2023-12-01 09:10:00
“Playboy” consists of lots of innuendo, colorful pictures of whole guys and young women and, of course, the interviews that have served as an excuse to buy the magazine with the glossy pictures for more than half a century. The late founder Hugh Hefner radically turned society around and was one of the most successful, controversial and certainly most bizarre journalists of the 20th century.
His life might have sprung from his own magazine. In an anniversary magazine he was pictured page following page with the celebrities of the past decades, almost always wearing just a dressing gown. Hefner and “Playboy” – that was always a philosophy of life that millions admired in the 1960s. Today, the way of life no longer seems, let’s say, entirely up to date.
Image gallery: Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and his wives
Hugh Hefner loves women. Prefers the blonde ones. He was known for his dissolute life and in his later years lived with up to seven women at the same time. (Photo: reuters) Bild 1/24
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Hefner came from such a good family: one ancestor was William Bradford (1590-1657), the leader of the emigrants from the ship “Mayflower”. The Thanksgiving festival is said to go back to him and as a Puritan he wanted nothing to do with devilish things such as dancing and taverns. And such a man had a descendant like Hugh Hefner.
First edition in December 1953
Hefner has always been a man who would rather comprehend than understand women. But he always saw himself as an esthete: a naked woman was something natural and beautiful, so what? When his employer, the men’s magazine Esquire, didn’t want to give a five-dollar wage increase, Hefner started his own business. He went completely into debt, borrowed money on his household goods and even bailed on his mother, but in December 1953 the first issue of “Playboy” was on newsstands.
Image Gallery: From Sweet to Sexy: Playboy Covers Over Time
(Photo: Playboy) Bild 1/9
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There wasn’t a date on the booklet – maybe there wouldn’t be a second one. But he was helped by Norma Jeane Baker, the girl on the cover. She had had herself photographed naked four years earlier and was now known by a stage name: Marilyn Monroe. The magazines, which were not exactly cheap at 50 cents, were torn out of Hefner’s hands.
And who didn’t later take off their clothes for “Playboy”: Jayne Mansfield, Ursula Andress, Kim Basinger, LaToya Jackson, Nancy Sinatra, Farrah Fawcett, Katarina Witt and even cartoon mother Marge Simpson. Even though Nobel Prize winners, presidents and writers gave interviews, “Playboy” is famous because of the photos. And because of the jokes, which of course always had a direction. Sample from the latest issue: Why can’t women play football? Because eleven would never wear the same clothes.
This is no longer entirely up to date – and that probably also applies to “Playboy” itself. Hundreds of advertisements and even an arrest of Hefner “for obscenity” might not harm the magazine. Right-wing virtue protectors and left-wing feminists stormed the paper in vain. It was only thanks to the internet that it delivered naked flesh faster, cheaper and more discreetly. Hefner sold his property for his life’s work, daughter Christie toiled as editor – but the flagship is listed. For 15 years there have only been eleven issues per year.
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