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2010-11-19 08:45:37
It may surprise some, but the founder of Playboy magazine - Hugh Hefner - has
been given two literary awards. The 84-year-old, who has published nude
photographs of women for more than 50 years, was honoured for the articles that
accompany the pictures and his commitment to free speech. Rajesh Mirchandani
went to the famous Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills to meet him.
There are few houses as famous as their occupants: Buckingham Palace, Neverland
Ranch, the Playboy Mansion.
Steeped in Hennessey as much as in history, this lush corner of Beverly Hills
is infamous for the parties it has hosted, all under the shrewd eye of Hugh
Marston Hefner.
The founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy Magazine says he will never move out
of the mansion while he's alive.
Start Quote
Playboy's brand image is perhaps its most valuable asset these days, rather the
magazine that sparked it all
End Quote
It's clear the building and the empire that funds it are the products of more
than half a century of fighting for what he believes: that pictures of naked
women are not pornographic, not exploitative, and should not be censored.
Of course, many disagree on each of those points. But it is the issue of
freedom of the press that we are here to discuss.
We wait in the dark wood-panelled living room that boasts a church organ
(damaged from a leaky roof), a 20ft cinema screen and projectors (movie nights
are Friday through Monday), a reproduction Picasso (a topless woman, what
else?) and antique bunny figurines. Hugh Hefner enters through velvet curtains,
dressed in black silk pyjamas and a red silk bathrobe. At 84, he still plays
the Lothario, bright-eyed and bed-ready.
'Serious literary writers'
We are here because Mr Hefner or Heff (along with other American icons like
Cher and Jacko, one name suffices), has been honoured by PEN USA, a literary
organisation, with two awards that recognise 50 years of support for
un-championed writers and of fighting censorship.
Playboy magazine
Hugh Hefner and then girlfriend Barbara Benton in 1969
the centrefold
Muslim countries, except Turkey
year that December
I put to him the obvious assumption: that no-one buys Playboy for the writing.
"Oh yes," he insists, "if it was just for the pictures then the most successful
magazines would be hard core pornography. It's the whole package."
At the awards ceremony at a Beverly Hills hotel, which he attended with his
family and two young blonde women in eye-catchingly short skirts, he received a
standing ovation.
Jamie Wolf, vice-president of PEN USA, told me Mr Hefner "published Saul
Bellow, he published Gabriel Garcia Marquez, he published John Updike, he
published an extraordinary range of writers, serious literary writers who you
were not otherwise getting when you went into the grocery store.
"And he was paying them substantial wages. And some of them were blacklisted
writers who other people wouldn't publish.''
Accepting, Mr Hefner spoke not of his career, but of Erwin Arnada, a former
editor of Playboy Indonesia who is currently jailed there for publishing
non-nude pictures.
Past court battles
''I accept this award on behalf of him and all men of good will who believe
democracy is founded on freedom of speech and press," Mr Hefner said.
Playboy Mansion Mr Hefner rents the Playboy mansion from the company
Mr Hefner is also no stranger to fighting for himself.
He has been branded obscene in the past and has fought in court several times.
In 1954 he won a legal battle against the US postal service when Postmaster
General Arthur Summerfield refused to deliver copies of Playboy on the grounds
it was obscene.
Heff told the court: "We don't think Postmaster Summerfield has any business
editing magazines. We think he should stick to delivering the mail." Playboy
won.
A year earlier the first edition featuring nude pictures of Marilyn Monroe
(originally taken not for Playboy but for a calendar) caused a sensation in the
sexually repressed post-war 1950s.
"It gave sex a good name," Mr Hefner tells me, "and incorporated it as a
natural part of a men's' entertainment magazine."
When I ask what he thought he had done for women, he replies defiantly: "I
helped emancipate them."
'We changed the world'
At its height in the 1970s, Playboy magazine was selling seven million copies a
month. Its success spawned Bunny Girls - lots of them; nightclubs; merchandise;
even a corporate jet called Big Bunny.
Continue reading the main story
Start Quote
"The bunny's back! You know how bunnies are, they multiply!
End Quote Hugh Hefner
These days, rival, harder-core publications, the internet and greater sexual
freedoms mean Playboy is less shocking - and less in demand. Its circulation
has fallen to below two million a month - still big but nowhere near its former
heights.
"We can never have the same power and impact as in the 60s," Heff says. "It was
a different time and we changed the world."
The company diversified into cable television in 1982, with programming
typically more explicit than the magazine's. But that too has seen a decline in
revenue.
The company posted a $51m ( 31.8m) loss last year and is poised to lose money
again in 2010. The brand image is perhaps its most valuable asset these days,
rather the magazine that sparked it all.
A report last year that Heff had sold the mansion was inaccurate. In fact he
doesn't even own it but rents it from the company (he owns 70% of the company's
voting stock).
He is trying to buy back control of the magazine.
"What we need is an infusion of capital," he said. "If we accomplish that, the
future is bright."
He tells me the company is about to open a casino in Macau and that the Playboy
clothing brand is big among Chinese men, even though the magazine is not sold
there.
"The bunny's back!" he laughs. "You know how bunnies are, they multiply!"