer created the layout of the first issue while sitting in the kitchen of his apartment. Hugh borrowed money from his mother to publish the first issue - $1000.
The magazine was originally called "Stag Party"(“Bachelor Party”), but the young publisher had to change the name in order to avoid competition with the then existing magazine “Stag Magazine”. The current name "Playboy" comes from a small car dealership where an acquaintance of Hugh Hefner worked.
According to the creator's idea, the main feature of the new magazine was a centerfold photograph of a beautiful girl, which the reader could hang on his wall.
For the first spread of the legendary Playboy, Hefner bought a photograph of the then unknown actress Jean Mortenson from his friend for $50 and placed it on the cover.
Hefner did the magazine's advertising manually. He bombarded various publishing houses with letters, in which he assured that serious people from the then-famous men's magazine Esquire were behind the new publication. Hugh actually worked at Esquire in the advertising department, but quit due to management’s refusal to increase his salary.
The independent publishing chain Empire News Co responded to one of Hefner's letters and agreed to publish a pilot issue of Playboy. Priced at half a dollar, the magazine sold out 52 thousand copies! For Hefner it was a success. Using the proceeds from the profits, he continued his business.
Since 1955, the magazine has had a permanent column “Girl of the Month”. The idea of publishing centerfold pictures not of Hollywood beauties, but of ordinary “neighbor girls” turned out to be revolutionary for that time. Subsequently, it was thanks to filming in the magazine that many actresses and models gained success in Hollywood.
7 years after the release of the first issue of Playboy, Hefner opens his own club under a famous brand in Chicago. Incomes were growing. Within a year, similar clubs opened in New Orleans and New York.
Entrance to the club cost $25. Visitors were treated to a cabaret show, a bar and jazz music. The main attraction of the establishment was considered "Bunny Girls" dressed in tight bodysuits and adorned with bunny tails and ears.
By the mid-60s, about 30 Playboy clubs had opened across America.
In addition to naked beauties, the magazine featured interviews with famous personalities of the time. Over the years, interviews with Vladimir Nabokov, Andy Warhol, Fidel Castro, stories were published Stephen King, Stanislaw Lem and many others.
The creator of Playboy himself has said more than once that he does not consider his brainchild a magazine about sex, but rather about a lifestyle.
At the age of 92, the founder of the legendary men's magazine Playboy, Hugh Hefner. He spent his last hours in his Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, surrounded by his family and closest people.
At the beginning of 2016, the publishing house "Planet" published a book by Russian journalist Alexander Pumpyansky entitled "Roller Coaster". The author traveled around the United States during Soviet times. He managed to see the country at a turning point, in the most intense and turbulent decades of the twentieth century.
"Komsomolskaya Pravda" published excerpts from an essay dedicated to Hugh Hefner, the owner of "Playboy", who entered the minds of millions of men as that ideal, cheerful, cheerful and luxurious Playboy with a capital P.
It all started with a nude photo of Marilyn Monroe
In September 1952, Hefner wrote a letter:
"Dear friend!
Lately... I've been busy over my head preparing a deal that will bring money to you and me. Stag party - a completely new magazine for men - will be published this autumn. The first issue of Stag party will feature a photo of Marilyn Monroe from the famous calendar - in color! In fact, each issue of Stag party will contain an amazing, full-page color photo of a naked girl - in the richest and most natural colors...
Yours cordially
Hugh Hefner, general manager."
The letter was addressed to the 25 largest distributors of magazine products in the United States. Quite a cheeky letter. Hefner was 26 years old, he had absolutely nothing in his soul - no editorial office, no money. There wasn’t even the name “Playboy” yet, but there was a rather stupid Stag party (stag - elk, bachelor, party - party, together some kind of “porn-hoofed party”). But it turned out that he had an idea and it would take off in such a way that the most successful project in the history of American media would be born.
The cheeky letter to the publishers, oddly enough, turned out to be realistic. It already stated the formula of the publication, which will remain unchanged: brilliant full-color, full-blooded, full-length female figures plus high-quality liberal journalism.
And the jackpot was announced - a nude photo of Marilyn Monroe.
American Postal Service vs. Playboy
The math behind this trade is worth reproducing. Three years ago, in 1949, the aspiring actress was photographed by a professional Los Angeles photographer. “I had nothing on me but radio waves,” Marilyn would later tell Life magazine in her inimitable manner. The photographer sold the entire photo shoot - 3 nude poses plus 3 half-naked ones - to Hefner for $500, who bought similar shoots for future use. But when Monroe's first film came out, he decided it was time. Production costs cost another $600. Hefner will release his “sexiest” and previously unpublished photograph; he will call it “Golden Dream.” “I just don’t know how much this photograph can be valued at,” he will say later.
The first issue of Playboy sold 50,000 copies, something Hefner never counted on. It was almost a vertical takeoff...
The post office flatly refused to deliver the “obscene” magazine. It was a punch in the gut. Backed up against the wall, Playboy sued, accusing her of violating the First Amendment. Mail vs. Playboy. “Pornography” versus “freedom of speech” - the process turned out to be louder than ever. By winning, Hefner not only saved the magazine's distribution channels, he raised Playboy to an ideological pedestal.
In 1956, Playboy surpassed its main rival, Esquire magazine, in circulation. By 1959, the coveted million copies were reached.
In 1971, when I found myself at the Playboy mansion, its monthly circulation was 7 million copies.
The photographs in the magazine became more and more perfect. The magazine has developed its own nude culture, its own approach and choice. Of course, showing, say, Pamela Anderson in all her glory was a matter of honor for Playboy, and she appeared on the center spread 13 (!) times, at different times in her life, each time demonstrating the enduring perfection of her figure - a very clear lesson in resilience. But more often it was not goddesses, fatal beauties or vamps who were selected. The heroine of "Playboy" was the "girl next door."
The world's largest rotating bed
1971 1340 North State Parkway is one of the most famous addresses in Chicago. An impressive four-story mansion. English Victorian style. The walls must contain the shadows of famous guests, including Teddy Roosevelt and Admiral Peary. The procedure is like entering Ali Baba's cave... ceilings with frescoes of flowers, fireplaces of Italian marble. Above one of them is "Nude" by Picasso. Fountains and even caves... They talk about secret doors, sliding walls, secret passages. A special place in the house is occupied by a cinema room with a screen like in a real cinema. All seats are pre-assigned - depending on proximity to the Master, who appears last, certainly in silk pajamas, to occupy something indistinguishable from the throne.
The Playboy mansion is a location for filming Girls of the Month, a place for receiving business partners, a hotel with five-star rooms for celebrity guests.
Somewhere in the depths of this ever-swarming social hive, Hefner built for himself a “private apartment” with several entrances, however, always closed, and without windows. Their heart is something that the tongue would hesitate to call a piece of furniture. Artifact. A thing in itself. "The world's largest rotating bed" is 8.5 feet in diameter (2.6 meters - Ed.), which not only rotates 360 degrees, but also tilts at different angles.
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And they also say that on the top floor of the mansion there is a dormitory - a hostel, the place of residence of two dozen girls who came out of the pages of a magazine...
Some doors opened and Hefner entered. Luxurious glossy girls supported him under both arms. Hefner invited me to a bar for a short conversation. “Now I need to talk with the guests,” he said, “and at two o’clock in the morning I have an interview with a correspondent of the English Guardian. Are you ready to talk, the three of us?” "OK". “Then see you, but for now,” Hefner made a broad gesture, “here you will find all the drinks in the world.”
At two o'clock in the morning we met again. It was my shame. No matter what I asked, not a single answer from Hefner could be published in my newspaper...
Playboy was an absolute taboo in the Soviet Union. The customs officers hunted him with voluptuous zeal. For the sterile Soviet consciousness, this was the exact embodiment of the forbidden fruit.
"How many women did I have in total? Probably more than a thousand..."
Fidel Castro, Martin Luther King, Jimmy Carter, Princess Grace, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles - together and separately, Wayne Gretzky, O. J. Simpson, Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson, Anthony Hopkins, Clint Eastwood, Carl Sagan, Steve Jobs... What kind of parade? All these people spoke in the magazine.
The best writers of the Anglo-Saxon world published their new stories here. Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Kerouac, Ian Fleming, Norman Mailer.
"Playboy" sprang from the press into the cinema. Tapes with titles like “Playboy. Barefoot Beauties”, “Playboy. Hot Lips, Hot Legs” baked like hot cakes. Playboy clubs with their signature “hostesses” in laconic rabbit suits – “bannies” - opened in different cities.
And in the center of this victorious procession is a man in silk pajamas and with a smoking pipe - Hugh Hefner. Always surrounded by the girls of our dreams.
“Yes, I slept, it seems, with eleven girls of the month,” he modestly looks back at the year 1960.
“How many women have I had in total? I don’t know. Probably more than a thousand...”
This is the patriarch summing up the results. A wonderful, easy life - all on display. Everyone expects only feats and miracles from him - 60 years in a row. “Have you heard that his favorites are the twins Sandy and Mandy, and how does he tell them apart?” - “You have yesterday’s news, today he lives with three “bannies” - soul to soul, he tells it himself”... And the music is getting louder, and the stakes are rising... Gentlemen, an incredible sensation! A new attraction, and only once: on the famous spinning bed, the elderly Hef with seven beauties...
The details leaked later are sad. Seven beauties could not awaken the sleeping hero.
On December 31, 2012, at the age of 86, for the third time, on the second attempt, he was united in legal marriage - with “Miss December 2009”. In the first attempt a year and a half earlier, the 24-year-old bride ran away straight from the aisle, just like in the film of the same name.
However, as in the film, a happy ending awaited the heroes. “Only those who don’t know us and think in stereotypes talk about age,” Hefner repeats, as if arguing with someone. “All our friends think it’s decided in heaven.”
And this is the “icon of the sexual revolution of the 60s”?
Sexy revolutionary
And new life was sparkling and boiling all around! The Woodstock festival thundered - a 400,000-strong open-air youth gathering. The language of Anglo-American idioms has forever enriched the great hippie slogan “Love, don’t fight!” Make love not war!
It's worth clarifying. Are revolutions made by revolutionaries? It only seems so. In fact, it is the revolution that makes revolutionaries.
What was every decent American girl thinking after 16? About how to get married by the age of 22, and then a house, children... Divorce was not just a rarity - it was savagery, a breakdown of the life program. Sex before marriage is a family disaster. Sex outside marriage is an enterprise for professional conspirators. Family is the main manifestation of maturity and social responsibility! What of this remains today?
A revolution of morals unparalleled in speed, depth and scope - that's what happened.
The birth control pill finally turned the world upside down; it appeared in 1960. Pregnancy is no longer a burden, but a choice. On the shelves of bookstores, in a prominent place - an unheard of thing - appeared a popular book by Dr. David Rubin with a title of ten - "Everything you always wanted to know about sex (But were afraid to ask)." Sex has shifted towards education. It has become a favorite theme in literature and cinema...
"I didn't set out to be a revolutionary," says Hefner. "My idea was to create a mainstream men's magazine that included sex. It turned out to be a very revolutionary idea."
The name of the creator of Playboy even adorned the Red Book. The name Sylvilagus palustris hefneri is given to an increasingly rare subspecies of marsh rabbits. Hefner gave a grant to save them...
He also bought himself a plot in the cemetery in Westwood Village - next to Marilyn Monroe. During his lifetime, Hugh Hefner never met her. But she was his business angel. The moment will come, and this angel and the most desirable woman of the twentieth century will always be there.
There is an afterlife after the sexual revolution.
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT HUGH HEFNER'S LIFE:
- In the Army, Hefner served in an infantry regiment as a military clerk, drawing cartoons and cartoons for the Army newspaper.
- Hafner had a high level of intelligence, his IQ was 152 points.
- Hefner intended Playboy's famous bunny logo to be both humorous and serious. The very image of the rabbit as sexy and fast was complemented by a strict collar with a bow tie, which emphasized the intellectual orientation of the magazine. Before this, the logo was the dollar sign $.
- In 1963, Hefner was arrested for "publishing and distributing an obscene magazine." It was believed that this case was brought in during a mistrial, because the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision regarding this issue.
- In 1975, Hefner received his own star on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame.
- PlayBoy magazine gained scandalous fame in the USSR in 1989 by publishing photographs of actress Natalya Negoda.
- Hefner set two Guinness World Records. One of them is that he boasts the longest career of an editor-in-chief working for the same magazine. Another was credited to him for having the largest collection of personal clippings.
- Hugh is a distant relative of former US President George W. Bush and Secretary of State John Kerry. Hefner is the tenth cousin of Bush's second cousin and the tenth cousin of Kerry (according to CBS News).
Playboy star from Rostov-on-Don Maria Liman
1. Hefner borrowed money from his mother to publish the first issue.
In 1952, young copywriter Hugh Hefner left Esquire magazine - he was denied a five-dollar salary increase. The following year, 1953, 27-year-old Hugh pawns furniture. He adds the $600 he received to the money he raised "penny by penny" from 45 investors, including a hefty $1,000 contribution from his mother, Grace Caroline Swanson. The goal is a new entertainment magazine for men, preaching the image and lifestyle of a modern dandy, bon vivant, playmaker.
The magazine was published on December 1, 1953, but was neither dated, nor numbered, nor signed - even the author of the publication, which was “concocted” in the kitchen of his apartment in Chicago, doubted that “number two” would follow. And Hef’s mother, who provided financial and moral support, “didn’t believe in this idea, but she believed in her son,” the “main playboy” would say many years later in an interview with E!.
However, the first issue, with a circulation of about 54 thousand copies, sold out in a matter of weeks - at 50 cents apiece. For comparison, in 2002, an exact copy of this Playboy issue was sold under the hammer for more than 5 thousand dollars - this is such serious “inflation”.
© Photo: Playboy Enterprises International, Inc. First issue of Playboy magazine, 1953
2. Initially the magazine should have had a different name
The illustrations for the first issue - candid photographs of the red-haired Marilyn Monroe, seductively spread out on red velvet, practically Norma Jean Baker from 1949 - were taken from a men's calendar; at that time no one was particularly concerned about copyright. But with the name of the new printed publication, everything did not go so smoothly. The original version - "Bachelor Party", or Stag Party - went against the grain of the adventure magazine Stag that was in circulation at that time (literally - "Deer", although the meaning in Russian translation is more likely "Male").
"Olen" said it would sue if Hefner used the brand in the title of his periodical. Hugh, his first wife Mili and business associate Eldon Sellers went through a lot of options, all of the same semantic field: “Gentleman”, “Sir” (Sir, in the Russian version the publication could well be called “Sir”), “Top Hat”, plus a little mythology - "Satyr", "Pan", and the most obvious - "Bachelor". The Playboy version was suggested by Sellers, which was the name of a small local car sales agency. Apart from the sonorous combination a la “boy games” in those shaggy times the word did not carry any connotations - now “playboy” is called any rake, reveler, reveler and womanizer. And this is the main merit of the permanent editor-in-chief Hugh Hefner, who made his magazine a guide to the “correct” bachelor lifestyle.
3. Playboy's logo was originally a stag in a tuxedo.
As we already wrote, the first, unrealized, name option for the new magazine was Stag Party - it is not surprising that the first idea for a logo was a deer. And since, according to Hef’s plan, the publication was supposed to promote the image of a dandy to the masses, it was decided to dress the deer in a tuxedo. After changing the name to Playboy, such a logo became, to put it mildly, unreasonable. But the idea itself - to “dress up” some animal - was to my liking.
The magazine's first art director, Art Pole, proposed a rabbit in a tuxedo and bow tie, and initially, in the second issue of Playboy, the profile was used as an endnote - a typical periodical "outline" at the end of the article. Today, the rabbit brings Hef and Co. almost more profit than the magazine itself - for using the brand for their own selfish purposes, the Playboy Licensing division is paid by fashion houses, automobile and alcohol companies, casinos, clubs and - attention! - manufacturers of disposable napkins.
“The rabbit, or bunny, in America has a sexual connotation. I chose it because it was a fresh image - so lively, active, shy, sexy. He runs away from you all the time and he is so pleasant to the touch - you want to play with him. Girls are like rabbits - joyful, playful. These are the girls we make "Playmates of the Month" approx. ed.) - these are not those sophisticated ladies who “can’t be reached.” Our “friend” is an ordinary girl, made of flesh and blood, young, healthy, lively, a kind of neighbor type. We are not interested in these complex, mysterious madams, vamp women who wear expensive lingerie with garters, walk with a cold face, who seem to be already morally dirty and jaded. A Playboy girl doesn't wear garters or fancy lingerie, she's naked, well washed with soap and water and happy," explained Hugh Hefner in an interview with the Italian edition of LOOK Magazine in January 1967.
4. The legendary “Playmate” Pamela Anderson has never become Playmate of the year
Last year, that same “naked and happy”, exemplary Playboy “girlfriend” Pam turned 49. She also became the girl of the month - in February 1990, the next year after she began collaborating with the magazine. For the sake of the publication, naturally brown-haired Anderson dyed her hair platinum blonde and got breast implants.
True, the sacrifices paid off, and not only with many years of cooperation with Playboy. Thanks to the new image, the model received the role of “Baywatch” CJ Parker - spectacular runs along the edge of the sea in a red swimsuit made the model a sex symbol on a national scale.
Anderson did not remain in debt: for example, for Hugh Hefner’s 82nd birthday in 2008, she prepared an expensive gift - for herself (40 years old, by the way), completely naked and in high heels. In this form, the “playboy’s girlfriend” showed up at a crowded party, presented a modest cake and performed an erotic dance - calling it a striptease would not be wrong, because Pam was initially without clothes.
The seasoned Hugh was shocked, but, according to an eyewitness, “the widest smile I’ve ever seen spread across his face.”
5. But Victoria Silvstedt, Anna Nicole Smith and Jim Carrey's ex-girlfriend Jenny McCarthy became
It’s not surprising, since the above-mentioned beautiful nymphs are “girlfriends” in the best traditions of Playboy, slender blondes with impressive busts. By the way, when asked why Hefner prefers blondes, “do they know how to have fun better than brunettes?” - Hefner replies: “With me, they can.”
However, not only “Barbie” - such celebrities as Elizabeth Taylor, Raquel Welch, Kim Basinger, Sharon Stone, Stephanie Seymour, Shannen Doherty, Drew Barrymore, Brooke Shields, Denise Richards, Charlize Theron, Carmen Electra, Daryl Hannah appeared on the pages of the magazine , Cindy Crawford, Elle Macpherson, Naomi Campbell, Madonna, Dannii Minogue and even Russian spy Anna Chapman.
6. In addition to “nudity,” the pages of Playboy included stories by Bradbury, Palahniuk, Marquez, and Fleming
“I never thought of Playboy as a sex magazine,” Hef said. “For me, it has always been a lifestyle publication in which sex is just one of its components.”
© Photo: MCMXCIX to MMXIII PBCovers.com/Playboy Enterprises International, Inc. Playboy magazine issues: April 1954, June 1963, April 1963
Another - and important - component of the promoted image of the dandy was good taste in literature. In particular, Ray Bradbury's dystopian science fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451, which was heavily censored by publishing houses, was published almost without cuts in the March, April and May issues of Playboy 1954. And with his story “The First Night of Lent,” published in 1956, a new milestone began in the magazine’s collaboration with writers - now short stories were created specifically “for Playboy” and were paid directly to the author.
© Photo: Robert McGinnis5 “doomsday machines” invented by Ian Fleming
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jack Kerouac, Haruki Murakami, Chuck Palahniuk, Roald Dahl (the one about “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”) and, of course, Ian Fleming presented their stories on the pages of the “men’s magazine.” , whose “agent 007” was practically the quintessence of the Playboy lifestyle - luxurious women, cars and suits and an incredible degree of “coolness”. His eleventh book, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, was published in the magazine from April to June 1963, simultaneously with its release in Bond's historical homeland, Great Britain.
Hugh Hefner, who indulged freedom of artistic speech, was awarded an honorary award from the Association of Writers of the United States “For 50 years of continuous support of writers.”
7. The publication was interviewed by Vladimir Nabokov, Fidel Castro, John Lennon
“Sex as an institution, sex as a general concept, sex as a problem, sex as a common place - all this seems to me too boring to waste words on. Let’s skip sex,” Vladimir Nabokov ultimatively suggested in his conversation with Alvin Toffler, journalist , sociologist and Playboy contributor. As a result, in a 1964 interview with the author of the scandalous “Lolita,” we had to talk about writing, the hardships of teaching, and Dr. Freud.
Martin Luther King told Playboy about the rights of African Americans in America, Castro, with revolution in his blood, about the rights of Cubans in Cuba.
Jimmy Carter, who ran for president of the United States, literally on the eve of the fateful elections, in November 1976, admitted in an interview with the magazine that “in the depths of his soul he cheated, and more than once.” The democrat was forgiven for his “sin,” and in January 1977 he became the 39th president of America.
And the legendary interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono appeared on the shelves in January 1981 - a month after the death of the legendary musician. "When something good ends, for some reason everyone talks about it as if their whole life has ended. But when the interview comes out, I will be 40, Paul will be 38. Elton John, Bob Dylan - we are all still relatively young. The game is not yet "It's over. Everyone talks about the last record or the last Beatles concert, but God willing, there are still 40 years of productive life ahead," John dreamed.
8. In 1970, with the support of the US government, Playboy for the blind was released
The magazine was typed in Braille - a raised-dot tactile font. This specialized publication is still published today and distributed through the National Library of Congress. It contains all the texts of Playboy, and the pictures, including the main ones in any issue, especially colorful “center folds”, or central spreads, are conveyed with highly artistic verbal descriptions.
© Flickr / Josh Smith A copy of the Playboy Braille magazine owned by singer Ray Charles
9. The proud title of Playboy Mansion was carried by two mansions.
The first Playboy mansion was purchased by Hugh Hefner in 1959 and was located in Chicago - a “modest” 70-room brick house built in 1899. The brass sign above the front door read Si Non Oscillas, Noli Tintinnare - a variation of the phrase If you don't swing, don't ring ("If you're not ready to have fun, don't call") in Latin.
Until 1974, Hef shuttled between this house in his small homeland (and in the small homeland of Playboy himself) and the western residence in Los Angeles, near Beverly Hills, until, finally, in 1974 he finally settled in the Hollywood Hills.
It’s not difficult to understand - repeatedly featured in movies, videos, TV series (remember that “Los Angeles” episode of “Sex and the City”?) and reality, the Playboy mansion, in addition to 22 living rooms, boasts its own wine cellar, zoo, and hall with slot machines, tennis courts, swimming pools with a waterfall and, of course, the legendary indoor “grotto”, which has seen more “dumping sins” than all the imperial palaces of Ancient Rome.
By the way, a separate Playboy magazine house for “girlfriends” is located opposite. Very convenient, especially during Hefner’s obligatory annual “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” party, where the number of “bunnies” per square meter is off the charts. Getting to this, let's say, social event on the first Saturday of August is a dream not only for mere mortals, but also for Hollywood celestials.
As of 2011, the market value of the Los Angeles Playboy Mansion was $54 million. At the same time, according to the autobiographical book Bunny Tales: Behind Closed Doors at the Playboy Mansion from Hef’s “bunny” and ex-girlfriend Isabella St. James, “literally everything in the mansion seemed old, musty, well-worn, and Archie, the family dog, regularly relieved himself in the hallway, right on the long curtains “to the floor” - so the smell of urine was also mixed in with the general smell of old things.”
10. A species of rabbit was named after Playboy editor-in-chief Hugh Hefner.
On December 31, 2012, just before the holiday, Hugh Hefner tied the knot for the third time - the 86-year-old playboy married 26-year-old blonde Crystal Harris. The couple's high-profile relationship, by the way, lasted more than three years - their engagement was announced back in 2010. Initially, the wedding was planned for June 2011, but literally a few days before the celebration, the “young” quarreled over the phone. Then the event was canceled, but, as we see, a year and a half later, love still won.
Hef has four children from two previous marriages, and from 1970 to 1989 and from about 2000 to the fateful meeting with Crystal, the Playboy editor-in-chief devoted himself to the delights of single life. So, at the age of 75, Hugh was simultaneously dating seven “girlfriends” from 18 to 28 years old - the whole “family” lived under the roof of a Los Angeles mansion.
It is not surprising that a rare species of rabbit, Sylvilagus palustris hefneri, was named in honor of such a loving media person - in fact, not for his adventures or for his creative fertility, but as a thank you for all the financial support that Hefner provides to numerous charitable organizations - from the public restoring the HOLLYWOOD sign on the famous hills to organizing help for children with autism.
Continuing the topic
The founder of Playboy magazine, Hugh Hefner, died on September 28, 2017 in the United States at the age of 92.
Hugh Hefner died at his home, the famous Playboy estate, surrounded by his loved ones, his family said.
“My father lived a very extraordinary life... and was a leading voice behind some of the most significant social and cultural movements of our time, as a champion of free speech, civil rights and sexual freedom,” said the late's son, Cooper Hefner, creative director, in a statement to the press. director of Playboy Enterprises.
The businessman's fortune went to his children - Christie, David, Marston and Cooper, and another part will be transferred to the University of Southern California and several charities.
The wife of the founder of the men's magazine Playboy, Hugh Hefner, Crystal Harris, did not inherit her late husband's fortune; her name was not mentioned in the businessman's will.
Harris is his third wife, she was 60 years younger than her husband.
Hefner and Harris celebrated their wedding in 2012 in Los Angeles. It is noted that before her wedding to Hefner, 31-year-old Harris signed a prenuptial agreement with rather strict conditions. Perhaps this is how Hefner punished Harris for the fact that she had already left him in 2010, on the eve of the wedding.
On December 1, 1953, the first issue of men's magazine Playboy appeared on newsstands in Chicago. The publication had a circulation of 70 thousand copies, and its founder Hugh Hefner at first even doubted that he would ever release a second issue. The magazine played a huge role in the country's sexual revolution in the 1960s-1980s. Over the course of half a century, Playboy has become one of the most recognizable brands around the world.
We bring to your attention the first covers of the famous Playboy magazine, on which many world-famous models, singers and actresses appeared, exciting the hearts (and not only) of men of their time. The covers are presented in chronological order, starting with the very first issue.
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1953 The very first issue of Playboy with Marilyn Monroe on the cover.
1954 Framed in the background is Terry Ryan. Her portrait was the first to be shot directly at the Playboy studio. Before this, the magazine bought photographs from independent photographers.
1959 With an interview with Jack Kerouac.
1964. "Femlin" by Leroy Neyman is a funny character who has appeared in the magazine more than once.
1966 This issue featured the centerfold (and cover, naturally) of Susan Bernard, who became the first underage Jewish virgin to appear in a centerfold.
1968 Cynthia Meyers as a Christmas tree.