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Photos: Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy dies at 91
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, who helped usher in the 1960s sexual revolution with his groundbreaking men’s magazine and built a business empire around his libertine lifestyle, died on Wednesday at the age of 91 of natural causes.
Updated on: Sep 28, 2017 4:20 PM IST
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Hugh Hefner, the silk pajama-wearing founder of Playboy who helped steer nudity into the American mainstream, died Wednesday September 27, 2018, the Playboy company announced. He was 91 years old. Hefner, father of the trailblazing brand that encouraged a loosening of sexual strictures, once called the ‘prophet of pop hedonism’ by Time magazine, peacefully passed away at his home. (Keystone / Getty Images)
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After being struck by fears that he would end up following his parents’ zipped-up lifestyle, Hefner -- who had worked in jobs ranging from assistant personnel manager to promotion copywriter at Esquire magazine -- decided to take dramatic action and start his own magazine in 1953. ‘When I saw that skirt lengths were going down instead of up and that, instead of a celebration after World War II, we were getting repression and conservatism, I knew that wasn’t progress,’ he said. (George Brich / AP)
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Playboy shattered taboos in the 1950s -- a time when Hollywood sets featured separate beds for married couples -- with bare-breasted pictures in a mass-market. The consummate playboy outlived both the sexual revolution he fought for but also some of the famous buxom pin-ups who graced his groundbreaking magazine’s centerfold. A self-proclaimed master of marketing, Hefner’s skill for self-promotion made it impossible to untangle his image from his empire. (David Westing / Getty Images)
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Hefner founded Playboy magazine in 1953, whose inaugural centerfold featured a nude Marilyn Monroe, using a $600 loan against his furniture and investments from family members to launch the magazine with a total of $8,000. The magazine became recognizable worldwide for its voluptuous covergirls and its emblematic rabbit logo which became a sensation not long after hitting newsstands. (Hector Mata / AFP)
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Playboy’s circulation peaked in 1972 at seven million, serving as a catalyst for even bawdier publications like Hustler and Penthouse. Beyond the glossy itself the Playboy brand spawned a heady business empire that included a television series as well as the notorious Playboy Clubs, the first of which opened in Chicago in 1960. The clubs’ scantily clad waitresses -- known as Bunnies -- sported bunny ears and strapless corset teddies, with fluffy cottontails pinned to their derrieres. (Dan Kitwood / Getty Images)
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Late into his life he also frequented nightclubs and maintained a bevy of young girlfriends, a lifestyle -- along with the occasional dose of Viagra -- he credited with keeping him young both in and out of the bedroom. Though he could not cite a definitive number, he assured American magazine Esquire in 2013 he was ‘sure’ he had slept with ‘over a thousand’ women. (Michael Webb / Getty Images)
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