HUGH Hefner, the 91-year-old creator and first publisher of the groundbreaking boys’ magazine Playboy, has passed away. As legend has it, he slept with virtually every “Playmate” featured in the magazine during its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s.
He passed away in the Playboy Mansion of “natural causes” with his “loved ones” around. Who exactly presided over the party, though? What we do know is as follows…
I’m confused; who exactly is Hugh Hefner?
Hugh Hefner created the groundbreaking teen magazine Playboy in 1953. With its cover displaying a nude shot of Marilyn Monroe, the debut issue sold over 50,000 copies.
The magazine, known for its iconic covers, flourished, eventually becoming a household name and launching Hefner to stardom. His wild antics with the models who shared his Playboy mansion became legendary, as did his parties.
Hefner claims that, following the end of his marriage, he had sexual relations with over a thousand women, many of whom were featured in his magazine.
The public only knew him as the wild man who smoked in a silk smoking jacket in his final years, although he wasn’t always that way.
The publisher of the chic women’s magazine was a virgin until he was 22 years old, a shy nerd who eventually married his college sweetheart. At the Playboy Mansion on September 27, 2017, Hefner passed away from natural causes.
The company behind the magazine paid tribute to Hefner, calling him “the American icon who in 1953 introduced the world to Playboy magazine and built the company into one of the most recognizable American global brands in history.”
Cooper, his son, later remarked, “My father lived an exceptional and impactful life as a media and cultural pioneer and a leading voice behind some of the most significant social and cultural movements of our time in advocating free speech, civil rights, and sexual freedom.”
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Hefner’s health Problem
The quality of Hefner’s health had been deteriorating for some time. Stress from the publication of a harshly critical book by director Peter Bogdanovich is alleged to have led to Hefner’s stroke in 1985.
In the book, Bogdanovich held Hefner and the Playboy lifestyle responsible for the murder of Dorothy Stratten, a Playmate.
Yet, even the direst of circumstances cannot deter an aging playboy. With The Girls Next Door, an E! reality series that aired for six seasons beginning in 2005, Hefner, then in his 80s, was thrust back into the public eye.
The show centered on Hefner’s relationships with his female companions and their time spent at the legendary Playboy mansion in Los Angeles.
(From 1989 until 2010, he was married to Kimberley Conrad, who was named Playmate of the Year that year; in 2012, he wed Crystal Harris, 60 years his junior, and they stayed married until his death.)
In 2016, Daren Metropoulos, co-owner of Hostess, purchased the mansion. Hefner’s residency was contingent upon his meeting certain requirements.
Hefner frequently reminisced about the amazing experiences he’d had and kept meticulous records of them; he currently holds the Guinness World Record for the greatest collection of personal scrapbooks with 2,643.
As a result, he was frequently the target of fake reports of his death, most recently in December 2016. Even so, he kept up the persona of the tireless (though Viagra-enhanced) western Playboy right up until the end.
As he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2011: “My mother survived to 101,” he claimed in interviews that he was not terrified of dying.
Docudrama American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story debuted on Amazon earlier this year, and the officially sanctioned production makes for a good hagiography.
“I would like to be recognized as someone who contributed to, and transformed the sexual and societal values of my day,” Hefner told The Daily Beast in 2010. And I feel quite certain about my legacy in that particular sliver of time.
