Hugh Hefner, 1926-2017
I met Hugh Hefner once, maybe 16 or 17 years ago, when a colleague from TV Guide and I drove up to the mansion off Sunset Boulevard to have lunch. After a tour of the grounds (including the famous swimming pool/grotto, featured in various pictorials over the years), we had a nice meal, made small talk with publicists, and wondered if Hef surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women would ever appear. As dessert arrived, down the stairs came a solo Hef in his signature velvet robe, a bottle of Pepsi in one hand, an image he'd perfected to the point of resembling a figure in a waxworks. He was charming, particularly interested in TV Guide, since it and Playboy had launched close to the same time in the 1950s, TV Guide's target audience distinctly different from Playboy's, but both roaring successes by the 1960s and 1970s--and both beginning to struggle in the realities of shifting media pressures by the 21st century.
At one point, I told him that I still remembered the first Playboy I'd ever summoned the courage to buy, that I'd walked out of my neighborhood and found a candy store where no one knew me (nonetheless, I feared a nun from my grammar school would miraculously appear, ruler in hand to mete out corporal punishment before condemning me to eternal perdition). With the candy store owner looking on, I hemmed and hawed before forking over my seventy-five cents for the July, 1965 issue. I was thirteen. I told Hef I still remembered the name of that month's Playmate: Gay Collier. Hefner laughed. "All you guys your age say the same thing. Only the model's name changes." That was somehow reassuring. We all got up, shook hands, Hef headed back up the stairs--for a nap or a tryst I'll never know--and my colleague and I returned to the real world.
I realize Hugh Hefner was a controversial figure, but for this particular adolescent with raging hormones, Playboy was a gift from the gods for a few years. And yes, I actually did read the articles, but in all honesty, that was not why I bought the magazine.
Happy trails, Hef.
I met Hugh Hefner once, maybe 16 or 17 years ago, when a colleague from TV Guide and I drove up to the mansion off Sunset Boulevard to have lunch. After a tour of the grounds (including the famous swimming pool/grotto, featured in various pictorials over the years), we had a nice meal, made small talk with publicists, and wondered if Hef surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women would ever appear. As dessert arrived, down the stairs came a solo Hef in his signature velvet robe, a bottle of Pepsi in one hand, an image he'd perfected to the point of resembling a figure in a waxworks. He was charming, particularly interested in TV Guide, since it and Playboy had launched close to the same time in the 1950s, TV Guide's target audience distinctly different from Playboy's, but both roaring successes by the 1960s and 1970s--and both beginning to struggle in the realities of shifting media pressures by the 21st century.
At one point, I told him that I still remembered the first Playboy I'd ever summoned the courage to buy, that I'd walked out of my neighborhood and found a candy store where no one knew me (nonetheless, I feared a nun from my grammar school would miraculously appear, ruler in hand to mete out corporal punishment before condemning me to eternal perdition). With the candy store owner looking on, I hemmed and hawed before forking over my seventy-five cents for the July, 1965 issue. I was thirteen. I told Hef I still remembered the name of that month's Playmate: Gay Collier. Hefner laughed. "All you guys your age say the same thing. Only the model's name changes." That was somehow reassuring. We all got up, shook hands, Hef headed back up the stairs--for a nap or a tryst I'll never know--and my colleague and I returned to the real world.
I realize Hugh Hefner was a controversial figure, but for this particular adolescent with raging hormones, Playboy was a gift from the gods for a few years. And yes, I actually did read the articles, but in all honesty, that was not why I bought the magazine.
Happy trails, Hef.
posted by Vince Cosgrove at 12:05 PM
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