Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream

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If we're to believe this book, it's the Truth about Hugh Hefner-and, by proxy, about American life since the 1950s. highly–readable and thought–provoking biography written by academic historian, Stephen Watts" ( Desire , November 2008) Hugh Hefner started Playboy magazine in 1953 using purchased photos of Marilyn Monroe, and including the article "Miss Gold Digger 1953" about women who "manipulate the legal system for alimony. But after something happened to them, the beautiful woman suddenly left him without knowing her name. He shows Hefner''s personal dichotomies-the pleasure seeker and the workaholic, the consort of countless Playmates and the genuine romantic, the family man and the Gatsby-like host of lavish parties at his Chicago and Los Angeles mansions who enjoys well-publicized affairs with numerous Playmates, the fan of life''s simple pleasures who hobnobs with the Hollywood elite. But I can easily picture us together in my bed," mapang-akit na wika niya sa isang magandang babae kaharap niya.

He also succeeds in identifying and exploring raging personal paradoxes--hedonist and workaholic, libertine and romantic, provocateur and traditionalist--while resisting the urge to attempt reconciliation. He proved instrumental-with his influential magazine, syndicated television shows, fashionable nightclubs, swanky resorts, and movie and musical projects-in making popular culture into a dominant force in many people''s lives.Though in time he would lose readers to more explicit magazines on one side and "lad" magazines on the other, the Playboy brand never lost its luster. The implicit claim of Watts′s admirable book is almost inarguable that it′s impossible to understand twentieth–century America without knowing the story of Henry Ford.

Watts′s judicious exploration of the feats and foibles of Henry Ford provides a timely and compelling model of how to cut through the hype and tell the real story. His strong voice contains a certain journalistic integrity that holds the listener's attention, and his unbiased tone allows listeners to draw their own conclusions about Hefner. Playboy , Hefner''s ideal for living -- marked by his allegiances to Tarzan, Freud, Pepsi-Cola and jazz -- proves to be a kind of gloss on the Protestant work ethic. He shows Hefner′s personal dichotomies–the pleasure seeker and the workaholic, the consort of countless Playmates and the genuine romantic, the family man and the Gatsby–like host of lavish parties at his Chicago and Los Angeles mansions who enjoys well–publicized affairs with numerous Playmates, the fan of life′s simple pleasures who hobnobs with the Hollywood elite. Advance Uncorrected Proof signed by Hugh Hefner and author Steven Watts both on Title page in black pen, signatures only.Playboy" is no longer the cultural force it used to be, but it made a stamp on society' - "Associated Press". Gorgeous young women in revealing poses; extravagant mansion parties packed with celebrities; a hot-tub grotto, elegant smoking jackets, and round rotating beds; the hedonistic pursuit of uninhibited sex—put these images together and a single name springs to mind: Hugh Hefner. Heff's own life reveals an early life beset by a lack of self-satisfaction and a strong desire to be a good husband. Examining Playboy archives (Hef is something of a pack rat) and Hefner's own journals, Watts (History/Univ.

Within his deeply religious family, he was doted on by his mother and neglected by a mostly absent father, creating "a child who was extraordinarily self–absorbed. The book provides plenty of biographical detail and it does a creditable job of making connections between the personal and the political. The Horatio-Alger-with-a-libido case he makes—where else but in America could a repressed midwestern boy rise, and fall into so many sacks, while creating and brand-managing a multimedia empire? A] nuanced portrait of Hefner’s life that also serves as a panorama of hip culture from the 1950s onward…Probably the last word on the man behind a million adolescent fantasies.Clocking in at over 500 pages, this is not a gossip book but a well-documented biography written with access to Hefner's over 1800 scrapbooks, the company archives, and interviews.