Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine and playboy lifestyle helped bring in the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Here are seven facts about him:
Hefner founded Playboy magazine in 1953, using a picture of a nude Marilyn Monroe, a $600 loan against his furniture and investments from family members to launch the magazine with a total of $8,000. It became one of the most talked-about publishing empires in history.
Hefner used the pages of his magazine to write lengthy articles fighting censorship and promoting various other libertarian causes.
He opened his first Playboy Club in Chicago in 1960. Eventually there were dozens of clubs as far as Japan and Jamaica and they featured the hottest entertainers of the time, such as Sammy Davis Jr. and Sonny & Cher. The clubs began closing in the late 1980s amid escalating costs.
In 1985 Hefner suffered a stroke that left him temporarily partially paralyzed and unable to speak. He fully recovered.
From his six acre (2.5 hectares) Holmby Hills estate in Los Angeles, Hefner kept close tabs on the magazine. He had final say on the centerfold, cartoons and overall editorial direction.
Hefner arranged to be buried in a crypt next to the grave of Monroe in a Los Angeles cemetery.
Hefner reportedly drank as many as 36 bottles of Pepsi a day.
