As the West Coast Editorial Coordinator for Cartoons, Amanda Warren is the go-between for Hugh Hefner and the magazine's many contributing artists. Like most Playboy Mansion employees, her role in keeping the Hol-mby Hills estate operating like a well-oiled machine goes beyond what her job title implies, as she makes Hef's travel arrangements, daily schedule and more. The 31-year-old California native, whose grandparents are friends with Hef remembers coming to the Mansion for Easter egg hints when she was a little girl. Warren later graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in architecture and ran a sound-stage facility until an opportunity opened at the Mansion more than four years ago. Now this energetic young woman works tirelessly behind the scenes to keep Hef and the Girls Next Door happy and on schedule.
PLAYBOY: Cartoons have been important to playboy since the magazine's beginning. When did Hef become interested in them?
WARREN: Hef has always drawn cartoons himself. In high school the comic strip he drew documented his transformation into Hep Hef, which is what he called himself, from the kind of dorky guy to the cool guy. It was a love of his, and in the first few issues he drew his own cartoons.
PLAYBOY: Is Hef's personal time as regimented as his workdays? WARREN: Hef is a workaholic, so for him personal time comes after work hours.
Monday is "manly night," when 10 or 12 of his best friends come over, have dinner, chat, smoke cigars and listen to music. Tuesday is an off night, when he'll sometimes play backgammon with his son Marston, who lives next door. Wednesday is card night, and Hef and his friends play poker or gin in the library. On Thursday, Hef, his girlfriends and some Playmates will go out to a great restaurant and hit a club. PLAYBOY: You're one of the first people to see Hef after he comes out of his room. How does your daily interaction with him start?
WARREN: You prepare for your boss to come down at noon in his pajamas, and your day is kind of dictated by what type of pajamas he is wearing. If Hef's wearing black silk pajamas, he is ready to work. All is well. Sometimes he'll come down in his blue flannel pajamas and you'll know it's not going to be a good day. If he has an interview or a meeting with a lawyer or something, he'll throw on his red or purple smoking jacket over the black silks. That's typically his uniform.
PLAYBOY: Do you know where his affinity for pajamas comes from? WARREN: Well, legend has it that he started wearing pajamas during the early days of the magazine when his secretary arrived one morning and he was still working away in his pajamas from the night before. But, if you ask Hef, he
will simply tell you that he wears them because he finds them to be more comfortable.
PLAYBOY: Please explain the audition process for women who want to attend one of the Mansion bashes. WARREN: Basically girls have to submit a photo of themselves to get invited to a Mansion party. Nothing untoward—just a headshot and a body shot of a girl in jeans and a T-shirt is great. We get stacks and stacks of pictures. They get sent over to Hef, and he goes through the pictures and basically says yea or nay based on them.
PLAYBOY: What if a woman gets accepted and she wants to bring a friend? WARREN: If they get approved, they are told not to bring a date. It's definitely a singles party—no boyfriends. If they want a friend to come, a woman has to send her friend's picture, too. PLAYBOY: Are there off-limits areas of the Mansion?
WARREN: The second floor is basically off-limits unless you work in the offices there, as I do. It's basically treated like a hotel. If the door is closed, you knock first. Hef and Holly share the master suite, and down the hall from there you first arrive at Kendra's room and then Bridget's. It's all hardwood until that point and then there's a long hallway that's carpeted, and that's the dividing point between personal living space and office space.
A candid conversation with one of the Playboy Mansion's go-to insiders about Hef's private get-togethers and what the color of his pajamas reveals
