Hugh hoffman playboy. "Playboy". Founder of Playboy: biography, photo, wives. hearing problems

Yesterday, September 27, at the age of 91, the founder of the cult Playboy magazine, Hugh Hefner, died. According to people close to him, he spent the last hours of his life in his Playboy Mansion surrounded by family and friends. Hugh Hefner is an American icon who has built his company into one of the most recognizable global brands in history. His house is a real paradise on earth. Many dreamed of getting to the famous Hugh's crazy party, but even eminent show business stars did not always succeed. So what does this legendary mansion, which has been home to the founder of the iconic Playboy magazine, Hugh Hefner, look like for half a century? This is our today's material.

Biography

Mother - Grace Caroline Swanson, father - Glenn Lucius Hefner. He graduated from high school in Chicago, after which he joined the army in 1944, fought in the last months of World War II.

After the army, Hugh Hefner graduated in psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ideas for Playboy appeared in his student years, he became interested in publishing. Worked as a magazine editor Shaft, drew cartoons for magazines.

In 1952 their daughter Christy was born, in 1955 their son David Paul was born.

Later, Hefner works in the advertising department of Esquire magazine, but soon quits due to being denied a raise. From that moment on, Hefner begins to raise money to create his own magazine. He earns $600 in loans, borrows $8,000 from investors and $1,000 from his own mother, and gets started. The working title of the journal was "Stag Party"("Bachelor Party"), but Hefner refused this name so as not to conflict with the then existing "men's magazine" "Stag Magazine", and did not lose. In December 1953, the first issue of Playboy magazine was published with Marilyn Monroe on the cover with a circulation of 70,000 copies. Hugh Hefner strongly doubted that the first issue would be followed by a second, and even decided not to put the number on the cover of his magazine. But things went on. Three-quarters of the circulation was sold in the first week. The sexual revolution had begun.

In 1959, Hugh divorced Mildred Williams and lived as a bachelor for 30 years, although he had ongoing relationships with many girls. And only in 1989 he marries model Kimberly Conrad, with whom he will also live for 10 years.

Since 2000, Hugh Hefner has lived in his mansion with 7 girls aged 18 to 28.

In December 2010, the engagement of Hefner and 25-year-old Playboy model Crystal Harris was announced. The wedding was to take place on June 18, 2011. However, on June 14, Hefner announced on his microblog on Twitter that the wedding was cancelled. "Krystal has changed her mind," Hugh wrote, without elaborating on the reasons why his now ex-fiancee called off the wedding. In turn, the website TMZ.com, which specializes in news from the life of celebrities, reported, citing sources in the Playboy Mansion Hefner's mansion, that the couple had a violent quarrel over the phone. After that, according to TMZ.com sources, Crystal Harris left the Hefner mansion, where she lived since December 2009.

Hugh Hefner raised the prestige of his offspring to such a height that John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Clancy agreed to publish their works in it, Dennis Rodman, Tommy Hilfiger, Kevin Spacey, John Travolta and Bill Gates were among the interviewees, and they were easily allowed to be photographed for the magazine consent Katarina Witt, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Sharon Stone and many other stars.

In August 2009, Hefner found a buyer for his family mansion, which he had been trying to sell since March 2009 in connection with the move of his sons Marston and Cooper to university residences. The buyer was 25-year-old millionaire Daren Metropoulos, who offered $18 million for the property. The family mansion is located next to another building owned by Hefner, which houses the offices of Playboy magazine. The mansion, built in 1929, includes five bedrooms, seven toilets and a huge garden with a swimming pool.

Hugh Hefner photo

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Hugh Hefner owes his success to Marilyn Monroe

Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy, was constantly surrounded by a whole harem of young girls in his Playboy Mansion during his lifetime and became almost a symbol of hedonism and sexual excesses.

However, after his death, there will be only one woman next to him - Marilyn Monroe.

Hefner, who died on Wednesday at the age of 91, bought a crypt in the cemetery in 1992 next to the one in which the remains of Marilyn are buried. He paid $75,000 for it.

The message that he will now forever lie next to Monroe has caused heated debate - some consider this a touching gesture, while others consider it not too decent.

• Playboy founder Hugh Hefner dies
• Playboy magazine resumes publishing photos of naked models

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Marilyn Monroe died in 1962.

But critics say that although Hefner was able to launch his brand and his magazine precisely because of this first issue of Playboy with a photo of Marilyn Monroe, she herself was embarrassed by those photos, fearing that their publication could damage her career.

The nude photos were taken a few years earlier, when Monroe was a young, poor and almost unemployed actress. For this she received then 50 dollars.

Four years later, Hefner paid a Chicago calendar company $500 and obtained the rights to publish pictures of Monroe, which - as she herself would later say - "had nothing but radio waves." Hefner sold 50,000 copies of the magazine in a day.

In her autobiography, Marilyn: Her Life in Her Words, the actress wrote: "I have never even been thanked by those who made millions from a Marilyn nude photo. I even had to buy a copy of the magazine myself to see how I look there."

Hefner never met Monroe, although he said they once talked on the phone. "I love blondes, and she is the most blonde," he said.

He also said that many of his acquaintances were buried in Westwood Cemetery in Los Angeles.

"I believe in symbolic things," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I could not miss the opportunity to spend eternity next to Marilyn."

The widow gets nothing

As always, when a rich person dies, gossip begins about who and what will inherit from his fortune.

As far as we know, Hefner's fortune reaches 50 million dollars, although some publications give even more impressive figures.

The American press cites sources close to the Hefner family, who say that the possible heirs are unlikely to fight among themselves - mainly because his third and last wife, Crystal Harris, was clearly told before the wedding (and backed up by a prenuptial contract) that after his death she will not get anything. Although they also add that she will not be left without money.

Crystal Harris is 60 years younger than Hefner. They got married in 2012. Crystal became the third and last wife of Hugh Hefner.

The US press writes that, most likely, Hefner's fortune will be divided among his four children from two previous marriages. Two of them worked for the Playboy family business for years. Part of the money will go to charity.

Hefner sold the Playboy Mansion in 2016 for $100 million to his neighbor Darren Metropoulos. According to the terms of the deal, Hefner could stay there for the rest of his days.

It is said that Metropoulos wants to merge the plots of both properties and restore the Playboy Mansion, built in 1927, returning it to its original appearance.

Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy magazine, died at his home surrounded by loved ones. He was 91 years old. Hugh Hefner can be called a legend who built his publishing empire, earning millions from the release of an erotic magazine. It is hard to imagine how much criticism this ingenious and at the same time frank idea had to endure. However, even now the legendary publisher's business is booming, and Playboy girls are considered beauty idols.

Playboy Enterprise has released details of the death of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.

« Hugh M. Hefner, the American icon who introduced Playboy magazine to the world in 1953 and built the company into one of the most recognizable American global brands in history, passed away peacefully today of natural causes at his home, the Playboy Mansion, surrounded by family and friends. ," the company's website said in a statement.

Hefner's death was also confirmed by his son Cooper, who said in a statement that his father had "an exceptional and spectacular life" as a pioneer in the world of culture and media.

Hefner was born in 1926 in Chicago. In 1944 he joined the army and took part in World War II. After that, he studied psychology at the University of Illinois.

In the early 50s, he got a job at Esquire as a copywriter, but ended up quitting when he was denied a promotion. In December 1953, with money received from several investors, he published the first issue of Playboy.

15 Things You Probably Never Knew About Hugh Hefner

1. He was born in Chicago in 1926, in a Christian family, Grace Caroline and Glenn Lucius. He described them as "Midwestern conservative Methodists". They were very strict people. None of the family members even had the right to go to the cinema, let alone anything more. On Sundays, the whole family attended church services.

2. Hefner got married on his college sweetheart in 1949. Mildred Williams was also born in 1926. From their union, which lasted only ten years, daughter Christie and son David appeared. For the next thirty years, Hugh lived as a bachelor.

In 1989, Hefner married a second time- on the model Kimberly Conrad, he also lived with her for ten years, she bore him two more sons.

Starting in 2000, he cohabited with seven girls at the same time, who were between the ages of 18 and 28.

At 87, the legendary womanizer decides to join married for the third time. Model Krystal Haris was chosen for the role of the wife. Interestingly, his young wife (she is 31 now) - Crystal Hefner - recently published new posts every two hours, and shortly before the death of the founder of Playboy, she watched wedding dresses.

When the media vying with each other wrote that her husband had died tragically, Krystal had a post about the heroes of the Game of Thrones. And to all the critics who were outraged that at such a difficult moment she was sitting on social networks, the woman did not answer.

3. Hefner borrowed $8,000 from his mother and took out a $600 bank loan to start Playboy magazine. At the time, his mother didn't believe in his idea, but she believed in him. It's hard to believe that such a small contribution could turn into huge wealth! The state of the deceased is estimated at 43 million dollars.

4. Hefner holds two Guinness World Records. The first record - "was the Editor-in-Chief of one magazine for decades." The second record is the possession of the largest collection of personal clippings. During his long life, the founder of Playboy has amassed a collection of 2,485 albums full of newspaper and magazine clippings. Elementary calculations show that to create such a collection, he had to spend more time on applications than in bed.

5. Hugh Hefner has a rather impressive intellect. - the IQ of a rich person is 152. There are not many people in the world who are so erudite.

6. Hefner had a keen eye. To create the cover of the first issue of the magazine, the businessman chose not just anyone, but one of the most popular divas of the second half of the 20th century, Marilyn Monroe. The circulation of the first issue was 70 thousand copies, which were almost immediately sold out.

7. Hefner bought a crypt next to Marilyn Monroe at Westwood Cemetery in 1992, the crypt cost him $75,000. I wonder if he will be buried there?

8. In 2010, Hefner donates $900,000 needed to keep the acreage under the Hollywood Sign. His love for cinema showed.

9. The girls at the Hefner mansion were supposed to be home at 9pm. Models living with Hefner enjoyed absolute freedom and could go anywhere - but only until 9 pm. They were supposed to be at home at this hour. Hefner demanded this relentlessly, like a demanding father, and severely punished disobedience.

10. Hugh had one thing: all the girls in his mansion had to wear the same pajamas - pink, sewn from soft flannel. The nightly dressing ritual was part of the daily routine. Here is what another inhabitant of the mansion, Playboy model Jill Ann Spaulding, says: “In the evening, new girls and those who do not yet have their own room should take a bath and put on pink pajamas. You go upstairs, choose one of the pajamas that have obviously been in the laundry, and put them on, although as soon as you enter Hugh's bedroom, you immediately throw them off.

11. The Hefner mansion had a strict weekly schedule. Bohemian life in the Playboy mansion was not spontaneous, but proceeded according to a strict schedule.

Here's what the schedule was: Sunday - a pool party and a movie premiere in their own cinema. Monday - evening with men: on this day, Hugh Hefner's friends came to visit - chat with girls and play cards. Tuesday is a family day: Hugh was waiting for his ex-wives with children to visit. Wednesday and Friday - a mass departure to the club, and after returning home - an orgy until the morning. Saturday is old movie night at the mansion's cinema. Hugh had no special plans for Thursday, and the girls were left to their own devices.

12. Hefner got the Playboy girls into movies. At the same time, about a dozen girls lived with Hugh in the Playboy mansion. There is no doubt that each of them by the end of her term became a real film expert: after all, as can be seen from the schedule, they watched films carefully selected by Hefner at least twice a week. At the same time, one of them was fresh, and the second was an old classic, which Hefner was a big hunter. Moreover, according to Holly Madison, during the sessions, Hugh explained to them in detail both the plot and what the director wanted to say.

13. Hugh Hefner took Viagra. According to the testimonies of the girls who had an affair with the founder of the Playboy empire, Hugh Hefner, he took drugs that stimulate potency for many years. According to the Shannon twins, former girlfriends of Hefner, he always carried a Viagra pill wrapped in a paper handkerchief, just in case. According to them, in recent years, due to excessive passion for Viagra, Hugh began to hear worse - but he still did not leave the habit of the stimulant. However, this is not surprising: as Hefner himself admits, in his life he dealt with more than a thousand women.

14. The creator of Playboy was not afraid to correct the fact that, as they said, there was no sex in the USSR. In 1989, actress Natalya Negoda appeared on the cover of a magazine for men. The release of the issue caused a flurry of criticism in the Soviet Union.

15. Hugh Hefner never suffered from a lack of creativity. Even when creating a logo for their future empire, the publisher showed a touch of originality. The Playboy bunny has a double meaning: on the one hand, it is a loving animal, and on the other, a serious gentleman (as his strict butterfly proves).