He’s thought to have owned more than 4,000 movies! Hefner was also committed to promoting and supporting charitable causes that were close to his heart and donated significant sums of money (he was worth hundreds of millions of dollars at the magazine’s peak) to support film restoration and the development of filmmaking. However, it wasn’t all about fast cars and faster living. Hefner lived a long life, dying at the grand old age of 91 in September 2017. It certainly didn’t seem to do him any harm. After the collapse of his first marriage in 1959, just as the magazine was really beginning to take off, he saw an opportunity to build not only the magazine’s brand, but also his own, and he grabbed it with both hands! Hefner spent decades throwing huge, extravagant parties for friends, colleagues, and playmates (women who lived at the mansion) in a compound that eventually expanded to include a grotto, a zoo, tennis and basketball courts, a gym, and even its own waterfall.įor the rest of his long life, Hugh Hefner and Playboy were synonymous with an extreme lifestyle of partying and dating women significantly younger than himself. Much of this merchandise remains available in stores and online today.īy the 1960s, Playboy was so huge that Hugh was able to move into the Playboy Mansion, which over the years, became synonymous with a ‘playboy’ lifestyle. Over the last half-century, he has appeared not only in the pages of the magazine, but also on merchandise including clothing, housewares, accessories, and even a Playboy jewelry collection. Related: 5 Benefits of Getting a Psychic Reading He was first designed by the magazine’s art director Arthur Paul. Incidentally, despite being most often associated with the all-female cohort of Playboy Bunnies, the logo bunny is actually male. The iconic bunny head Playboy logo first appeared in the inaugural issue of the magazine in 1953 and made its cover debut just two issues later. In the magazine’s heyday, posing for the cover of Playboy was considered a serious career goal. While not all of these women will have posed completely naked, most appeared at least scantily-clad, in line with the magazine’s ‘pin-up’ look. Since then, some of the world’s most famous women have posed nude for the magazine or on its cover, including Kim Kardashian, Dolly Parton, Paris Hilton, Jessica Alba, and Goldie Hawn. It’s not surprising that the entire run of more than 50,000 copies sold out in just a few weeks. The magazine was a runaway success from the start, with the first issue (launched in December 1953) featuring a nude centerfold of Marilyn Monroe. It was with this small amount of money that he founded what would become an empire. Over the years, the Playboy woman has become ever thinner and blonder, and now with the magazine's mission in flux, it remains to be seen how this aesthetic will morph as Playboy looks toward the future.Shortly after leaving Esquire, Hefner asked his mom for a loan of £1,000. The women celebrated by Playboy - from the models to Hef's girlfriends - have also changed drastically throughout the decades as body types, hairstyles, and fashions have gone in and out of style. And later, for Hefner, it also included a rotating roster of gorgeous girlfriends.

By the '60s, what had started as a men's magazine had transformed into a burgeoning lifestyle brand with nightclubs, and its own homegrown celebrities. It's another change for a company that has been evolving since it was founded with a $1,000 loan from Hugh Hefner's mother in 1953. Chief executive Scott Flanders hopes the redesign will help the company reach more millennials both online and in print.

Rather than moving in a more explicit direction, though, Playboy is trying to make its product less graphic and therefore safer to consume anywhere. Its website stopped publishing nude photos in August 2014, and its print edition is now following suit. Playboy has been looking comparably tame. But now, the internet makes pornography and explicit images readily available to anyone with a connection. In the early days of Playboy, the magazine was must-buy material for anyone seeking titillation and female nudity.

Playboy covers through the ages