Playboy creator Hugh Hefner dies at 91
That he changed attitudes toward sex was proudest achievement, he said
LOS ANGELES — Hugh Hefner, who created Playboy magazine and became a symbol of America’s sexual revolution, died Wednesday at age 91.
Hefner died of natural causes at his home, the Playboy Mansion, while surrounded by family on Wednesday night, Playboy said in a statement.
The first issue of Playboy was published in 1953, featuring photos of a naked Marilyn Monroe and an editorial promise of “humor, sophistication and spice.” At the time, Hefner was 27 years old.
He and Playboy co-founder Eldon Sellers launched their magazine from Hefner’s kitchen in Chicago, though the first issue was undated because Hefner doubted there would be a second. But Playboy soon became forbidden fruit for teenagers and a guide for men with time and money. Within a year, circulation neared 200,000. Within five years, it had topped 1 million.
By the 1970s, the magazine had more than 7 million readers and had inspired raunchier imitations. Competition and the Internet reduced circulation to less than 3 million by the 21st century. In 2015, Playboy ceased publishing images of naked women, though the experiment didn’t last long.
Even as circulation fell, Hefner and Playboy remained brand names worldwide.
Asked by The New York Times in 1992 about what he took the greatest pride in, Hefner responded: “That I changed attitudes toward sex. That nice people can live together now. That I decontaminated the notion of premarital sex. That gives me great satisfaction.”
Hefner was an advocate of the First Amendment, civil rights and reproductive rights, and he made sure his magazine contained more than just centerfolds. Playboy serialized Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and later published fiction by John Updike, Doris Lessing and Vladimir Nabokov.
The magazine specialized in long, candid interviews featuring notable names such as Fidel Castro, Frank Sinatra and then-presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, who confided that he had “committed adultery” in his heart.
Hefner ran Playboy from his mansions, first in Chicago and then in Los Angeles, and became the symbol of the lifestyle he espoused. For decades he was the pipe-smoking, silk pajama-wearing center of a constant party with celebrities and models.
In 1960, Hefner opened a string of clubs around the world. Those clubs also influenced the culture, giving early breaks to entertainers including George Carlin, Rich Little, Mark Russell, Dick Gregory and Redd Foxx. The last of the clubs closed in 1988, when Hefner deemed them “passe” and “too tame for the times.”
Hefner also was a television presence, hosting the television show Playboy After Dark. He later had a cable reality show — The Girls Next Door — with three live-in girlfriends.
Hefner’s marriage life also was a bit of a show. In 1949, he married Mildred Williams, with whom he had two children. They divorced in 1958. In 1989, Hefner married Kimberley Conrad, a model who was then 27. The couple also had two children.
They separated in 1998, but she continued living next door to the Playboy Mansion with their sons. The couple divorced in 2010, and he proposed in 2011 to 24-year-old Crystal Harris, a former Playmate, or centerfold subject. Harris called off the wedding days before the ceremony but later changed her mind, and they married in 2012.