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00:00:05Revered by one sex, Hef jokingly refers to Viagra as the best legal recreational drug of choice.
00:00:14Reviled by the other, Hefner built his empire, selling the idea that women are submissive playthings.
00:00:21Playboy founder Hugh Hefner is the man who got sex out of the bedroom and onto the coffee table.
00:00:26Sex is probably the single thing that men are most interested in.
00:00:32His world reality laced with fantasy.
00:00:35Nymphs parking your car.
00:00:37You know, you're greeted by wizards and magicians.
00:00:40His life mired in controversy.
00:00:42The real story in that Hefner's plane was being used to transport drugs.
00:00:46I don't even know what the concept of a bunny is. We weren't sex workers.
00:00:51His sex empire and the undying spirit of a boy loves to play.
00:00:55He is Peter Pan. I'll never grow up.
00:00:59In this hour, Hugh Hefner, the unexpected and surprising desires of the ultimate Playboy.
00:01:20This is Headliners and Legends with Matt Lauer.
00:01:24Hi everyone and welcome to Headliners and Legends.
00:01:27In the early 1950s, Hugh Hefner was a man with a dream, call it a fantasy, about a magazine for
00:01:33men called Playboy.
00:01:35Though it was tamed by today's standards, in 1953, the magazine caused a sensation and helped to usher in the
00:01:42sexual revolution.
00:01:43Playboy was in the right place at the right time.
00:01:47And ever since, its creator, the man known as Hef, has reveled in a life which he once said had
00:01:53no downside.
00:01:55I know you ain't never met a Playboy like me.
00:01:59The reason he has a Playboy image is because he truly is a Playboy.
00:02:04He is extremely romantic. He loves to be touchy-feely. He's a hand holding kind of guy.
00:02:11He loves to play, he loves friends, and he loves the gang.
00:02:15But Hefner's pursuit of pleasure is merely a byproduct of his true passion.
00:02:20He is the magazine. The magazine is him. It never would have worked any other way.
00:02:23He is the quality control officer. He is the first reader.
00:02:28It's a fantasy for everybody else, but it's not even a fantasy to have. That's it.
00:02:34Beautiful women, abundant wealth, and worldwide fame.
00:02:38On the surface, it's clear why a man might want to become a Playboy.
00:02:43But for Hugh Hefner, the reasons are more complex.
00:02:46Everything in my life, you can find the clues to from the childhood.
00:02:52Life begins for Hugh Marston Hefner in Chicago in 1926.
00:02:57Jazz, flappers, and speakeasies are all the rage when Hefner is born on April 9th.
00:03:02He is the first child of Grace and Glenn Hefner,
00:03:06who, due to their strict Puritan convictions, completely shun the party atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties.
00:03:12The couple welcomed their second son, Keith, three years later.
00:03:15My parents were robbed of the ability to show emotion of any kind.
00:03:19And that's part of the Puritan heritage. The inability to hug and kiss.
00:03:25There was a lot of security, but not a lot of demonstrative love.
00:03:32The family's security is threatened during the Depression.
00:03:35Glenn Hefner, an accountant, works day and night to support his wife and sons.
00:03:39He leaves the house before his children wake up and returns after they've gone to bed.
00:03:44The limited contact with his father colors Hefner's personality.
00:03:48He becomes an unusually timid child.
00:03:51He was so shy when we were very young that he wouldn't answer the phone.
00:03:56Hefner's parents give him a gift intended to draw him out.
00:04:00Instead, it will affect his life in a far different way.
00:04:03They gave me my first dog. I named him Browse.
00:04:09He, sadly, didn't last very long. Died after a few days.
00:04:16I had a favorite blanket when I was a kid that had bunny rabbits on it.
00:04:21I called it my bunny blanket. It was my happiness and security blanket.
00:04:24And when I got this dog, I put the blanket in the box with this dog that I love so
00:04:29much.
00:04:29When the dog died, they had to burn the blanket.
00:04:33So you can get that image of the bunny blanket being burned,
00:04:39and then the boy grows up and turns into the man and creates the bunny empire.
00:04:44The golden age of Hollywood also inspires young Hefner.
00:04:48He used to go to the movies a lot, and that was where he had his big escape.
00:04:54Films about romance fascinate Hefner and expose him to the kind of physical affection
00:05:00that is lacking in his strict puritanical home.
00:05:03For me, the whole idea of love was defined by and large by the movies,
00:05:08and it came from a notion of romantic love.
00:05:12The 1934 film Tarzan and His Mate introduces eight-year-old Hefner to love as an adventure.
00:05:21Tarzan, living in harmony with a girl in the jungle with animals was something that I thought was too delicious,
00:05:31particularly for a kid that, you know, was kind of a loner and had problems communicating with his parents.
00:05:37And that Tarzan's mate had some nudity in it, had great appeal to a young man.
00:05:41Hefner is also interested in drawing and exhibits an aptitude that will determine his career path.
00:05:48I wasn't simply drawing cartoons. I was creating comic books and, in effect, publishing, even at a very early age.
00:05:55At Sayre Elementary, Hefner starts the school paper.
00:05:58But in junior high, his creative drive is diverted by a new interest, girls.
00:06:04Encounters on the dance floor lead to lessons about the facts of life, which Hefner learns from a most unusual
00:06:10teacher, his mother.
00:06:12She had this little book that showed where babies came from.
00:06:15It didn't really deal with sex. It dealt with procreation.
00:06:19She would tell us without emotion, just the facts.
00:06:24The fact Hefner is most curious about is what naked women look like.
00:06:27He turns to Esquire magazine to find out.
00:06:30Due to its suggestive cartoons and erotic artwork, Esquire magazine is considered to be more than a little risque, which
00:06:37appeals to Hefner.
00:06:39I fell in love with those cartoons, those pin-up pictures.
00:06:45At 15, Hefner creates Shudder magazine.
00:06:48It focuses on his love of movies and horror films.
00:06:51But later, not satisfied with just writing about horror movies, Hefner decides to make one.
00:06:57He casts his best friend, Jim Brophy, as a monster.
00:07:01Hefner plays a scientist, and a girl named Betty Conklin plays the scientist's wife.
00:07:06Hefner first met Betty at a soda shop and was instantly smitten.
00:07:10He came over to my house the next day with a bicycle bill for two, and we went for a
00:07:15ride.
00:07:16Hefner longs for a romantic relationship, but he doesn't make his feelings known to Betty.
00:07:21We were such good friends, you know, that I just never imagined that there was anything else.
00:07:26So instead, Hefner's leading lady begins dating another girl.
00:07:32The incident becomes the defining moment in his young life.
00:07:36Hefner decides that in order to get the next girl, he must change, and transforms himself from an average Joe
00:07:42into a budding playboy.
00:07:44He started calling himself Hef, and he tried to present a more positive picture of himself.
00:07:51It certainly redefined my persona, but it also made me a little cautious in terms of commitment, too.
00:07:58Without Betty Conklin, there might never have been a playboy.
00:08:01Jim Brophy said when we all got together in our 60s that if Hef had married me, that he'd be
00:08:07doing Jack and Jill magazine.
00:08:09He was searching for that love, and just whatever ramifications he had from not having gotten that love made him
00:08:17really go out and want to conquer.
00:08:20In his junior year of high school, Hefner becomes a creative big man on campus.
00:08:25He writes for the school paper, produces an autobiographical comic strip, and shines as a comedian.
00:08:34Hef and his good friend Jim Brophy did these comic routines.
00:08:38It was so corny that people threw money up on the stage and they'd get out their brooms and sweep
00:08:43it up.
00:08:43The last two years of high school are the most important time of my life before the beginning of Playboy,
00:08:48and the best time of my life.
00:08:49It is during high school that Hefner begins toying with sex, but due to his Puritan upbringing, his activity is
00:08:56limited.
00:08:57I went study for the first time in my senior year, and that was the beginning of some sexual experimentation,
00:09:05but didn't include intercourse.
00:09:06When Hefner graduates in 1944, he makes several most lists, including most popular and most likely to succeed.
00:09:14He is set to take on the world of publishing, but instead Hefner enters a world at war.
00:09:20At 17, he enlists in the army, but before shipping out, Hefner meets fellow classmate Millie Williams at a post
00:09:27-graduation party.
00:09:29Hefner had not known Millie during high school, and still longing for romance, he befriends her.
00:09:35I think that the relationship grew to some extent because, at an unconscious level, I wanted to have somebody back
00:09:45home to write to, to have a girl back home.
00:09:48Hefner is stationed stateside. He and Millie correspond during his two years of service.
00:09:53They spend his furloughs together, and eventually Hefner's dream comes true when they fall in love.
00:10:00Coming up, romance is betrayed.
00:10:02Once you had intercourse, it was a no man's land.
00:10:07And how a rising star helps Hugh Hefner change America's attitude towards sex.
00:10:12The Calendar Publishing Company had these nude photographs of Marilyn Monroe.
00:10:27World War II ends in 1946.
00:10:29It is a time of opportunity for those coming home, including Hugh Hefner, who attends the University of Illinois, where
00:10:36his girlfriend Millie Williams is enrolled.
00:10:39Millie is studying to be a teacher.
00:10:41Hefner aspires to become a publisher and creates a college humor magazine called Shaft.
00:10:47But it's not the humor that makes the publication a success.
00:10:50Hefner's magazine owes its popularity to a prophetic feature he calls co-ed of the month.
00:10:57Eventually, Hefner and Millie become engaged, not long after the Kinsey Report is published.
00:11:03Hefner is amazed by its findings, which indicate that Americans have sex more often and in more ways than they
00:11:10admit.
00:11:11Still a virgin at 22, Hefner feels left out.
00:11:14Hefner eventually persuaded Millie to go all the way, as it was then known, in a hotel room.
00:11:22The thou shalt nots of that period were related to not having intercourse until you got married.
00:11:28Once you had intercourse, it was a no man's land.
00:11:32When Millie takes an out of town teaching job, Hefner quickly discovers the downside of his fiancee's new found sexual
00:11:39freedom.
00:11:40While she was away, she had an affair. It was the single most devastating experience of my life.
00:11:46Despite his disappointment, Hefner doesn't leave Millie.
00:11:50They are wed in June of 1949, but the marriage is not ideal.
00:11:55I think to some extent she recognized that we were probably not well suited for one another.
00:12:00And I think that's probably the real reason for the affair.
00:12:02The newlyweds look past their problems and fall in step with the expected middle class life.
00:12:07In 1950, Hefner is hired as an ad copywriter at a department store.
00:12:12He works with then unknown artist Leroy Neiman, who sees in Hefner the signs of a future playboy.
00:12:18He was a collector of sex memorabilia, just like the sports freaks are today.
00:12:25Hefner's sex collection includes softcore porn known as blue movies,
00:12:29which are nearly impossible to get during the increasingly conservative time.
00:12:33There was no open market in terms of pornography. It was an underground phenomenon.
00:12:38I was probably the only kid in my group of friends who owned a couple of stag films.
00:12:43Eventually, Hefner produces his own erotic material.
00:12:47That Toddle in Town, a book of suggestive cartoons, is a moderate success in Chicago
00:12:51and leads to a job for Hefner at Esquire.
00:12:54But the magazine no longer features the pinup girls of Hefner's youth.
00:12:59Disappointed, he leaves to work for a company which publishes nudist magazines.
00:13:04Seeing that market combined with my year at Esquire made me feel that it was possible to create a quality
00:13:13magazine that included some nudity.
00:13:15But Hefner puts the daring idea on hold when Millie announces she is pregnant.
00:13:20In 1952, the couple's three-year marriage is strengthened with the birth of daughter Christy.
00:13:25A month after Christy's arrival, Hefner performs in a high school alumni show.
00:13:30The program is a huge success, but the experience discourages Hefner, who's come to realize he is unhappy with domestic
00:13:37life.
00:13:37I felt a tremendous sense of loss, a feeling that I was turning into my own parents and that there
00:13:44had to be something more in life.
00:13:45For a future, Hefner looks to his past.
00:13:49I started Playboy to try and recapture the dreams and the magic that I sensed in the last two years
00:13:56of high school.
00:13:57What I wanted to create was a lifestyle magazine for young men.
00:14:02It's a struggle at first. Hefner has to borrow $600, a big sum in 1952, just to start his venture.
00:14:10It's not nearly enough, but Hefner has a plan involving one of Hollywood's sexiest stars.
00:14:15The calendar publishing company in Chicago had the rights to these nude photographs of Marilyn Monroe, shot in 1949, when
00:14:23she was still a struggling starlet.
00:14:25Hefner uses most of his borrowed money to buy the publishing rights to the Marilyn Images.
00:14:30Armed with a nude celebrity, all Hefner needs now is a name for his publication.
00:14:35Originally, he calls it Stag Party.
00:14:37Some hunting magazine said you can't use the word stag, so they came up with the idea of Playboy.
00:14:43And what about the famous logo? People have wondered about its significance for years.
00:14:47All I did at the last minute was simply take a rabbit head and put it on top of the
00:14:54same drawing.
00:14:55So this rabbit actually has hooves.
00:14:58Hefner's quick thinking is the finishing touch for a magazine that will radically change America's attitude towards sex,
00:15:04both in the bedroom and in society at large.
00:15:07We sent today reporter Barbara Walters to the Bunny School.
00:15:21In 1953, the seeds are sown for the sexual revolution in America.
00:15:26By then, the first contraceptive pill has been developed and Dr. Alfred Kinsey publishes sexual behavior in the human female.
00:15:33It's the perfect time for Hugh Hefner to launch Playboy.
00:15:37And he does it by publishing the naked Marilyn Monroe pictures he has acquired.
00:15:41And at the same moment they appeared in the magazine, she is making gentlemen prefer blondes.
00:15:47I mean, her career and those photos were one of those flashpoints because it could have gone the other way.
00:15:56Uh, she could have been banned from Hollywood.
00:15:59That her career survived that, uh, gave a blessing to nudity.
00:16:05The very first edition of the magazine sells over 70,000 copies.
00:16:09More issues follow.
00:16:10The key to Playboy's success in what will have everybody talking is Hefner's concept of the playmate of the month.
00:16:16Hefner's insight was to say, the girl next door is also naked.
00:16:20As a sexual being, let's photograph her.
00:16:23The idea that the woman you saw working in the office with you or the woman who sat three rows
00:16:28over from you in school actually looked like that underneath her clothes.
00:16:31Wow, that was wonderful.
00:16:34The magazine also features top-notch fiction and in later years, important interviews and in-depth social commentary.
00:16:44I believe Tom Wolf said it was the, uh, sort of penicillin put in there to nullify the, uh, the
00:16:50effect of the dirty pictures.
00:16:52But the magazine's hook is sex and the pursuit of pleasure.
00:16:56Max Lerner, a philosopher, journalist of the 50s, said that in the sexual revolution, Kenzie was the researcher, the theorist.
00:17:06And Hefner was the pamphleteer.
00:17:08I'm the guy that spread the good word.
00:17:10The sex was not the enemy.
00:17:12Hefner's message becomes widespread as Playboy's readership grows.
00:17:16But Hefner does not lack critics.
00:17:19Good evening, I'm Mike Wallace.
00:17:20The show is Nightbeat.
00:17:22Our first story is Hugh Hefner.
00:17:25Isn't that really what you're selling?
00:17:28Kind of a high-class, dirty book.
00:17:31Sex always will be an important part of the book.
00:17:34Because sex is probably the single thing that, uh, men are most interested in.
00:17:41Oh, with this, I think that you'll agree.
00:17:43It's a sniggering kind of sex.
00:17:44It's a lascivious kind of sex.
00:17:46It certainly isn't a healthy approach to sex.
00:17:48You would suggest that it is.
00:17:50I would not only suggest it, I would say rather strongly.
00:17:52We consider it a pretty healthy attitude.
00:17:54Hefner, a workaholic, is completely dedicated to his magazine,
00:17:57which puts strains on his marriage to Millie.
00:18:00In 1955, the couple welcomed their second child, David.
00:18:04But a new baby does not help the faltering relationship.
00:18:07Eventually, Hefner moves a bed into his office
00:18:10and rarely sees his children.
00:18:12He was more of a, kind of a favorite uncle than a dad
00:18:16when we were growing up in terms of someone I know loved me very much,
00:18:20but not someone who was there day in, day out.
00:18:23But the magazine isn't the only thing occupying Hefner's time.
00:18:27Playboy's founder soon begins following his own advice.
00:18:31He had been working 80 hours a week from 1953 on,
00:18:36looked up and started to say to himself,
00:18:39we need to live the life we've been writing about.
00:18:42The life includes extramarital affairs,
00:18:45which result in Hefner's and Millie's separation in 1957
00:18:49and their divorce in 1959.
00:18:51Following the breakup, Hefner becomes a full-fledged Playboy
00:18:55and takes to the airwaves to promote his new lifestyle and his magazine.
00:18:59I'm Hugh Hefner, editor-publisher of Playboy magazine and your host.
00:19:03This is Playboy's penthouse.
00:19:06Come on in and meet some of our guests.
00:19:07That was actually, I think, the first example of a magazine using television as a marketing tool.
00:19:14And it was very successful.
00:19:16In addition, The New Bachelor buys a 30-room mansion
00:19:19and later opens the first of several Playboy clubs,
00:19:23which feature waitresses dressed as bunnies.
00:19:26I was a bunny for about three months when I very first came to New York.
00:19:30I was making maybe $600 a week working lunches on tips.
00:19:35Bunnies become a new American sex symbol and attract fascination from all corners.
00:19:40In the still-unliberated early 60s,
00:19:43a young correspondent named Barbara Walters experiences bunny life firsthand.
00:19:48Now, for a look at the Playboy club bunnies and the way they are trained,
00:19:52we sent today reporter Barbara Walters to the bunnies school.
00:19:54Standard equipment is the bunny cottontail.
00:19:58The bunny manual is 35 pages long.
00:20:01And dating customers are drinking alcoholic beverages before or on the job means automatic dismissal.
00:20:07When it's rumored that bunnies provide more than food and beverages,
00:20:11Hefner faces new controversy.
00:20:13We weren't sex workers.
00:20:16Although we certainly were lookers, for the most part.
00:20:19You know, the amazing thing is that they are more chaperoned, really, than in a television studio.
00:20:23It has been said even that the atmosphere is almost depressingly moral in the Playboy club,
00:20:29because there's no hanky-panky whatever.
00:20:31And the furor that's raised about it kind of is ridiculous.
00:20:36Hope brings eternal.
00:20:38While the average businessman finds fun at the clubs, Hefner hosts nightly private parties at his mansion.
00:20:44It was fun. The parties were good. There was a certain style. There was a wine cellar. There was good
00:20:49food.
00:20:50There was a pool there and you could go down into a bar and look through a glass and watch
00:20:56people swimming around in the pool.
00:20:57There were intellectuals and professors and rabbis and everything else, drop-out priests.
00:21:04But mostly there are women, many women, including several bunnies who pay rent to live in a dormitory on the
00:21:11mansion's top floor.
00:21:13During this time, pajamas become Hefner's attire of choice both night and day.
00:21:17His bedroom also serves as his office, and a rotating, vibrating, round bed doubles as Hefner's desk.
00:21:24In his adult life, he really is living out what he started in his early childhood.
00:21:30He really preferred to be in his pajamas as opposed to anything else when he was a little kid.
00:21:36Didn't really want to go out of the house, wanted to do his work there.
00:21:43And when he got enough money and power, that's exactly the lifestyle that he then lived.
00:21:51Everything he wanted was within the mansion.
00:21:53So he devised the notion that the world could come to him and he didn't need to go out.
00:21:59Hefner's involvement in the Playboy life and the life of Playboy magazine leaves him little time for things outside the
00:22:05manor.
00:22:06Years would pass and Hefner would never leave the mansion.
00:22:10So his lifestyle became increasingly eccentric.
00:22:13Hefner's eccentricity is a prelude to drug addiction and ultimately the death of a dear friend.
00:22:19Bobby Arnstein was the keeper of the pills.
00:22:31This is Headliners and Legends with Matt Lauer.
00:22:36In the early 1960s, Hugh Hefner lives the Playboy life within the walls of his Chicago mansion.
00:22:41At the same time, he is no mere figurehead at what's quickly becoming the world's top men's magazine.
00:22:48Hefner is a hands-on publisher whose commitment borders on obsession.
00:22:54I'm a pretty easy-going person, but I'm also a perfectionist.
00:22:58You can go back and read memos at the start of this magazine where there's a cartoon and it's a
00:23:03comedian in front of a chorus line of dancers.
00:23:06And Hefner wrote a letter back to the cartoonist saying, the right breast on the 13th dancer looks weird, change
00:23:14it.
00:23:14But as Playboy prospers, Hefner's obsession takes an unhealthy turn.
00:23:19So far, he has avoided getting caught up in addictive vices, but that changes.
00:23:24I was working and playing around the clock in those days and discovered early on that dexedrine could keep you
00:23:34awake.
00:23:35Dexedrine and amphetamine is used and abused by Hefner.
00:23:39I was just taking a little orange pill.
00:23:42And, you know, I would work, you know, 20, 24, 30, 36 hours and then crash and then start again.
00:23:50Fueled by the prescription drug, Hefner increases his workload and begins writing the Playboy philosophy.
00:23:57In the monthly opinion column, Hefner addresses the politics of a Playboy's life.
00:24:02He's wrestling with issues that are still haunting us from birth control and abortion to prostitution, to free expression, to
00:24:10censorship.
00:24:11It's more like a barroom brawl than a nicely outlined philosophy, but boy, it touches on every core issue.
00:24:18He locked himself in his bedroom there for, I think, a couple of years practically writing his philosophy.
00:24:25Hefner's company is not hurt by his continued seclusion, but his continued drug abuse is hurting his health.
00:24:31With the help of his executive assistant, Bobby Arnstein, Hefner takes steps to overcome his habit.
00:24:37She was the keeper of the pills, and he would instruct her ahead of time to not, you know, only
00:24:45to give him so many, and she would try and help him to get off it.
00:24:49I think that he's in remarkable health now for the length of time that he was on the Dexys and
00:24:56the quantities that he took.
00:24:59In 1969, Hefner ventures out of Chicago and travels to Los Angeles, where he hosts a new TV series called
00:25:06Playboy After Dark.
00:25:08On one of his first shows, he is attracted to a young student.
00:25:11I was 18 years old, a student at UCLA. The first day I met him on the show, he needed
00:25:22somebody to pretend to be his girlfriend.
00:25:25And, uh, this is, uh, what's your name again?
00:25:27Oh, come on.
00:25:29This is my favorite, come on, Barbie Benton.
00:25:31Hefner finds in Benton the fantasy romance he longed for as a boy.
00:25:36Barbie Benton was a real love affair. That was Betty Conklin reincarnated.
00:25:42She knocked my socks off. She was beautiful.
00:25:45She would just look up at him like there was no other person on this earth.
00:25:50When he started dating Barbie, I was, I'm gonna say around 15, 16 years old.
00:25:57What I took away from it was a strong sense that he was enjoying life in a different way than
00:26:05he had before.
00:26:06And was he ever enjoying it?
00:26:08Made rich by his image, Hefner is able to pamper himself and both on the ground and in the air,
00:26:14he fulfills his every desire.
00:26:16Hef bought a DC-9 stretch, had it painted black, and, uh, he made sure to put a complete bedroom
00:26:28on the plane.
00:26:30The plane is also equipped with a dance floor and a screening room.
00:26:35It was the first time he did real travel. You know, they went to Europe, they went to Africa.
00:26:41I enjoyed just seeing him leave the confines of the mansion, and I think that for him was great.
00:26:49In 1970, Hefner returns to the center of controversy when feminists challenged the concept of the Playboy Bunny.
00:26:57Here is a magazine supposedly devoted to sexual liberation, but it reduces women to the figure of an inconsequential animal.
00:27:11You choose to see women as sex objects. You make them look like animals, yes. Women aren't bunnies, they're not
00:27:16rabbits, they're human beings.
00:27:17The day that you are willing to come out here with a cotton tail attached to your rear end.
00:27:27Undeterred by feminists, Hefner expands his sex empire with the purchase of a lavish home in Los Angeles.
00:27:33He fills it with playmates and celebrities and creates the ultimate male fantasy, the Playboy Mansion West.
00:27:41The wildest parties were in the, in the 70s, uh, here with the grotto and, uh, and the pool.
00:27:49There's much of that that, uh, that I was unaware of until, I guess there's a lot of guys who
00:27:55can say this, until my marriage fell apart.
00:27:58And then I found myself spending more time at Hef's.
00:28:02All is well in Hef's empire.
00:28:04In 1971, he takes the company public, which elevates his personal worth to $157 million,
00:28:11and establishes him as one of America's richest self-made men.
00:28:15But before long, trouble enters Hefner's world.
00:28:18It starts in 1974, with a scandal involving one of Hefner's closest confidants,
00:28:23and it threatens to destroy everything he has created.
00:28:26Bobby Arnstein, Hefner's executive assistant, knows all the inner workings of the Playboy operation.
00:28:32She controlled access to Hefner within the mansion, which gave her enormous power.
00:28:36All the holidays and, you know, family times, she would be there, and frankly, I think, did a lot of
00:28:43the shopping for my dad, for me in particular.
00:28:46But she was an unstable young woman.
00:28:47Her lover died tragically in a car crash, and she was very destabilized by this, and she began taking drugs.
00:28:54On March 21, 1974, federal agents apprehended Bobby Arnstein outside Hefner's Chicago mansion for allegedly trafficking cocaine.
00:29:03Her arrest is the tip of a much bigger iceberg.
00:29:07There were all kinds of stories going around that drug abuse was rife in the mansion,
00:29:12and that Hefner's plane was being used to transport drugs.
00:29:15Federal and local authorities tried to get Arnstein to implicate Hefner, but when she refuses to do so,
00:29:21Arnstein is tried, and using the perjured testimony of a convicted drug dealer, prosecutors convinced the jury of her guilt.
00:29:29Arnstein's sentence is 15 years in federal prison.
00:29:32My lawyer suggests that I not give any statements.
00:29:35It's not my personal feeling.
00:29:37You are.
00:29:39Sorry.
00:29:40Two and a half months later, after working for Hefner for 12 years, Bobby Arnstein commits suicide.
00:29:47She felt guilty about what her arrest was doing to the Playboy business and to Hefner by association,
00:29:52and the fact she was a troubled woman that led her to take her own life.
00:29:56My brother was devastated.
00:30:01Whatever mistake she may have made in her personal life, she deserved better than this.
00:30:10She was one of the best, brightest, most worthwhile women I have ever known.
00:30:24She will be missed.
00:30:27In the end, Hefner was exonerated.
00:30:29I mean, there was an investigation, and the authorities had to admit that actually there was no evidence.
00:30:34But he never got over the fact that Bobby Arnstein killed herself.
00:30:39Hefner's world is no longer a fantasy, and in the coming years, the death of a playmate will further corrupt
00:30:45the dream.
00:30:46He had tried to warn her about how dangerous her husband was.
00:31:01In 1996, Hugh Hefner turns 70.
00:31:05By then, when many people his age are settling into retirement, Hefner has begun a second family.
00:31:10And as he settles into his new role as husband and father, he carries on an old tradition of screening
00:31:15classic and current films for his friends.
00:31:18The 30-year custom reflects Hefner's passion for the medium that first revealed to him the concept of romantic love.
00:31:25I think most of my life has been a kind of a quest for that romantic ideal reflected in the
00:31:31music and the movies of my childhood.
00:31:33His love for the movies leads him to donate millions toward the advancement of cinema and for the preservation of
00:31:39films that inspired his life.
00:31:41In 1996, Hefner's commitment to the movies is recognized when a chair is named in his honor at the USC
00:31:48Film School.
00:31:49Hefner's philanthropic efforts are longstanding.
00:31:52In 1965, while writing the Playboy philosophy, Hefner established the Playboy Foundation,
00:31:57a corporate giving program committed to furthering personal freedom and social justice.
00:32:02He started the foundation to, as he put it at the time, put his money where his mouth is.
00:32:08He has always believed that part of being successful is an opportunity and an obligation to give back.
00:32:16In 1997, Hefner and Kimberly celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary, but their relationship has begun to crumble.
00:32:23Unlike Hefner's previous marriage, the rift has nothing to do with infidelity.
00:32:28Kimberly hasn't been able to accept all aspects of Hefner's life.
00:32:32We just seemed to grow apart.
00:32:35His needs were something different than my needs.
00:32:39I think that the main reason that they drifted apart is because Kimberly's a very private person,
00:32:45and Hef is just the opposite. He has people in his life all the time.
00:32:49In January of 1998, Hefner and Kimberly separate.
00:32:54I gave it a very good try. I love her very much.
00:32:58I was devoted to her and to the marriage.
00:33:02As with many aspects of Hefner's uncommon life, the arrangement of the couple's separation is unique.
00:33:08She lives immediately next door. The children and Kimberly are here almost every day.
00:33:13So in a certain way, it's the best of both worlds.
00:33:17I really thought that the marriage was the final chapter of my life. Turned out not to be so.
00:33:22Hefner's next chapter is his resurgence on the social scene.
00:33:25The parties at the mansion begin again, and a new generation joins in.
00:33:30When I walked in, I thought there'd be like valets. There's just fairies and nymphs parking your car.
00:33:35You know, you're greeted by wizards and magicians and ethereal witches, and it's just amazing.
00:33:42But what's more amazing is 74-year-old Hefner's unusual romantic arrangements.
00:33:48He has a wonderful love life, but rather than just one girl, he has a love relationship with four girls.
00:33:58It may be a little unconventional, but it works.
00:34:01Outside the mansion, the five-partner relationship raises more than a few eyebrows, but those who know Hefner think nothing
00:34:08of it.
00:34:08I wasn't shocked, actually, on his multiple girlfriends.
00:34:14But everybody, you know, people talk around town, and they say,
00:34:18What is this? Is Hef a spokesman for Viagra?
00:34:22Hef jokingly refers to Viagra as the best legal recreational drug of choice.
00:34:30And if it works that well for him, and he swears by it, then it must be so.
00:34:35At the beginning of the year 2000, Chicago, the city of Hefner's birth, recognizes him with a street named in
00:34:42his honor.
00:34:43But the tribute draws criticism.
00:34:45Hugh Hefner built his empire off of selling the idea that women are submissive playthings.
00:34:51Do we honor it as a city?
00:34:54I guess none of us estimated that Playboy is still in some quarters very controversial,
00:34:59which is, I think, part of what sustains the success of the magazine.
00:35:03Hefner the man credits much of his own success to Hefner the boy.
00:35:08I remain today very, very close to that boy.
00:35:12That's what makes him so creative.
00:35:14I think you have to be a child to be creative.
00:35:17He is Peter Pan.
00:35:20I'll never grow up!
00:35:22He loves bringing back those childhood feelings, which is why he probably likes young women,
00:35:29because he gets to be a boy again.
00:35:31I see him every day, on a daily basis.
00:35:37That little kid in him is chuckling about how all of this has happened.
00:35:42He set out to live a movie.
00:35:45He created a stage set for that movie.
00:35:48He's living the romantic dramas of the 30s.
00:35:51He has a great and glamorous life.
00:35:54But the Playboy's life is not complete.
00:35:57Through the years, through his magazine, and through his relationships,
00:36:01Hefner has been on a search for one thing that seems unattainable.
00:36:05A world where the songs are true.
00:36:08I've spent my life in that quest, looking for that perfect romantic connection
00:36:14where the words of the songs are true.
00:36:21Hugh Hefner's career began with Marilyn Monroe,
00:36:25so he's decided why not make her part of his final chapter as well.
00:36:29Hefner has actually reserved the burial crib next to Monroe's resting place in Los Angeles.
00:36:34Side by Side, Playboy's founding swinger and his premier playmate.
00:36:39I'm Matt Lauer.
00:36:41Thanks for watching.
00:37:12About how dangerous her husband was.
00:37:25In 1996, Hugh Hefner turns 70.
00:37:29By then, when many people his age are settling into retirement, Hefner has begun a second family.
00:37:34And as he settles into his new role as husband and father,
00:37:37he carries on an old tradition of screening classic and current films for his friends.
00:37:42The 30-year custom reflects Hefner's passion for the medium that first revealed to him the concept of romantic love.
00:37:49I think most of my life has been a kind of a quest for that romantic ideal reflected in the
00:37:55music and the movies of my childhood.
00:37:56His love for the movies leads him to donate millions toward the advancement of cinema and for the preservation of
00:38:03films that inspired his life.
00:38:05In 1996, Hefner's commitment to the movies is recognized when a chair is named in his honor at the USC
00:38:12Film School.
00:38:13Hefner's philanthropic efforts are long-standing.
00:38:16In 1965, while writing the Playboy philosophy, Hefner established the Playboy Foundation,
00:38:21a corporate giving program committed to furthering personal freedom and social justice.
00:38:27He started the foundation to, as he put it at the time, put his money where his mouth is.
00:38:32He has always believed that part of being successful is an opportunity and an obligation to give back.
00:38:40In 1997, Hefner and Kimberly celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary, but their relationship has begun to crumble.
00:38:47Unlike Hefner's previous marriage, the rift has nothing to do with infidelity.
00:38:52Kimberly hasn't been able to accept all aspects of Hefner's life.
00:38:56We just seemed to grow apart. His needs were something different than my needs.
00:39:03I think that the main reason that they drifted apart is because Kimberly's a very private person,
00:39:08and Hefner's just the opposite. He has people in his life all the time.
00:39:13In January of 1998, Hefner and Kimberly separate.
00:39:18I gave it a very good try. I love her very much. I was devoted to her and to the
00:39:25marriage.
00:39:26As with many aspects of Hefner's uncommon life, the arrangement of the couple's separation is unique.
00:39:32She lives immediately next door. The children and Kimberly are here almost every day.
00:39:37So in a certain way, it's the best of both worlds.
00:39:41I really thought that the marriage was the final chapter of my life. Turned out not to be so.
00:39:46Hefner's next chapter is his resurgence on the social scene. The parties at the mansion begin again, and a new
00:39:52generation joins in.
00:39:54When I walked in, I thought there'd be like valets. There's just fairies and nymphs parking your car.
00:39:59You know, you're greeted by wizards and magicians and ethereal witches, and it's just amazing.
00:40:06But what's more amazing is 74-year-old Hefner's unusual romantic arrangements.
00:40:12He sent today reporter Barbara Walters to the Bunny School.
00:40:26In 1953, the seeds are sown for the sexual revolution in America.
00:40:31By then, the first contraceptive pill has been developed, and Dr. Alfred Kinsey publishes sexual behavior in the human female.
00:40:38It's the perfect time for Hugh Hefner to launch Playboy, and he does it by publishing the naked Marilyn Monroe
00:40:44pictures he has acquired.
00:40:46And at the same moment they appeared in the magazine, she is making gentlemen prefer blondes.
00:40:52I mean, her career and those photos were one of those flashpoints because it could have gone the other way.
00:41:01Uh, she could have been banned from Hollywood. That her career survived that, uh, gave a blessing to nudity.
00:41:10The very first edition of the magazine sells over 70,000 copies. More issues follow.
00:41:15The key to Playboy's success in what will have everybody talking is Hefner's concept of the playmate of the month.
00:41:22Hefner's insight was to say, the girl next door is also naked. As a sexual being, let's photograph her.
00:41:28The idea that the woman you saw working in the office with you, or the woman who sat three rows
00:41:33over from you in school, actually looked like that underneath her clothes. Wow, that was wonderful.
00:41:39The magazine also features top-notch fiction, and in later years, important interviews and in-depth social commentary.
00:41:48I believe Tom Wolf said it was the, uh, sort of penicillin put in there to nullify the, uh, the
00:41:55effect of the dirty pictures.
00:41:57But the magazine's hook is sex and the pursuit of pleasure.
00:42:01Max Lerner, a philosopher, journalist of the 50s, said that in the sexual revolution, Kenzie was the researcher, the theorist.
00:42:11And Hefner was the pamphleteer. I'm the guy that spread the good word. The sex was not the enemy.
00:42:17Hefner's message becomes widespread as Playboy's readership grows, but Hefner does not lack critics.
00:42:24Good evening, I'm Mike Wallace. The show is Nightbeat.
00:42:26Our first story is Hugh Hefner. Isn't that really what you're selling, kind of a high-class, dirty book?
00:42:36Sex always will be an important part of the book, because sex is probably the single thing that, uh, men
00:42:45are most interested in.
00:42:46Oh, with this, I think that you'll agree. It's a sniggering kind of sex. It's a lascivious kind of sex.
00:42:51It certainly isn't a healthy approach to sex. You would suggest that it is.
00:42:55I would not only suggest that, I would say rather strongly. We consider it a pretty healthy act.
00:42:59Hefner, a workaholic, is completely dedicated to his magazine, which puts strains on his marriage to Millie.
00:43:05In 1955, the couple welcomed their second child, David. But a new baby does not help the faltering relationship.
00:43:12One of Hefner's closest confidants, and it threatens to destroy everything he has created.
00:43:18Bobby Arnstein, Hefner's executive assistant, knows all the inner workings of the Playboy operation.
00:43:23She controlled access to Hefner within the mansion, which gave her enormous power.
00:43:28All the holidays and, you know, family times, she would be there, and frankly, I think, did a lot of
00:43:34the shopping for my dad, for me in particular.
00:43:36But she was an unstable young woman. Her lover died tragically in a car crash, and she was very destabilized
00:43:42by this, and she began taking drugs.
00:43:45On March 21, 1974, federal agents apprehended Bobby Arnstein outside Hefner's Chicago mansion for allegedly trafficking cocaine.
00:43:55Her arrest is the tip of a much bigger iceberg.
00:43:58There were all kinds of stories going around that drug use was rife in the mansion, and that Hefner's plane
00:44:04was being used to transport drugs.
00:44:06Federal and local authorities try to get Arnstein to implicate Hefner.
00:44:10But when she refuses to do so, Arnstein is tried, and using the perjured testimony of a convicted drug dealer,
00:44:17prosecutors convince the jury of her guilt.
00:44:20Arnstein's sentence is 15 years in federal prison.
00:44:23My lawyer suggests that I not give any statements. It's not my personal feeling.
00:44:29Sorry.
00:44:31Two and a half months later, after working for Hefner for 12 years, Bobby Arnstein commits suicide.
00:44:37She felt guilty about what her arrest was doing to the Playboy business and to Hefner by association, and the
00:44:44fact she was a troubled woman that led her to take her own life.
00:44:47My brother was devastated.
00:44:52Whatever mistake she may have made in her personal life, she deserved better than this.
00:45:01She was one of the best, brightest, most worthwhile women I have ever known.
00:45:15She will be missed.
00:45:18In the end, Hefner was exonerated. I mean, there was an investigation, and the authorities had to admit that actually
00:45:24there was no evidence.
00:45:25But he never got over the fact that Bobby Arnstein killed herself.
00:45:30Hefner's world is no longer a fantasy, and in the coming years, the death of a playmate will further corrupt
00:45:36the dream.
00:45:37He had tried to warn her about how dangerous her husband was.
00:45:52In 1996, Hugh Hefner turns 70.
00:45:56By then, when many people his age are settling into retirement, Hefner has begun a second family.
00:46:01And as he settles into his new role as husband and father, he carries on an old tradition of screening
00:46:06classic and current films for his friends.
00:46:09The 30-year custom reflects Hefner's passion for the medium Mariner Monroe.
00:46:24World War II ends in 1946.
00:46:27It is a time of opportunity for those coming home, including Hugh Hefner, who attends the University of Illinois, where
00:46:33his girlfriend, Millie Williams, is enrolled.
00:46:36Millie is studying to be a teacher.
00:46:38Hefner aspires to become a publisher and creates a college humor magazine called Shaft.
00:46:44But it's not the humor that makes the publication a success.
00:46:48Hefner's magazine owes its popularity to a prophetic feature he calls co-ed of the month.
00:46:54Eventually, Hefner and Millie become engaged, not long after the Kinsey Report is published.
00:46:59Hefner is amazed by its findings, which indicate that Americans have sex more often and in more ways than they
00:47:07admit.
00:47:08Still a virgin at 22, Hefner feels left out.
00:47:11Hefner eventually persuaded Millie to go all the way, as it was then known, in a hotel room.
00:47:18The thou shalt nots of that period were related to not having intercourse until you got married.
00:47:25Once you had intercourse, it was a no man's land.
00:47:30When Millie takes an out-of-town teaching job, Hefner quickly discovers the downside of his fiancée's newfound sexual freedom.
00:47:37While she was away, she had an affair.
00:47:40It was the single most devastating experience of my life.
00:47:43Despite his disappointment, Hefner doesn't leave Millie.
00:47:47They are wed in June of 1949, but the marriage is not ideal.
00:47:52I think to some extent she recognized that we were probably not well-suited for one another.
00:47:57And I think that's probably the real reason for the affair.
00:47:59The newlyweds look past their problems and fall in step with the expected middle-class life.
00:48:04In 1950, Hefner is hired as an ad copywriter at a department store.
00:48:09He works with then-unknown artist Leroy Neiman, who sees in Hefner the signs of a future playboy.
00:48:15He was a collector of sex memorabilia, just like the sports freaks are today.
00:48:22Hefner's sex collection includes softcore porn known as blue movies,
00:48:26which are nearly impossible to get during the increasingly conservative time.
00:48:30There was no open market in terms of pornography. It was an underground phenomenon.
00:48:34I was probably the only kid in my group of friends who owned a couple of Stag films.
00:48:40Eventually, Hefner produces his own erotic material.
00:48:44That Toddle in Town, a book of suggestive cartoons, is a moderate success in Chicago
00:48:48and leads to a job for Hefner at Esquire.
00:48:52But the magazine no longer features the pin-up girls of Hefner's youth.
00:48:56Disappointed, he leaves to work for a company which publishes nudist magazines.
00:49:01Seeing that market, combined with my year at Esquire,
00:49:05made me feel that it was possible to create a quality magazine that included some nudity.
00:49:12But Hefner...
00:49:13Following the breakup, Hefner becomes a full-fledged playboy
00:49:17and takes to the airwaves to promote his new lifestyle and his magazine.
00:49:21I'm Hugh Hefner, editor-publisher of Playboy magazine, and your host.
00:49:25And this is Playboy's penthouse.
00:49:28Come on in and meet some of our guests.
00:49:30That was actually, I think, the first example of a magazine using television as a marketing tool.
00:49:36And it was very successful.
00:49:38In addition, the new Bachelor buys a 30-room mansion
00:49:41and later opens the first of several Playboy clubs, which feature waitresses dressed as bunnies.
00:49:48I was a bunny for about three months when I very first came to New York.
00:49:52I was making maybe $600 a week working lunches on tips.
00:49:57Bunnies become a new American sex symbol and attract fascination from all corners.
00:50:02In the still-unliberated early 60s, a young correspondent named Barbara Walters experiences bunny life firsthand.
00:50:10Now, for a look at the Playboy club bunnies and the way they are trained,
00:50:14we sent today reporter Barbara Walters to the bunny school.
00:50:17Standard equipment is the bunny cottontail.
00:50:20The bunny manual is 35 pages long.
00:50:23And dating customers or drinking alcoholic beverages before or on the job means automatic dismissal.
00:50:29When it's rumored that bunnies provide more than food and beverages, Hefner faces new controversy.
00:50:35We weren't sex workers.
00:50:38Although we certainly were lookers for the most part.
00:50:41You know, the amazing thing is they are more chaperones really than in a television studio.
00:50:46It has been said even that the atmosphere is almost depressingly moral in the Playboy club
00:50:51because there's no hanky-panky whatever.
00:50:53And the furor that's raised about it kind of is ridiculous.
00:50:58Hope springs eternal.
00:51:00While the average businessman finds fun at the clubs, Hefner hosts nightly private parties at his mansion.
00:51:06It was fun. The parties were good. There was a certain style. There was a wine cellar. There was good
00:51:11food.
00:51:12There was a pool there and you could go down into a bar and look through a glass and watch
00:51:18people swimming around in the pool.
00:51:20There were intellectuals and professors and rabbis and everything else, drop-out priests.
00:51:26But mostly there are women, many women, including several bunnies who pay rent to live in a dormitory on the
00:51:33mansion's top floor.
00:51:34During this time, pajamas become Hefner's attire of choice both night and day.
00:51:39His bedroom also serves as his office and a rotating, vibrating, round bed doubles as Hefner's desk.
00:51:46In his adult life, he really is living out what he started in his early childhood.
00:51:52He really preferred to be in his pajamas as opposed to anything else when he was a little kid.
00:51:57Didn't really want to go out of the house, wanted to do his work there, and when he got enough
00:52:06money and power, that's exactly the lifestyle that he then lived.
00:52:12He was a playboy.
00:52:13He started calling himself Hef and he tried to present a more positive picture of himself.
00:52:20It certainly redefined my persona, but it also made me a little cautious in terms of commitment too.
00:52:27Without Betty Conklin, there might never have been a playboy.
00:52:31Jim Brophy said when we all got together in our 60s that if Hef had married me, that he'd be
00:52:36doing Jack and Jill magazine.
00:52:38He was searching for that love and just whatever ramifications he had from not having gotten that love made him,
00:52:46you know, really go out and want to conquer.
00:52:49In his junior year of high school, Hefner becomes a creative big man on campus.
00:52:54He writes for the school paper, produces an autobiographical comic strip, and shines as a comedian.
00:53:03Hef and his good friend Jim Brophy did these comic routines.
00:53:07It was so corny that people threw money up on the stage and they'd get out their brooms and sweep
00:53:12it up.
00:53:12The last two years of high school are the most important time of my life before the beginning of Playboy,
00:53:17and the best time of my life.
00:53:19It is during high school that Hefner begins toying with sex, but due to his Puritan upbringing, his activity is
00:53:25limited.
00:53:26I went study for the first time in my senior year, and that was the beginning of some sexual experimentation,
00:53:34but didn't include intercourse.
00:53:35When Hefner graduates in 1944, he makes several most lists, including most popular and most likely to succeed.
00:53:43He is set to take on the world of publishing, but instead, Hefner enters a world at war.
00:53:49At 17, he enlists in the army, but before shipping out, Hefner meets fellow classmate Millie Williams at a post
00:53:56-graduation party.
00:53:58Hefner had not known Millie during high school, and still longing for romance, he befriends her.
00:54:04I think that the relationship grew to some extent because, at an unconscious level, I wanted to have somebody back
00:54:14home to write to, you know, to have a girl back home.
00:54:17Hefner is stationed stateside. He and Millie correspond during his two years of service.
00:54:22They spend his furloughs together, and eventually Hefner's dream comes true when they fall in love.
00:54:29Coming up, romance is betrayed.
00:54:31Once you had intercourse, it was a no-man's land.
00:54:36And how a rising star helps Hugh Hefner change America's attitude towards sex.
00:54:41The Calendar publishing company had these nude photographs of Marilyn Monroe.
00:54:56World War II ends in 1946. It is a time of opportunity for those coming home, including Hugh Hefner, who
00:55:03attends the University of Illinois, where his girlfriend, Millie Williams, is enrolled.
00:55:08Millie is studying to be a teacher. Hefner aspires to become a publisher.
00:55:13I really thought that the marriage was the final chapter of my life. Turned out not to be so.
00:55:18Hefner's next chapter is his resurgence on the social scene. The parties at the mansion begin again, and a new
00:55:24generation joins in.
00:55:26When I walked in, I thought there'd be like valets. There's just fairies and nymphs parking your car.
00:55:31You know, you're greeted by wizards and magicians and ethereal witches, and it's just amazing.
00:55:38But what's more amazing is 74-year-old Hefner's unusual romantic arrangements.
00:55:44He has a wonderful love life, but rather than just one girl, he has a love relationship with four girls.
00:55:53It may be a little unconventional, but it works.
00:55:57Outside the mansion, the five-partner relationship raises more than a few eyebrows, but those who know Hefner think nothing
00:56:04of it.
00:56:04I wasn't shocked, actually, on his multiple girlfriends.
00:56:10But everybody, you know, people talk around town, and they say,
00:56:14What is this? Is Hef a spokesman for Viagra?
00:56:18Hef jokingly refers to Viagra as the best legal recreational drug of choice.
00:56:26And if it works that well for him, and he swears by it, then it must be so.
00:56:31At the beginning of the year 2000, Chicago, the city of Hefner's birth, recognizes him with a street named in
00:56:38his honor.
00:56:39But the tribute draws criticism.
00:56:41Hugh Hefner built his empire off of selling the idea that women are submissive playthings.
00:56:47Do we honor it as a city?
00:56:50I guess none of us estimated that Playboy is still in some quarters very controversial,
00:56:55which is, I think, part of what sustains the success of the magazine.
00:56:59Hefner the man credits much of his own success to Hefner the boy.
00:57:04I remain today very, very close to that boy.
00:57:08That's what makes him so creative.
00:57:10I think you have to be a child to be creative.
00:57:13He is Peter Pan.
00:57:16I'll never grow up!
00:57:18He loves bringing back those childhood feelings, which is why he probably likes young women,
00:57:25because he gets to be a boy again.
00:57:27I see him every day.
00:57:29On a daily basis, that little kid in him is chuckling about how all of this has happened.
00:57:38He set out to live a movie.
00:57:41He created a stage set for that movie.
00:57:44He's living the romantic dramas of the 30s.
00:57:47He has a great and glamorous life.
00:57:50But the Playboy's life is not complete.
00:57:53Through the years, through his magazine, and through his relationships,
00:57:57Hefner has been on a search for one thing that seems unattainable.
00:58:02A world where the songs are true.
00:58:03I've spent my life in that quest looking for that perfect romantic connection
00:58:10where the words of the songs are true.
00:58:12Illinois, where his girlfriend, Millie Williams, is enrolled.
00:58:16Millie is studying to be a teacher.
00:58:18Hefner aspires to become a publisher and creates a college humor magazine called Shaft.
00:58:24But it's not the humor that makes the publication a success.
00:58:27Hefner's magazine owes its popularity to a prophetic feature he calls Co-Ed of the Month.
00:58:34Eventually, Hefner and Millie become engaged, not long after the Kinsey Report is published.
00:58:40Hefner is amazed by its findings, which indicate that Americans have sex more often and in more ways than they
00:58:47admit.
00:58:47Still a virgin at 22, Hefner feels left out.
00:58:51Hefner eventually persuaded Millie to go all the way, as it was then known, in a hotel room.
00:58:59The thou shalt nots of that period were related to not having intercourse until you got married.
00:59:05Once you had intercourse, it was a no man's land.
00:59:09When Millie takes an out-of-town teaching job, Hefner quickly discovers the downside of his fiancé's newfound sexual freedom.
00:59:17While she was away, she had an affair.
00:59:20It was the single most devastating experience of my life.
00:59:23Despite his disappointment, Hefner doesn't leave Millie.
00:59:27They are wed in June of 1949, but the marriage is not ideal.
00:59:32I think to some extent she recognized that we were probably not well suited for one another.
00:59:37And I think that's probably the real reason for the affair.
00:59:39The newlyweds look past their problems and fall in step with the expected middle-class life.
00:59:44In 1950, Hefner is hired as an ad copywriter at a department store.
00:59:49He works with then-unknown artist Leroy Neiman, who sees in Hefner the signs of a future Playboy.
00:59:55He was a collector of sex memorabilia, just like the sports freaks are today.
01:00:02Hefner's sex collection includes softcore porn known as blue movies, which are nearly impossible to get during the increasingly conservative
01:00:10time.
01:00:10There was no open market in terms of pornography. It was an underground phenomenon.
01:00:15I was probably the only kid in my group of friends who owned a couple of stag films.
01:00:20Eventually, Hefner produces his own erotic material.
01:00:24That Toddle in Town, a book of suggestive cartoons, is a moderate success in Chicago and leads to a job
01:00:30for Hefner at Esquire.
01:00:32But the magazine no longer features the pinup girls of Hefner's youth.
01:00:36Disappointed, he leaves to work for a company which publishes nudist magazines.
01:00:41Seeing that market combined with my year at Esquire made me feel that it was possible to create a quality
01:00:50magazine that included some nudity.
01:00:52But Hefner puts the daring idea on hold when Millie announces she is pregnant.
01:00:57In 1952, the couple's three-year marriage is strengthened with the birth of daughter Christy.
01:01:02A month after Christy's arrival, Hefner performs in a high school alumni show.
01:01:07The program is a huge success, but the experience discourages Hefner, who's come to realize he is...
01:01:13When Hefner graduates in 1944, he makes several most lists, including most popular and most likely to succeed.
01:01:20He is set to take on the world of publishing, but instead, Hefner enters a world at war.
01:01:26At 17, he enlists in the army, but before shipping out, Hefner meets fellow classmate Millie Williams at a post
01:01:33-graduation party.
01:01:35Hefner had not known Millie during high school, and still longing for romance, he befriends her.
01:01:41I think that the relationship grew to some extent because, at an unconscious level, I wanted to have somebody back
01:01:51home to write to, you know, to have a girl back home.
01:01:54Hefner is stationed stateside. He and Millie correspond during his two years of service.
01:01:59They spend his furloughs together, and eventually Hefner's dream comes true when they fall in love.
01:02:06Coming up, romance is betrayed.
01:02:08Once you had intercourse, it was a no-man's land.
01:02:13And how a rising star helps Hugh Hefner change America's attitude towards sex.
01:02:18The Calendar publishing company had these nude photographs of Marilyn Monroe.
01:02:33World War II ends in 1946.
01:02:35It is a time of opportunity for those coming home, including Hugh Hefner, who attends the University of Illinois, where
01:02:42his girlfriend, Millie Williams, is enrolled.
01:02:45Millie is studying to be a teacher.
01:02:47Hefner aspires to become a publisher and creates a college humor magazine called Shaft.
01:02:53But it's not the humor that makes the publication a success.
01:02:57Hefner's magazine owes its popularity to a prophetic feature he calls co-ed of the month.
01:03:03Eventually, Hefner and Millie become engaged, not long after the Kinsey Report is published.
01:03:09Hefner is amazed by its findings, which indicate that Americans have sex more often and in more ways than they
01:03:16admit.
01:03:17Still a virgin at 22, Hefner feels left out.
01:03:20Hefner eventually persuaded Millie to go all the way, as it was then known, in a hotel room.
01:03:28The thou shalt nots of that period were related to not having intercourse until you got married.
01:03:34Once you had intercourse, it was a no-man's land.
01:03:38When Millie takes an out-of-town teaching job, Hefner quickly discovers the downside of his fiancé's newfound sexual freedom.
01:03:46While she was away, she had an affair. It was the single most devastating experience of my life.
01:03:52Despite his disappointment, Hefner doesn't leave Millie.
01:03:56They are wed in June of 1949, but the marriage is not ideal.
01:04:01I think to some extent she recognized that we were probably not well-suited for one another.
01:04:06And I think that's probably the real reason for the affair.
01:04:08The newlyweds look past their problems and fall in step with the expected middle...