Playboy Interview: Hugh M. Hefner

He is everywhere all over again. He is back. There is no escaping the evidence; there is no escaping him. Breathless reports have scorched network airwaves and glutted the pages of every major periodical around the world. He is back, most decidedly, with a vengeance--he is "Back in the Swing," according to Time; "Playboy Is Back as Bachelor #1, Architect of Sixties Sexual Revolution, Flings Open Mansion Doors to Nineties Hedonists," according to The Toronto Sun; "For Hollywood's Young Elite, the Playboy Mansion Is Once Again a Hip Party Spot," according to The New York Times (which duly noted, "Not only is Hugh Hefner back in action, but so is his stately pleasure dome"). Mansion party guest lists alone have been the stuff of boldfaced columns abounding, flush with names upon names--Leonardo DiCaprio, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Affleck, Jim Carey, George Clooney, Jack Nicholson, Steve Martin, Cameron Diaz, Courtney Love, Drew Carey, Pamela Anderson Lee, Liam Neeson, Ben Stiller, Kevin Costner, Bill Maher, Jennifer Lopez and on and on, ad infinitum. "So many young people, male and female, were waiting for me," their incomparable host would explain. "It was like spotting Elvis at the supermarket." Indeed, he has been spotted; he has been out on the town, back on the trail, back on the loose--in Los Angeles, in Paris, in Cannes, in London. From Esquire: "Look at him now! Hermetically unsealed, emerged from the gates, charting the new real world, night after night--he is wearing suits, for God's sake! Oh, yes, the Party is back on! The Party is everywhere! It is a happening most groovy."

While 1999 was the Chinese Year of the Rabbit, it was also the year of Hugh Marston Hefner and his triumphant return to the limelight. And the funny thing is, he's been right here with us all along. Which would appear to be the larger point of all attendant celebrations. Now, as the millennium dawns, we concede that there could not be a more fortuitous moment to turn over the Playboy Interview--a journalistic landmark forum created by himself--to the fellow who helped change the world while wearing silk pajamas. The one and only time he previously submitted to this exercise was 26 years ago, on the occasion of Playboy's 20th anniversary--and so it would seem that there are a few topics on which we would do well to catch up. To interrogate our Editor-in-Chief on century-closing matters of life and legend and philosophy and party making, author Bill Zehme traveled into the hallowed Shangri-la that is Playboy Mansion West and herewith delivers this special report:

"He does prevail. He would most likely say that it's all in the genes. But it is more than that. He entered the 20th century in its 26th year and, 27 years later, he created this magazine. As a result, the century was forever altered. Because it was awakened. He awoke us all. That is bare fact. He would at this very moment lake his notorious (and ever-active) blue pencil to strike the above pronouncement, if he could only quibble with it. He cannot, not really. He became, and remains--as Esquire evinced not so long ago--'the most famous magazine editor in the history of the world.' (People in Tokyo and Moscow and Barcelona smile when they hear his name; eyes also twinkle accordingly.) There are no close runners-up in the category; but he is more than that, even. He is a cultural symbol who also happens to be a man who happened to have done what most other men might have yearned to do--if only they had thought of it. With the invention of Playboy, which debuted in December 1953, there also debuted the invention that was Hugh M. Hefner himself. Or the reinvention of himself. He was a work-in-progress then, as was the magazine. But both works were to be the sum total of boyhood longings coalesced, of wonders spun in an eager young mind that wished for more than that which he saw droning before him. 'The magazine, without any question, is a projection of my personality, of my own adolescent dreams and aspirations,' he said early on and evermore. 'I think that it's when you're young that the world is the greatest adventure. And if you can keep the same youthful attitude, then you're apt to get the very most out of life.' Here, then, would be a life--and a life-legend--that dedicated itself to the Very Most. It would be a life lived to exemplify fantasy made tangible, to demonstrate dreams come true; Playboy would be the reflecting glass of that life. 'If a guy didn't dream impossible dreams, life would hardly be worth living,' he depicted himself declaring in his private cartoon-paneled autobiography, illustrating the moment of Playboy's birth. Then he had himself add, 'Especially because--sometimes--even the most impossible ones come true!' (And, at that moment, he had no real idea of what was truly to come.)

"And so Hefner arrived when the magazine arrived and both were iconoclasts that came forth to shake sense into a world that shied from sex and from pleasure and from lack of inhibition. It was a black and white and terribly gray world that he took on. In short order, he uncloaked the shadowy mysteries of human sexuality and threw light on them and celebrated them and said there was nothing illicit about them. (It was, alas, a revolutionary notion.) He said that sex was not merely the backstreet province of scarlet women and leering lechers. He showed us that nice women, that girls next door, that sophisticated ladies uncloaked themselves as well--and they did so most enthusiastically. He elevated our stirrings, elevated them right up into the toniest high-rise towers where civilized fellows dwelled and made urban romance. 'We like our apartment,' he wrote in the first issue of the magazine, projecting universal purpose upon his readership. 'We enjoy mixing up cocktails and an hors d'oeuvre or two, putting a little mood music on the phonograph and inviting in a female acquaintance for a quiet discussion on Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex.' (He was a retro swell long before retro was new.) He said that men and women should entertain ideas while entertaining themselves, with whatever private ideas that struck their personal fancy.

"'I probably am today and will always remain a little bit of the youngster,' he said early on and evermore. 'This is something that is too soon dead in most all of us, and I'm doing my best to keep it alive in me.' He became Hef, never Hugh, never ever Hugh. (Except to his mother.) He was a straight-arrow Chicago boy, born of kindly and repressed parentage, Glenn and Grace, good Methodists, simple folk and proud of it thank you, who asked for little, who made a boy who asked for something a little more. His would be a true-blue American story--a great one as well--because he quested, because he risked, because his gut told him secrets and he listened to his gut, as all humans should, but do all too rarely. There came an empire because of it, a big burgeoning empire from which there sprung, in no particular order, nightclubs and hotels and casinos and resorts and women dressed as Bunnies and women dressed not at all and various publications and a book imprint and merchandise bearing Rabbit Heads and television programs and movie productions and cable channels and video marketing and stock exchange bonanzas and a humming website and a private black jet called the Big Bunny and Mansions (oh, my, yes, there would be Mansions!) and, most of all, good life, always good life, no matter what--and all that he had to throw toward his dream was 600 precious dollars and a few thousand more raised by way of friends, by way of goodwill, by way of sheer force of will, because his eyes burned with this dream. People had to believe, had no other choice if they paid attention, and those that did became very rich. (He was always one to share his bounty.)

"He wore pajamas throughout most all of the empire-building, initially because he did not like to leave his vast Master Bedroom inside of his vast Chicago Playboy Mansion, where the detritus of magazine business scattered and spun atop his famous Round Rotating Bed; when he left his room, he also left on his pajamas. He and his swank sleepwear have been largely and legendarily inseparable ever since. For a long while, he smoked a pipe; he drank Pepsi-Cola day and night (spiked with Jack Daniels in happier hours); there were women--many many women, a thousand-plus women, with whom beautiful music was made most consensually--and there was work and there were parties unending and there was balance that only he could achieve. (All that he could not achieve, given the nature of his mission, was the sustenance of his early marriage to Mildred Williams, which produced a son, David, who would grow to pursue his own individual dreams, and a daughter, Christie, who would become chairman of her father's multilayered company.) Hef, meanwhile, became our foremost living proponent of the Great Indoors, a housebound Bacchus--'King of the Status Dropouts' (per Tom Wolfe)--whose stately world enclosed and enhanced his dreams, which were now installed behind secret passageways and accessed by gadgets and gizmos. He lived the life of fames Bond without packing any weaponry besides the neurons that fired his unquiet mind. Like Bond, he fought bad guys and dour foes, and there were plenty of them--some who held elected offices, others who preached from transparent pulpits and still others who refused to grasp the logic that his liberation of our sociosexual collective had truly liberated all people, female as well as male. He fought his battles always on the grounds of individual freedom, yours and mine, and although he took his share of shrapnel, he always remained standing. He does prevail, because he must.

"His iconography moved west to California, to Holmby Hills, to his beloved Playboy Mansion West, nearer to the motion picture factories that had stoked his earliest romantic dreams, and business as usual continued apace, if somewhat more broadly. His ladyloves now seemed more prominent whence bathed in local sunbeams (Barbi Benton, of course, being most prominent of all). His parties enlarged so as to become shimmering monoliths of frolic immemorial, where all boys yearned from afar to come play. He faced varied tragedies and better triumphs, setbacks and renewals--even a small stress-induced stroke from which he recovered almost instantly and quite miraculously--all in the routine that is life for an elegant renegade dream merchant. He found his Playmate for a Lifetime in Kimberley Conrad, whom he took as his second wife on July 1, 1989, thereby shocking the universe, and they made two clever sons--Marston, who is nine, and Cooper, who is eight--both of whom would joyfully commandeer their father's personal playground and make it theirs, with colorful toys scattered about the premises. For their seventh wedding anniversary, Hef bought Kimberley the house next door, a twin-adjacent property, just distant enough to serve as her refuge from the whirl of Mansion business of which she had grown weary; within a year and a half, she chose to take permanent refuge there, with the boys, who would happily come and go between the stone walls. And with the separation of the Hefners came the tentative reemergence of Hugh Hefner, missing in action for nearly ten years, if only publicly. Whereas previously the world had come to him, he suddenly went forth out into the world and out into the night and there he discovered what he meant to Generation X and Generation Next.

"By happenstance, I rode along with him on several of his first forays into bachelorhood revisited. As his 72nd birthday then approached--which seemed quite impossible given that the youthfulness he long espoused had all but refused to put mileage on his person--I watched as young people beat their way toward him to simply thank him for what he had done, for what he had taught them and their parents before them. He found Viagra shortly thereafter and the Parties returned and the Parties have not stopped, because he does not stop, because he must swing forevermore, because he gave the world its license to swing toward dreams, and dreams are eternal, if they are anything like his. In recent months, we have convened on several occasions in the Mansion Library to reexplore his private dreamscape--which now includes the unprecedented ladylove triumvirate of the twins Mandy and Sandy Bentley and Brande Roderick--and to assess his view of a society that has come around, at last, to his way of thinking. He grins and beams a lot from on top of the world. Also, he is never tired. Which indicates that life isn't always fair, unless you are him."

[Q] Playboy: Let's begin with something we'd all like to know and only you can tell us: What's it really like to be Hugh Hefner?

[A] Hefner: How much time have you got? It really doesn't get any better than this. I know I'm living out a lot of other guys' fantasies, but what you need to understand is that I'm living out my own as well. That's what it's really all about.

[Q] Playboy: So your life is as good as it seems from the outside?

[A] Hefner: Better. Because I dreamed impossible dreams and made them all come true. Most of them, anyway.

[Q] Playboy: What have you missed?

[A] Hefner: Not much.

[Q] Playboy: Let's get specific. You are, at last count, in love with three women whose names rhyme and who all get along with one another, and two of them are twins and they all come into your bedroom at once--and you're 73 years old. You must realize that men the world over are desperate for the details.

[A] Hefner: I understand. Because once again, I find myself in the middle of a universal male fantasy. Life is good, times three. And sometimes four. The twins have a friend, you know, who likes to visit.

[Q] Playboy: How does that work? What actually goes on in that bedroom?

[A] Hefner: [Laughs] A lot of hugging.

[Q] Playboy: Come on. You don't have to be euphemistic in your own magazine. Go ahead and break our hearts. What does he do in that room?

[A] Hefner:He makes love to his girlfriends, plural. And he thanks God for Viagra.

[Q] Playboy:Time actually referred to them--Mandy, Sandy and Brande--as your girlfriend, singular.

[A] Hefner: That's really what they are. [Pauses] It's difficult to explain, but it's wonderful. And what makes it special is the way the girls feel about one another. There's no jealousy. They are, in fact, best friends. They are supportive and protective of one another and of me. I really could not have imagined any of this before it happened--not in my wildest dreams.

[Q] Playboy: Considering your dreams, that's saying a lot.

[A] Hefner: That's true. Certainly in the Seventies, I might have slept with two or three or four girls at the same time, but this is very different. It's a serious, ongoing relationship. And we all seem to get on better than a typical one-on-one affair. There aren't many bad days. If somebody's kind of down, the others rally around to cheer them up. I've never experienced anything like this before, and it's one of the best relationships I've ever had, unorthodox though it may be.

[Q] Playboy: Before your stroke in 1985, you said you realized that pursuing multi-partner sex was "kind of pointless and pathetic." Obviously, you've changed your point of view.

[A] Hefner: [Laughs] Well, one needs to keep an open mind in such matters. But what I was talking about then was going from girl to girl. That was part of my earlier life and, for a brief time, after my marriage ended, before I met Brande and the twins. But I'm committed to these girls and I don't fuck around on them.

[Q] Playboy: How did you meet the girls?

[A] Hefner: I met the twins at the Garden of Eden, one of our favorite clubs in Hollywood. It is one of the first that I visited when my marriage was coming apart and I started going out again. Sandy and Mandy are college kids from Joliet, Illinois. Sandy is in premed. I met Brande a month before at a club called the Opium Den. She's an aspiring actress. We hit it off right away.

[Q] Playboy: When you're making love, is there any jealousy over how much, um, attention you give to one lady over the others?

[A] Hefner: Just the opposite. On occasion one of the girls will say, "Don't forget so-and-so!" My bed is a democracy. One for all and all for one.

[Q] Playboy: How often do you get names and faces mixed up?

[A] Hefner: Depends on what we're doing [smiles]. I can usually tell the twins apart, but when I do get confused they find it terribly amusing.

[Q] Playboy: OK. For those of us who are still confused or amazed by all this, describe a typical evening among such good friends.

[A] Hefner: We all love to dance, so we enjoy the club scene. But these days we actually spend more evenings at home than out on the town. We jump into bed--fortunately my bed is large enough so we can do that--and run a film, watch TV, have a picnic, make love. The nights are filled with love and laughter.

[Q] Playboy: Any arguments over who controls the TV remote?

[A] Hefner: No. Our favorite TV series is Sex and the City--what else? For movies, Sandy and Mandy love classic Disney films and Brande digs the scary stuff.

[Q] Playboy: You recently celebrated your first anniversary together. Did you do anything special?

[A] Hefner: I took them to Disneyland. The twins had never been there and they loved it. We stayed for 12 hours! We also went back to the Garden of Eden, where we met.

[Q] Playboy: Who notices the age difference more, you or them?

[A] Hefner: Brande says, "Age is just a number," and she's right. But it's more meaningful in some ways for me. The girls keep me young. I get to see life afresh through youthful eyes.

[Q] Playboy: Can we bring up Viagra now?

[A] Hefner: I'd be surprised if you didn't.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever imagine that you would find yourself on the same side of an issue as Bob Dole?

[A] Hefner: [Laughs] What's truly amazing is that Bob Dole and his wife are willing to talk publicly about their sex life at all. I think it's great. We've come a long way, baby! The good guys are winning at last.

[Q] Playboy: So what does Viagra do for you?

[A] Hefner: It's made to order for a guy with three girlfriends. Pfizer promotes it as an impotence drug, but it's a good deal more than that. It takes the uncertainty out of performance. It gives you more wood and you can go as long as you like with as many partners as you like. It redefines the boundary between fantasy and reality. I think Viagra is the best legal recreational drug in America.

[Q] Playboy: Have you shared your stash with Sandy, Mandy and Brande?

[A] Hefner: Of course. They insisted. We've had a couple of Viagra parties. In theory, it should work as well for women as it does for men, but the results thus far are inconclusive. [Laughs] I think we need to do a little more research.

[Q] Playboy: Wasn't pot once your drug of choice in the bedroom?

[A] Hefner: Well, I've never been a fan of cocaine or harder drugs. Ecstasy, the so-called sex drug, is actually an amphetamine. It's not something I care to mess with. In the early days of the magazine I used a lot of Dexedrine in the Sixties, which I really thought helped me focus on writing The Playboy Philosophy, editing the magazine and building the empire. I could work around the clock for two, three days at a time. But, frankly, by that third day, things got a little incoherent and I knew it was time to crash. But when I couldn't work anymore, it was still good for sex because I could go on and on.

[Q] Playboy: And ... on. So, which body part hurts the most in the morning?

[A] Hefner: Next question.

[Q] Playboy: Seriously. For the sake of the sexually adventurous everywhere.

[A] Hefner: Well, I have some lower back problems caused by just what you're hoping they're caused by. They began in the late Seventies when I partied too long and too hard with four Playmates. In the middle of the fun my back went out--but the party went on, as it must. But when I tried to get up the following morning I couldn't walk [laughs]. Of course, lower back problems are a common ailment that comes with age. I got mine in battle, so to speak. And I wear those medals proudly.

[Q] Playboy: You were off the scene for ten years while you were married. Were you prepared for the response to your return?

[A] Hefner: It was totally unexpected. The Playboy Entertainment Division held a pajama party at the Garden of Eden right after Kimberley and I separated. The place was full of Playmates and I got a lot of attention I wasn't anticipating. Pictures of scantily clad girls sitting on my lap ran on TV and in newspapers around the world. It was the first suggestion that paradise could be revisited. It was a preview of coming attractions.

[Q] Playboy: It's as if you came back just when you were needed most.

[A] Hefner: Timing is everything. If I'd returned a few years earlier, I think I would have encountered a very different response. What I found was a postfeminist, retro world in which young people are ready to party again. I think it's a reaction to the conservatism of the Eighties and early Nineties. Complete strangers still come up to me when I'm out on the town and say, "You're the man! You are the man!"

[Q] Playboy: The stars have also been paying tribute, flocking to the Playboy Mansion parties and approaching you when you're making the club scene. What exactly do they say to you?

[A] Hefner: I think most celebrities feel as if they know one another even if they haven't met. They feel as if they know you and you feel as if you already know them. I get the same kind of comment today that I got a long time ago from Gene Kelly. The first time he came to the Mansion he said, "At last." On one particular evening, at a pre-Oscar party not long ago, I was introduced to Bob Dylan, and his first comment was, "My hero." When I met Madonna at the same party, her opening line was, "When are you going to invite me to one of your parties?" I said, "You're invited."

[Q] Playboy: Why do you think the Playboy Mansion parties are the hottest ticket in Hollywood?

[A] Hefner: I throw one hell of a party! Believe me, I say that without prejudice; they're the best in town. But it's more than that. The Playboy Mansion has a mystique because of the legendary parties of the past. An entire generation of young people grew up hearing about the parties they missed.

I can relate to that because I grew up during the Depression and I fantasized about the Great Gatsby parties of the Roaring Twenties that I missed.

The first time Leonardo DiCaprio came to a Playboy Mansion party, he said, "My fantasy is to be in the Grotto at three o'clock in the morning." George Clooney said, "Now that I'm here, I'm never going to leave." I think these fantasies are universal. Celebrities have them just like the rest of us.

[Q] Playboy: Part of the mystique of the Playboy Mansion is its permissiveness. We've seen people get naked in the pool and Grotto who wouldn't think of doing that anywhere else.

[A] Hefner: I do think the Playboy Mansion gives you permission to fulfill a lot of fantasies that wouldn't be acceptable elsewhere. But there are rules. No one misbehaves at the Mansion if they hope to get invited back. That's why it's so safe here. It really is a Shangrila.

[Q] Playboy: How do you judge the success of your parties?

[A] Hefner: If I'm having a great time, it's a great party. I also get a lot of feedback, like, "I've never seen so many beautiful women in one place at one time." That's a good party. At our last Midsummer Night's Dream party, there was more nudity than at any Mansion party since the Seventies. One girl wore nothing but body paint, but it was so beautifully executed she looked like she was wearing lingerie. My girls went all out. They had marvelous costumes created. I know because I got the bill. They chose very expensive fabrics. They had fairy-dust glitter all over their bodies. It was beautiful, but we spent the next several days getting glitter off the floors and furniture, not to mention finding glitter on unexpected parts of our anatomies.

[Q] Playboy: How much sex goes on at the parties these days?

[A] Hefner: It's a different climate today. The old days, pre-AIDS, was a time of innocence and sexual adventure. Though AIDS turns out to be less of a threat to heterosexuals than some people would have you believe, it has changed behavior--as well it should. Now there is probably less exchange of bodily fluids. But there is still a lot of action in the Grotto. And the bedrooms in the Game House were busy at the last party. When the doors opened, it wasn't a couple that came out--it was several couples.

[Q] Playboy: Please tell us about the Van Room in the Game House.

[A] Hefner: The Van Room got its name because it looks a little bit like the interior of a van from the hippie era of the Sixties or early Seventies--with mirrors on the ceiling, lights on dimmers and a soft, foam rubber-padded carpet. It's a nice place to relax with friends, but it's also well suited for bouncy-bouncy.

[Q] Playboy: We presume that you have tested these areas of the property personally?

[A] Hefner: That's one of my jobs. We could bring in Consumer Reports, but it's unnecessary. I'm happy to take on that responsibility.

[Q] Playboy: With your recent reemergence, Playboy--both the magazine and the brand--is hot again. That must give you a lot of satisfaction.

[A] Hefner: Oh, yes. In a very real way, we live in a Playboy world today. You see it reflected on television and the Internet, in news-papers and magazines--from shows like Sex and the City, in which Sarah Jessica Parker wears a Playboy Bunny necklace, to Jay Leno's nightly monolog on The Tonight Show.

The hot new men's magazines are variations on Playboy. Maxim, Details and FHM are all magazines for the single guy.

[Q] Playboy: In such a crowded field, what makes Playboy stand out?

[A] Hefner: In the Fifties and early Sixties, Playboy was a voice in the wilderness. All the other men's magazines were outdoor adventure books. They were not upscale and they didn't sell much advertising. Women's magazines and family interest magazines dominated the market. Now there are many, many voices. It's a more competitive world. We stand out because Playboy has always offered something the other magazines don't. We're a class act with a history, a heritage, a continuity of accomplishment. Entire generations have grown up with Playboy. They identify with the magazine in terms of who they are and who they want to be. Playboy has always had that kind of connection with its readers, which is why, for the better part of half a century, Playboy has been the largest-selling, most influential men's magazine in the world.

[Q] Playboy: Does that amaze you?

[A] Hefner: Of course, because I started the magazine on a personal investment of $600 and a dream. But it became more than a magazine. It became a symbol and a voice of the sexual revolution.

That's why the brand is famous around the world. And why the Playboy empire includes international TV, video, the Internet and merchandising. It began with simple Playboy products like the cuff links and grew into Bunny Clubs, books, records, TV shows, hotels and casinos.

Now a whole new generation identifies with Playboy. The magazine's college readership has increased 62 percent since 1995. We have three of the 20 top-selling videos in Billboard this week--along with There's Something About Mary and Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. There are over 400 Playboy stores and boutiques selling Playboy merchandise on the mainland of China, where the magazine isn't even distributed yet. At Playboy Expo this summer, a mint copy of the first issue sold for $14,600--twice the money I had to launch the magazine. That's sweet.

[Q] Playboy: Your daughter, Christie, is the company's Chief Executive Officer. Do you enjoy keeping control of Playboy all in the family?

[A] Hefner: It's one of the things that makes our current success even sweeter. She's a very savvy businesswoman and that allows me to concentrate my energies on the creative aspects of our business. She's also the perfect spokesperson for the company.

[Q] Playboy: Presumably your sons Marston and Cooper will one day ask how their dad started Playboy. Let's return to 1953 in Chicago and a guy with a big idea. Tell us who that guy was then.

[A] Hefner: Well, I'd never been an executive, and I'd never been an editor either. I worked in the promotion and circulation departments of other magazines, for a salary smaller than what the secretaries were earning. But when I started knocking out the copy for that first issue--writing letters to agents who represented writers, to the writers and artists themselves, to the distributors, telling them about this new magazine--I became a grown-up version of the boy I was in childhood. The kid who dreamed the dreams.

I was the child who invented the games the other kids played in our neighborhood. I published a penny newspaper at the age of eight and started a school paper, The Pepper, in the sixth grade. I created comic books, wrote short stories of mystery and monsters and published Shudder magazine in my early teens. I made a horror movie, Return From the Dead, when I was 16.

I didn't know it at the time, but I was in rehearsal for what I would do later. And I did it all--as a kid and when I started Playboy--without worrying about what I had to lose. That's a feeling that can set you free, and it was the foundation of whatever confidence people thought I had.

[Q] Playboy: Looking back, are you surprised that no one else had what must in retrospect seem like an obvious idea for such a magazine?

[A] Hefner: Yes. I've always thought that the concept of Playboy--a magazine for the young urban guy--was such a natural that it amazes me that no one else had thought of it before. But the mood of the country was so conservative, and caught up in a Father Knows Best domesticity, that a handbook for bachelors was a form of heresy.

Esquire had created an upscale magazine for men in the Thirties, but it was for older guys with mistresses. After the war, Esky became as conservative as the rest. That's why Playboy was such a revelation. It was for the young man on the make.

[Q] Playboy: Was it simply a cultural epiphany or were there also personal motivations?

[A] Hefner: Oh, it was personal all right. I was in an unhappy marriage and I was afraid I was going to turn into my parents. I was raised in a typical Midwestern Methodist home with a lot of Puritan repression. The dreams of my childhood came directly from the movies; they had more to do with romantic adventure and passion than living happily ever after. Romance is the promise of something as yet unfulfilled. It's part of our Western culture. Our romantic myths deal with courtship, not marriage. When a husband and wife become father and mother, the focus becomes family and children. In the old-world tradition, the romantic connection is often transferred to a mistress, and I think that's sad.

[Q] Playboy: Does this mean you're against marriage?

[A] Hefner: No. It simply means that marriage isn't for everyone. Different strokes for different folks. There are many roads to Mecca. When I was younger, the cultural rule makers dictated that there was only one way to live your life: Everybody had to get married. If you didn't, something was wrong with you. But I think it's perfectly possible to live a full, productive, ethical, moral life--and be single.

Everybody was getting married in their teens or early 20s, right after graduating from high school or college. That is really dumb. Men and women need time away from home, away from their parents, to establish some sense of personal identity as adults. That was not possible when I was young, because the church and state had control over sex. Nice middle-class men and women were not supposed to have premarital sex, so there was a lot of pressure to get married because matrimony legitimized sex. That's what I did. I got married the first time right out of college. My classmates did the same thing. And for a long time I have believed that the major cause of divorce is early marriage.

[Q] Playboy: So why have you always pursued younger women?

[A] Hefner: People always ask why I don't date women more my own age. I used to. I've always dated women in their teens and 20s. It's only my age that's changed [laughs]. Because of Playboy, my life is filled with young, beautiful women. I'd be crazy not to take advantage of that. Somebody has to do it, and I'm glad I'm the guy who got the job.

[Q] Playboy: We're sure you've been told this before, but you don't look your age.

[A] Hefner: I have this painting in the attic that's getting older. Actually, I think I'm getting younger.

[Q] Playboy: How old do you figure? Twenty or so?

[A] Hefner: Or younger [laughs]. Most of my dreams come from childhood and adolescence.

[Q] Playboy: How did you come up with the idea to use a rabbit as Playboy's symbol?

[A] Hefner: Those are what I call "eureka moments." They often come in the middle of the night. The rabbit was one. Hiding it on the cover was another. The rabbit came out of something I did when I was a kid. I had a trademark for my comic books and wanted to create one for Playboy. For the comics it was simply a circle with a plus inside it and four dots. That was inspired by the Phantom; when he hit a bad guy with his skull ring, he left his mark. It fired my imagination. I wanted to leave my mark, too.

[Q] Playboy: Give us another eureka moment.

[A] Hefner: When I painted the DC-9 black. If it hadn't been black, I don't think the plane would have become world famous. No one had ever painted a jet aircraft black before. But it had a Batman-James Bond mystique about it, particularly with the Jet Bunnies onboard in their great 007 outfits. Playboy executives insisted that we couldn't paint the plane black because you couldn't see it at night and it would absorb too much heat in the daytime. Commercial planes in those days were all silver or white. We had to get special permission from the FAA to have lights put on the wingtips so that they shined on the tail. What you saw at night was this black bird in the sky with the Playboy Bunny on the tail. It was cool.

[Q] Playboy: Now Larry Flynt has a black jet. Since the Miloš Forman movie The People vs. Larry Flynt, Flynt is viewed by some as a First Amendment freedom fighter. What's your opinion?

[A] Hefner: I think he's what he has always claimed to be: a hustler. But that's OK. He works the other side of the street--maybe it's an alley. It's just a matter of taste. I don't think there's anything wrong with it; it's just a little downscale.

[Q] Playboy: What about Bob Guccione, founder of Penthouse"?

[A] Hefner: Guccione is more of a mystery to me than Flynt. I have no sense of the man or his character. It must be there somewhere, but I've never seen it. I've never really thought of him as an editor. The big rage in Penthouse now is urination. That's a real breakthrough for the First Amendment, isn't it? [Shakes his head] He does whatever will sell his magazine--and that's all he does.

[Q] Playboy: What about Bob Guccione Jr., who started Spin and now Gear?

[A] Hefner: I think he's a bright kid with a little more focus, without the bullshit. I judge his father a little harshly because of some of the stories that have come back about his relationships with his family and some of the people who have worked for him.

[Q] Playboy: What is your opinion of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone?

[A] Hefner: He knows what he's doing. He managed to reinvent his magazine and keep it hot.

[Q] Playboy: How about Helen Gurley Brown?

[A] Hefner: I love her. I helped her when she was turning Cosmopolitan into a women's version of Playboy.

[Q] Playboy: Any thoughts on the current first lady of publishing, Tina Brown?

[A] Hefner: A fantastic editor. I loved what she did with Vanity Fair, though I was less impressed with the changes she made in The New Yorker. Madison Avenue was obviously not impressed. I think that Tina has a better shot with what she's doing now, with Talk, because it's closer to her British roots. Talk is similar to several European publications. There's a mix of glitz and glamour with tabloid journalism. And it's owned by a movie studio.

[Q] Playboy: In this megacorporate world it's certainly not the only magazine affiliated with a studio.

[A] Hefner: That's true. It's fascinating how there is no longer any distance between anything anymore. In the early days of The New Yorker, Harold Ross kept the editorial integrity of his magazine intact by putting his editors on a different floor from the advertising department. He wouldn't even let the two departments talk to each other. Now? Forget about it. You've got Time and Life and People and Entertainment Weekly owned by Time Warner. Disney owns ABC and Viacom owns CBS. Businesswise, everybody's sleeping with everybody--and here we are criticizing Clinton for his sex life?

[Q] Playboy: You've also had your share of critics. What's your reaction?

[A] Hefner: Back in the Sixties, I said that when you read about me, it wasn't just about me. Writing about Playboy and its editor-in-chief is like an inkblot--a Rorschach test. People project their own fantasies and prejudices onto the magazine and my life. It's understandable, because so much of my life is related to the fantasies and prejudices of America and much of the rest of the world. Over time I've noticed how the reflections on my life have changed with the social climate. What generates applause in one decade brings a negative reaction in another.

[Q] Playboy: Let's take one well-known critic, Gloria Steinem. In 1998 you two were inducted into the Hall of Fame by the American Society of Magazine Editors. She has made no secret of her belief that you are the ultimate exploiter of women.

[A] Hefner: That's sad and in my opinion reveals unresolved conflicts in her own life. She seems to have become more and more conservative over the years--why else would she continue to support convictions that made little sense back then, and no sense at all now--with respect to Playboy, the relationship between the sexes and sex itself? She is still trying to justify a point of view born in a more naive time. In the Eighties she aligned herself with Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, women who represent the most radical, antisexual part of the feminist movement.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't your relationship with Gloria Steinem begin when she worked for you as a Bunny?

[A] Hefner: It actually goes back further than that. In the early days of Playboy, Harvey Kurtzman, who created Mad magazine, came to work for me when he had a falling out with his publisher. He asked about the possibility of starting a similar humor magazine. I agreed, and he produced a couple issues of a magazine called Trump and then he published one on his own called Help! He contributed to Playboy from time to time and created Little Annie Fanny for us, illustrated by Will Elder. One day Harvey told me about his secretary, a Girl Friday named Gloria. He thought she and I would be a perfect match romantically because, in his opinion, she was a female version of me. In other words, she had the kind of influence over men that he thought I had with women. [Pauses] Put it this way: She was very good at getting her way with guys. What particularly impressed Harvey was her ability to talk male celebrities into appearing on his magazine covers. At Harvey's suggestion, I called her and we made plans to get together when I was in New York. On my next visit, she was out of the country, but she wrote me a nice letter expressing regret that we'd missed each other and saying she hoped to see me on another occasion. That occasion turned out to be a Playboy party in New York, but she didn't show. She begged off with some excuse. Of course, the real reason she wasn't there was that she'd gone undercover as a Bunny at the Playboy Club to do a story for Show magazine, and she was afraid that if she showed up at the party she would blow her cover. If Gloria and I had gotten together, it might have changed the course of the entire feminist movement! The mind boggles.

[Q] Playboy: What is your impression of the current state of the feminist movement?

[A] Hefner: I think it's less radical and less antisexual than it was in the Eighties.

[Q] Playboy: The antiporn crusade never gained much public support, but aren't sexual harassment and date rape still important issues?

[A] Hefner:Real sexual harassment and date rape should be issues. But let's take the politics out of it. It's perfectly permissible for people to make passes at one another. How else are we supposed to perpetuate the species? What we call sexual harassment and date rape are, in too many instances, like Orwellian New-speak: The definitions change with the politics of the day. The mating game is an ongoing, wonderful phenomenon. We should be celebrating that. Can it have excesses and can it be exploited? Of course. But if one thinks that every variation on the theme that expresses human yearning and sexuality is somehow exploitative or harassment, we're the poorer for it.

[Q] Playboy: Are you optimistic about relations between the sexes?

[A] Hefner: I feel as if we're coming out of a long dark tunnel. The public reaction to the Clinton scandal would not have been as tolerant if we were still in the dark ages of not so long ago. Just as the Eighties and the early Nineties were a backlash to the liberal Sixties and Seventies, we're now experiencing a backlash to the repression of the past two decades. Maybe it's not a backlash as much as the public finally understanding that they don't need Ken Starr, the members of Congress or any government officials telling them what their morals should or shouldn't be. We can make up our own minds based on the individual situation--and if the public's ultimate reaction to the Clinton fiasco is any example, we do.

[Q] Playboy: Those repressive attitudes were in part responsible for some of Playboy's darkest days.

[A] Hefner: From the beginning, Playboy never enjoyed a level playing field. Our fortunes depend on the political climate. We prospered in the Sixties, but dealt with government harassment in the Seventies and Eighties. With Reagan in the White House, with the support of the Moral Majority and the Christian Right, we faced Charles Keating and his Citizens for Decent Literature, Jerry Falwell and Reverend Wildmon and the pressures they put on advertisers, ad agencies, wholesalers and retailers with the support of the Justice Department. The Meese Commission actually labeled Playboy pornography--and then apologized after the damage had been done.

But that conflict is quintessentially American: The battle between the Puritan and the Playboy is as American as apple pie.

[Q] Playboy: What did you think of Meese personally?

[A] Hefner: I don't know a lot about him as a man, but he reminded me of Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, and seemed to be about as morally bankrupt. The Meese Commission was not a serious investigation of sex and social disorder; it was a political witch-hunt. They spent no money on research. The real study was done in the Sixties, but Nixon rejected it because he didn't like the results. One member of the Meese Commission was a prominent Catholic bishop who turned out to be a pederast. [Pauses] You know, it's really remarkable how, as the Eighties came to an end, we discovered so many of these self-righteous people were the Charles Keatings and the Jimmy Swaggarts. The sickos of society. But that is the way of things, isn't it? It's nice to see, in one's own lifetime, that the good guys turn out to really be the good guys. Usually that only happens in the movies.

[Q] Playboy: Is that why you've recently received more good press than at any other time in your life?

[A] Hefner: Sure. The media reflect the moral climate of the times. But part of it is simply because I've survived and prevailed. That counts for a lot. As we approach the new millennium, we're reacting against the conservatism and the political correctness of the past. We're a little closer to reality now. People who would like to control our lives have lost the war. One reason is pure technology. Information is king and everyone has more and more access to it. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. Pandora's box is open, for good or ill. Almost every conceivable expression of sexuality is now out there for everybody--if they want it. An Anthony Comstock or a Jerry Falwell or an Edwin Meese cannot force their prejudices on the rest of us. Public reaction to sexual shenanigans in the White House has something to do with it, too. A handful of years ago, talking about sex around the office watercooler was considered politically incorrect. [Chuckles] Now, talk of sex--oral sex, even--is part of Jay Leno's nightly monolog. The Tonight Show would be lost without sex. Compare Leno's monolog with what Carson had to work with--or was willing to work with--ten or 20 years ago. We live in a different world today.

[Q] Playboy: You've been through so much. What makes you so resilient?

[A] Hefner: Part of it is the luck of the draw. Another part is my eternal optimism. I really believe that things will work out if you hold on to your dreams.

[Q] Playboy: So you feel vindicated?

[A] Hefner: It's more than vindication. I never imagined that everything would work out as well as it has in my lifetime. This is a real time of celebration for me--and for the company. What a way to end the century and welcome the new millennium.

[Q] Playboy: Stories of your exploits are legion. The British magazine FHM recently estimated that you have made love to 3000 women in your life. In fact, it estimated that the aggregate weight of these women would equal that of an airplane. We believe the words employed were, He's fucked a jet! Is this compatible with your own tallies?

[A] Hefner: As with many things in my life it is an exaggeration. Like most men, I went through a period when scoring was important. But I'm a romantic, so I tend to get involved in relationships--even if it's three or four at a time. I really think quality is more important than quantity. And because of the magazine, I've had a chance to meet and make love to some of the most beautiful women in the world.

[Q] Playboy: In the spirit of this millennium retrospective, how about sharing a couple of your sexual moments that have remained cherished memories?

[A] Hefner: I'm not sure how many I'm ready to share with you or our readers. But whatever you imagine it was like, it was better. More love and more laughter. More incredible sexual adventures and more lasting loves and friendships as well.

[Q] Playboy: Please give us something. Inquiring minds really want to know.

[A] Hefner: On one birthday, 18 naked girls were waiting for me in the Grotto.

[Q] Playboy: You used to videotape your sexual escapades. Do you ever rerun any of your favorites from the past?

[A] Hefner: Not anymore. I got rid of them in the Eighties. Early on, in a gadget-filled house, I recorded a lot of sexual adventures, but only with the participants' knowledge and approval.

[Q] Playboy: You destroyed important historical records that make the Nixon tapes pale into insignificance. Why?

[A] Hefner: I thought it was time. A girl I was dating tried to take one of them, and I didn't want them falling into the wrong hands. Some of the women on the tapes were married with children by then, and I thought it was time to get rid of them.

[Q] Playboy: How?

[A] Hefner: We deep-sixed them. Dumped them in the ocean.

[Q] Playboy: Where?

[A] Hefner: I don't know the location. Sorry. The tapes are gone, but the memories linger on.

[Q] Playboy: What was your reaction to the Pamela Anderson--Tommy Lee sex video?

[A] Hefner: This is a classic example of how personal privacy has all but disappeared in our society. Part of the reason is technology, but it's more complicated than that. The court was not particularly sympathetic, even though the tape was stolen from their home. That suggests that celebrities have no rights to privacy whatever, which makes no sense at all. Was the judge penalizing Pamela and Tommy Lee because he didn't approve of their personal lives? I have no idea. I think it was a bad decision.

In any case, the videotape of Pamela and Tommy Lee having sex had no more effect on her career than the nude calendar pictures of Marilyn Monroe had in the Fifties. That tells us how far we've come in the last half century.

[Q] Playboy: You had a similar experience in 1998 when Larry Flynt published explicit pictures of you and a former girlfriend in your round bed in Chicago.

[A] Hefner: Those pictures were taken 25 years ago with a Polaroid camera. They were stolen from the Chicago Mansion and I didn't even know they were missing until Larry Flynt called to tell me he had them. He said he would return them if I would come and get them from him in Columbus.

I wasn't about to take a trip to Columbus. But as a gesture of goodwill, I invited him to Playboy Mansion West. He came and gave me the pictures.

He obviously made duplicates and, 25 years later, he published them. The former girlfriend is now married with teenage children, so he faces serious litigation on this one.

[Q] Playboy: You once admitted that some of your swing scenes in the Seventies and Eighties included bisexuality. Why did you think it was appropriate to talk about that?

[A] Hefner: I was trying to question some of the prejudices related to sexuality. The distinctions we make between what is acceptable and unacceptable sexual behavior are all so contrived. These social taboos have very little to do with the real nature of man. As Lenny Bruce said a long time ago, if a guy was alone on a desert island he would schtup mud.

All my dreams are heterosexual. The fact that I was willing to experiment with variations on the theme, as part of a multipartner swing scene, is simply a statement that I think those taboos are bullshit.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think these taboos are disappearing?

[A] Hefner: Yes I do. After the political conservatism of the Eighties and the hysteria caused by AIDS, I think the more irrational taboos are starting to disappear. I think people are more open to experimentation and more tolerant of other points of view.

The public reaction to the President Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair was a revelation. Americans proved to be much less prudish and puritanical than right-wing politicians and former members of the Moral Majority would have us believe. One member of the Moral Majority reluctantly conceded, "There is no Moral Majority in America." Well, not his kind of Moral Majority at any rate.

[Q] Playboy: Are Americans really unconcerned about politicians' personal lives?

[A] Hefner: I don't believe we think that personal moral questions related to sex are the major indicators of character anymore. What one does in bed has to do only with the other person in bed beside them, or with the members of their families if one or both of those persons are married. When one finds that many of the greatest leaders of this century--from FDR to Martin Luther King--were adulterers, it's pretty clear that adultery doesn't matter very much. May-be it indicates that great men don't always live conventional lives--and maybe that's all right. If nothing else, it proves they're human. Whether you are a rock star, a politician or a clergyman, you are going to be tempted by the groupies that come with celebrity. Celebrities of any kind get opportunities that don't typically exist for others. You can't expect people to live lives according to rules that were defined by Puritans a long time ago.

[Q] Playboy: Sum up the Clinton--Lewinsky affair.

[A] Hefner: Much ado about nothing. I just wish that he'd had better taste. But it was a perfectly appropriate affair, and really nobody's business but hers and Clinton's. It had everything to do with his responsibilities to his family, not his responsibilities to the country.

[Q] Playboy: But he did lie to the country.

[A] Hefner: It was none of our business. I don't have a problem with office affairs. The notion that somehow they are by definition exploitative is simply untrue. That's only if they involve an abuse of (continued on page 240)Hugh M. Hefner(continued from page 80) power in the relationship. But offices are where you meet members of the opposite sex. You may become emotionally involved. Why not? One of the sad things that happens when you get out of school is that you don't have that kind of natural setting where you can meet people--there's no more community of people with common interests. One of the few places that you find people with common interests is in the office. And it really doesn't matter if it's an office in Des Moines or the White House in Washington, D.C.

[Q] Playboy: One of the most famous presidential philanderers was John F. Kennedy. Did you ever meet him?

[A] Hefner: I was a supporter and I went to his Inaugural Ball at the invitation of Sammy Davis Jr. But the only Kennedy I really knew was the father, Joe. I had been in California with Tony Curtis, attending Sammy's bachelor party before his marriage to May Britt. All the guys were there: Frank, Dean, Peter Lawford, the whole Rat Pack. Joe Kennedy called not long after because he'd had dinner with Tony and he'd expressed interest in meeting me. But when he called they didn't put the call through because they didn't know who Joe Kennedy was [laughs]. When I returned the call he said, "You're more difficult to reach than the President of the United States." I said, "You would know." When he came to Chicago for some business related to the Merchandise Mart, we had dinner together at the Drake Hotel. He had two sons running the country, the President and the Attorney General, yet he spent much of the evening talking about the son who had died during the war, Joe Kennedy Jr. That family's tragic history began much earlier than many people realize. It was Joe Jr. who the father hoped would one day become President. That night we went to the Playboy Club to see Burns and Carlin--George Carlin had a partner at the start of his career. Their act included a parody of John Kennedy. Joe Kennedy was not amused. Playboy: Did he want to do business with you?

[A] Hefner: No. I think he was attracted to me for the same reason his son was attracted to Sinatra. He wanted to be where the action was.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about your friendship with Frank Sinatra.

[A] Hefner: We were friendly, but not close. He became a popular band singer when I was in high school. I was a huge fan. I fantasized about being a singer like Sinatra, because the chicks all dug the crooners [smiles]. I started the magazine in 1953, the same year Sinatra began his second career. He changed record labels, started recording for Capitol, and won an Oscar for From Here to Eternity that year. I always admired his style and talent and how his songs supplied the words and music to our dreams and yearnings. Sinatra really was the voice of our time. I met him first at the Fontainebleau when he was making a movie in Miami in 1959. He came to the Chicago Mansion for the first time in 1960. I saw him from time to time thereafter in Chicago and L.A.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you throw a party for Sinatra?

[A] Hefner: I did. We spent most of the evening in a corner talking about starting a show business trade publication to compete with Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. He had an uneasy relationship with the press back then and I don't think he liked some of the stuff they had printed about him. He also found time that night to hit on Joni Mattis, who I was dating at the time. Actually, he hit on her because she was my girlfriend. He was troubled, I learned later, by the fact that I had all the girls.

[Q] Playboy: The two great swingers of the century in tender combat? Any hard feelings?

[A] Hefner: I confess that I was disappointed. I would never hit on a pal's girlfriend, because I think it reflects a lack of respect. It happened in Miami, too, when I was going with Joyce Nizzari. Sinatra was competitive in a curious way, related to guys and their girls. I think it was a pattern. It's the opposite of what one would expect of him. Of course, if someone is going to try and hustle a couple of your girlfriends, it might as well be Sinatra.

[Q] Playboy: When Nancy Sinatra posed for the magazine, did you and she talk about her dad?

[A] Hefner: Nancy and I have been friends since the Sixties. She once said she thought that the two guys who had the greatest influence on society in her life-time were her father and me.

[Q] Playboy: Bob Greene wrote a column suggesting the two most influential Americans in the second half of the 20th century were you and Elvis.

[A] Hefner: And a rock musician once told me he thought it was Hefner and the Beatles. It's an honor to be in such company.

[Q] Playboy: Did Elvis ever make it to the Mansion?

[A] Hefner: No, but Elvis was a fan. He even chartered the Big Bunny for a cross-country trip. Sonny and Cher chartered it too. I met Elvis in Vegas when Barbi was performing there in the Seventies.

[Q] Playboy: Were you an Elvis fan?

[A] Hefner: It wasn't my favorite form of music, but the phenomenon was compelling. I enjoyed Elvis' early recordings and saw two or three of his shows in Vegas. And we did have something in common in the Fifties. The enemies of Playboy were also the enemies of rock and roll. It was literally suggested that the magazine and the music were some kind of Communist plot to corrupt the morals of youth in America.

[Q] Playboy: I know the Beatles have visited the Mansion and, according to legend, John Lennon put out a cigarette on a Matisse in the Great Hall. Is that true?

[A] Hefner: He was here. I was playing backgammon in the library so I didn't see it happen. Apparently, one of my friends felt his actions were inappropriate and took serious umbrage. Words were exchanged.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't Fred Dryer say, "I would have hit him with a shovel and buried him in the backyard"?

[A] Hefner: My friends are very protective of me [laughs]. I didn't really know Lennon very well. I've known Ringo better. He and Harry Nilsson used to hang out here a lot. John was around when he was separated from Yoko. It was a troubled time for him. He was drinking a great deal. He was kind of lost.

[Q] Playboy: Did he damage the painting?

[A] Hefner: He probably made it more valuable: Matisse as interpreted by Lennon [laughs].

[Q] Playboy: Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles--the legendary cavalcade leads us to Marilyn Monroe, your first Playmate. How is it that you and she never met?

[A] Hefner: If she'd lived longer I'm sure we would have. But I spent very little time in California in the Fifties and she never spent any time in Chicago. But her appearance in that first issue will forever link us together in the public mind.

[Q] Playboy: You purchased that first nude photo from a calendar company and it was reported she had posed out of economic necessity.

[A] Hefner: Not true. That's a story released by her studio because they were afraid of public reaction to the picture. But she made a joke about having nothing on but the radio and it made her a star. It's Marilyn Monroe who made nudity acceptable in America. Her attitude toward nudity was similar to mine. She was raised, in part, by a family that was very religious. She responded to that repression with dreams and fantasies that came right out of the movies. Nudity was a form of liberation for her. She posed nude at the very end of her career just as she had at the beginning. She OK'd the photo coverage of that final nude scene she did in the swimming pool in Something's Got to Give, for publication in Playboy. She was also scheduled to shoot a seminude, two-sided cover for that anniversary issue. After she died we had a Playmate pose for that two-page cover in her place, but we postponed the pictorial for a year out of respect for her memory. Marilyn's death was a real heart-breaker. She was so vulnerable. I think it was that vulnerability, in combination with her sexual appeal, that made her the sex star of the century.

[Q] Playboy: Does any current actress possess Monroe's appeal?

[A] Hefner: Pamela Anderson is the Marilyn Monroe of the Nineties. She's the most famous blonde on the planet. But she doesn't have Marilyn's screen presence or vulnerability. No one else really compares with Marilyn. Partly it's because the studio system doesn't exist anymore. They used to create the sex stars. Now the sex stars are mostly supermodels and Centerfolds. I'm proud of the fact that so many of the major sex stars of the century have appeared in Playboy and that the magazine has played an important part in their careers. From Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Brigitte Bardot, Ursula Andress, Raquel Welch and Farrah Fawcett, to Bo Derek, Cindy Crawford, Pamela Anderson, Kim Basinger and Sharon Stone--they've all been in the magazine. In interviews, Pamela, Kim Basinger and Sharon Stone still talk about the part that Playboy played in launching their careers.

[Q] Playboy: The contrast between Marilyn Monroe and Pamela Anderson reflects the differences between the more natural Centerfolds of the Fifties and the surgically enhanced Playmates of today. Pamela once said if she stood too close to the radiator, she'd melt. Now she's had her implants removed and says it has made her feel more sexual. What's your opinion on breast implants and your personal preference?

[A] Hefner: I prefer natural breasts, but I have no problem with breast implants. It's like any other form of cosmetic surgery: If it improves a woman's appearance, or she feels it does, why not? All of this misinformation surrounding breast implants is bizarre. There is no scientific evidence that breast implants aren't safe. All those class action suits against the manufacturers were a real miscarriage of justice.

[Q] Playboy: How many Playmates have had breast implants?

[A] Hefner: It depends on the time frame. They were relatively rare 30 years ago and they're commonplace today. It's not a big deal anymore.

[Q] Playboy: Didn't you have a little nip and tuck yourself a few months ago?

[A] Hefner: Yes, but just the neck. I didn't touch the face. I've grown accustomed to the face and I rather like it. But if I didn't, I'd change it.

[Q] Playboy: You've mentioned a number of the celebrities who have appeared in Playboy. But not every woman in the magazine was thrilled to be there. Uma Thurman was apparently displeased when you published photos of her on a nude beach. What would you say to her?

[A] Hefner: If the pictures had been taken in a private setting, they would not have been published by Playboy. The classic example of that is Jackie Onassis. Nude photos of the former First Lady were taken with a telescopic lens while she was sunbathing on her own patio in the Greek Isles. The pictures were offered to Playboy. We refused to publish them and they wound up in Hustler. We refused to publish them because it was an invasion of privacy. But Uma Thurman was on a public beach. If you're nude on a public beach, all bets are off, it seems to me. That said, I obviously prefer to publish pictures that are shot specifically for Playboy, but there are times when we make exceptions. If we didn't, we wouldn't have published the picture of Marilyn Monroe in the first issue and I wouldn't be here.

[Q] Playboy: We understand that you've secured the vault next to Marilyn Monroe at the Westwood Memorial cemetery. Do you actually plan to spend eternity resting beside Marilyn?

[A] Hefner: Yes, although Jay Leno suggested that if I was going to spend that kind of money, I should actually be on top of her [smiles]. But to me there's something rather poetic in the fact that we'll be buried in the same place. And that cemetery also has other meanings and connections for me. Friends like Buddy Rich and Mel Tormé are buried there. So is Dorothy Stratten.

[Q] Playboy: You've never publicly discussed Star 80, the Bob Fosse film about Dorothy's life and death. Care to now?

[A] Hefner: Fosse was very anxious to get my reaction and arranged a screening for me before the film was released. I had to tell him that I was very disappointed. I didn't think it had much to do with Dorothy Stratten. He had the Paul Snider character right--Eric Roberts was every bit the sleazy hustler I had seen in the real Snider. And the film was meticulous in duplicating some of the physical details of the locations; the room we're sitting in now, in fact, was copied exactly. But Fosse had the wrong Dorothy. She was one of the most special ladies I have ever met. She came here when she was just 18, but in a single year she grew into a remarkable, self-assured woman. Everybody loved her. Mariel Hemingway is a very good actress, but she was not Dorothy Stratten. Dorothy would walk into a room and the room would light up. [A light flickers in the Library.] That may be Dorothy's ghost right now.

[Q] Playboy: How well did the film interpret her extramarital affair with director Peter Bogdanovich--the affair that precipitated the tragedy?

[A] Hefner: Her relationship with Bogdanovich was a variation on the relationship with Snider--and none of that was in the film. Because Dorothy was raised without a father she had a father fixation. That's what the relationship with Snider and Bogdanovich was all about and, to an extent, that's what her relationship with me was all about. She came to me, as she would to a father, to tell me she was going to marry Snider. I urged her to wait; perhaps I didn't urge her as strongly as I should have. But she had this tremendous sense of honor and felt she owed him a debt, felt he was responsible for her coming here and becoming a Playmate and the Playmate of the Year. Fosse, meanwhile, fearing litigation, changed Peter's name and character, making him a very compassionate, passive person. Peter was, and is, anything but passive. Like Snider, he's very controlling.

[Q] Playboy: How would you characterize Bogdanovich's reaction to Dorothy's death?

[A] Hefner: He was consumed by it. It became an obsession. In trying to deal with his own sense of guilt and grief, he pursued Dorothy's family after her death. He broke up her mother's marriage and seduced the teenage sister, Louise, and eventually married her. All that resulted in an estrangement between him and me. Then he wrote that preposterous book about me that had nothing to do with reality.

[Q] Playboy: Have you had any contact with Dorothy's family since her death?

[A] Hefner: Peter made that impossible until a few months ago when, quite unexpectedly, I heard from Louise, who is now separated from Bogdanovich. She contacted me to say how much she regretted the hurt Bogdanovich had caused, and that she felt culpable. She said she knew how much Dorothy cared about me and how happy she had been at Playboy. She said she hoped that we could reconnect. That means a great deal to me.

[Q] Playboy: Now that Ron Howard and Brian Grazer are planning a major motion picture at Universal about your life, do you have any casting suggestions? If you could pick an actor from any era to play you, who would it be?

[A] Hefner: It would have to be someone who could capture the boyish romantic, because that's really who I am. It's the story of a Midwestern, Methodist boy, raised in repression, who dreamed impossible dreams and, against all odds, made them come true. In the old days, it would be a Jimmy Stewart or a Henry Fonda. You can see a little bit of my story in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and several other Capra films. But I'm also Cary Grant in The Awful Truth.

[Q] Playboy: If the movie deals with your childhood, might we learn how Hugh Hefner himself learned about the birds and the bees?

[A] Hefner: My mother was a well-educated woman who told us about reproduction, but not about sex. My brother and I were actually the first kids on the block who knew where babies came from, but sex was never mentioned in our home. I learned about sex from my peers.

[Q] Playboy: Have you discussed the subject with Marston and Cooper?

[A] Hefner: No subject is taboo in our home. If you make a subject taboo, you create a false sense of fascination. And, as we know, sex is fascinating enough without anyone's help [smiles]. If you let taboos break down the communication between you and your children when they're young, then when they become adolescents you pay the price--and so do the children. What we try to do is create an environment where, when they have questions about anything, they get answers, and the answers are true.

[Q] Playboy: In that spirit, we have some questions about the one subject we have not yet discussed, your marriage with and separation from Kimberley.

[A] Hefner: Fair enough.

[Q] Playboy: How are you handling the separation?

[A] Hefner: I'm still in love with the girl next door, but I'm much happier now than I was when we were married.

[Q] Playboy: How are the boys dealing with the situation?

[A] Hefner: They make very clear to Mommy, in particular, that they want us back together, which is to be expected. And at the same time, there has been very little trauma, because they are here almost every day. I've kept their room intact at the Mansion, and I see them constantly.

[Q] Playboy: How are you dealing with it emotionally?

[A] Hefner: Kimberley and I have remained very close, which makes it easier for both of us. The most painful period came before the separation, but I've discovered that for some, myself included, marriage is not the final answer. I worked very hard at the marriage. I had no trouble being faithful to it for ten years. But was it a natural state for me? All I can say is, I'm happier now. I think my ideas about love and romance are stronger that my notions of "happily ever after." I loved Kimberley then and I love her now. I always will. And she loves me. In fact, she probably loves me more now than she did when we were married.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you say that?

[A] Hefner: Sometimes a little distance adds perspective.

[Q] Playboy: Have you done a postmortem on your marriage to figure out what went wrong?

[A] Hefner: Oh, yes. One thing I expressed before we got married was, "I don't want my life to change dramatically. You know, I don't want to stop seeing my friends." Years had gone into the creation of this life and I'm a very fortunate fellow to have it. It's like when I was a kid. Mine was the home where all the children came to play. In part, that's still what my life is about today. There were occasions, understandably, when Kimberley wished there weren't so many friends around. But the truth of the matter is that the second half of every evening we were always alone.

[Q] Playboy: What did you do with that time?

[A] Hefner: Too often we were alone then, too. [Pauses] The things that made the marriage fail were rooted in different interests and different emotional sensibilities. I'm intensely romantic and I think Kimberley, to some extent, is afraid of that kind of emotional commitment. I also think the marriage was, for me, a safe harbor not unlike my parents' marriage. The Eighties were a very difficult time for me, both personally and for the company. My marriage reflected those times, and then the times, and those needs, changed.

[Q] Playboy: Did you go to counseling?

[A] Hefner: We did, off and on for three or four years, and not only at the end. But I really didn't need a counselor to explain what went wrong. In retrospect, I think the fact that we were not better suited for our marriage is because neither of us is well suited for marriage, period. Quite apart from my own particular needs, I don't think that Kimberley is capable of a really lasting marital relationship. I doubt very much that she will ever marry anybody else. I doubt that she will ever love anybody as much as she loved me.

[Q] Playboy: What makes you so sure?

[A] Hefner: What's missing is the ability to make an emotional commitment because of the fear that somehow it'll be taken away. For Kimberley, I think it comes from the insecurities of her own childhood; she came from a broken home. I knew that at the outset and it made me feel closer to her. It added to my love. Later, it made me feel that I had to try to make things work for her and the children, even more than for me. That's why I'm here for them now and always, and why they live in this wonderful estate next door with an open gate between the two properties. Both she and the children know that we're still a family and always will be.

[Q] Playboy: Have your girlfriends met Kimberley?

[A] Hefner: They've met her but not together with me. Kimberley is over here regularly with the children and she uses the gym every day.

[Q] Playboy: What if you're in the Grotto with someone when she drops by? It's just one wall away from her house. Wouldn't that feel peculiar?

[A] Hefner: It would be uncomfortable for me in any party setting. I don't want to flaunt the situation or hurt anyone on either side. Honestly, I feel fortunate that it's working as well as it is now, and I want to try to keep it that way as much as possible--for Kim, for the girls and for the children.

[Q] Playboy: How do you feel about Kimberley's boyfriends in your children's lives--and being right next door?

[A] Hefner: Kimberley doesn't date a great deal, but some boyfriends have been over there. There was at least one occasion when she was dating Rod Stewart, when his children and our children, with my approval, came over and swam in the pool. But I haven't had to deal with the situation where she's seriously emotionally involved as yet.

[Q] Playboy: And when that happens?

[A] Hefner: I'll deal with it when the time comes. For now, Kimberley has said her heart isn't open for another relationship. She's devoted to the children now. The press suggested that there was something more serious with Rod, but it wasn't that way for her at all. She didn't like the scene.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel about her dating Donald Trump?

[A] Hefner: She did that to get my attention. The Donald might like it to be something more, but they're just good friends.

[Q] Playboy: Although you married Kimberley, some people think it should have been Barbi Benton--hat she was the perfect wife you never married.

[A] Hefner: I know, but that relationship ended because it was clear that I didn't want to make the commitment. Quite obviously, in any retelling of my life, Barbi is important. In the late Sixties, I started coming to California regularly to host Playboy After Dark, and I first met her on the set of that show. She was the one who found the property that became Playboy Mansion West. When I got the Big Bunny jet, we traveled the world together. And Barbi was there during the bizarre drug investigation that led to the death of my secretary Bobbie Arnstein. These were major events in my life. And they came at a time when Barbi's own star was on the rise as a successful country-and-western singer.

[Q] Playboy: You have said that that relationship had special significance for you.

[A] Hefner: Yes. I think that Barbi was the romanticized, Hollywood reincarnation of my great unrequited love in high school, a girl named Betty Conklin. There are even physical similarities. With Barbi, I got to complete a relationship that never was.

[Q] Playboy: How fond was Kimberley of hearing Barbi's name?

[A] Hefner: Not much. She wasn't jealous of Barbi, but she didn't like all the attention Barbi received in those documentaries. But that's how it happened. Meanwhile, I married Kimberley and had children with her, not Barbi.

[Q] Playboy: After the separation from Kimberley, what did it feel like the first time you took another woman to bed?

[A] Hefner: Strange.

[Q] Playboy: Any guilt?

[A] Hefner: No. It just seemed unnatural. Kimberley just went away and it really wasn't an official separation; she decided she wanted to take the kids to Hawaii for New Year's Eve. I said, "Why do you want to go away during the holidays and not be together?" But her family was going, so she went. The separation became official afterward, in January and February of 1998. It was March or April before I really began dating. Lo and behold, in the beginning of April, Viagra arrived. Talk about timing.

[Q] Playboy: And then you met Brande, Sandy and Mandy.

[A] Hefner: Yes. And timing really is everything. I'm a most lucky fellow.

[Q] Playboy: Several close friends have died this past year--Mel Tormé, Shel Silverstein, and most recently, your secretary Joni Mattis. Do you fear death?

[A] Hefner: No. I'm very comfortable with the nature of life and death, and that we come to an end. What's most difficult to imagine is that those dreams and early yearnings and desires of childhood and adolescence will also disappear. But who knows? Maybe they become part of the eternal whatever.

[Q] Playboy: What do you believe happens after death?

[A] Hefner: I haven't a clue. I'm always struck by the people who think they do have a clue. It's perfectly clear to me that religion is a myth. It's something we have invented to explain the inexplicable. My religion and the spiritual side of my life come from a sense of connection to humankind and nature on this planet and in the universe. I am in overwhelming awe of it all: It is so fantastic, so complex, so beyond comprehension. What does it all mean--if it has meaning at all? But how can it all exist if it doesn't have some kind of meaning? I think anyone who suggests that they have the answer is motivated by the need to invent answers, because we have no answers.

[Q] Playboy: So worrying about it is useless?

[A] Hefner: That's a given. Woody Allen pointed it out in Annie Hall--and I'm paraphrasing: "How can you be happy when you know that in a billion years the sun is going to explode?" Then, in Manhattan, he thinks about those things that make life sweet: Potato Head Blues by Louis Armstrong, Groucho Marx. We all have our own little list.

[Q] Playboy: What's on yours?

[A] Hefner: The memories of childhood. Dreaming my dreams. The Montclare Theater and those images on the silver screen. Bix Beiderbecke's I'll Be a Friend With Pleasure. Alice Faye's smile. The corniest things, I'm afraid [smiles]. One reason I love the Playboy Mansion property is because it's so close to nature. I'm able to walk among the trees and the flowers and the birds, and have that sense of a universal connection. My religion is a perfect day or a wonderful evening here in the backyard where I can hear the crickets as I did in childhood. I watch hummingbirds come to the feeders outside the windows of my office in the attic. A couple sparrows have built a nest right inside the bedroom window. From very early on, it was easier for me to connect to nature and to animals than it was to people.

[Q] Playboy: How so?

[A] Hefner: The myth of Tarzan and his mate: Those films about a man and his mate alone in the jungle, connected to nature, had a great influence. Civilization and the white hunter were the enemy who wanted to intrude and destroy that idyllic, Edenesque life.

[Q] Playboy: When people look at your life, is there a single lesson you hope they can learn?

[A] Hefner: If it represents anything, my life is an example of how you don't have to live by somebody else's rules. You don't have to be limited by preconceived ideas about sex or age or anything. We are handed a life by our parents. It is shaped by our peers and society as a whole. You can accept that life and simply walk in march step to that particular drummer, or you can find your own way, reinvent yourself and become who you want to be. Life is such a wondrous adventure if you take it into your own hands and pursue your own dreams. If you don't do that, you will never know what might have been. You will never know.

Because of Playboy, my life is filled with young, beautiful women. I'd be crazy not to take advantage of that. Somebody has to do it, and I'm glad I'm the guy.