Menu

Topics

Connect

Comments

Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first.

Hugh Hefner set out to ‘shake up the sexual order’, biographer says

In this Nov. 4, 2010, file photo, Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner poses for photos at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File

Hugh Hefner’s public persona was authentic, according to the biographer who spent years pouring over his personal archive and getting to know the silk-clad playboy himself.

Story continues below advertisement

“I think the guy…we saw in sort of the public realm, he was not acting, he was not putting anything on, that was the real Hugh Hefner,” said historian Steven Watts.  “And I guess I’m convinced he died a happy man because he really did love the life he lived.”

Hefner, the cultural icon and business mogul who founded men’s lifestyle magazine Playboy in 1953, died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday.

He was 91.

LISTEN: Historian Steven Watts joins The Kelly Cutrara Show on AM640

Story continues below advertisement

Watts chronicled Hefner’s life and controversial cultural legacy in the 2008 biography Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream.

The University of Missouri history professor said he spent “probably 50 hours” interviewing Hefner for the book.

WATCH: Hugh Hefner mourners conflicted on legacy Playboy founder leaves behind

“I was around the mansion a lot over a five or six-year period and every day that I saw Hefner he was in his silk pyjamas,” he told AM640’s Kelly Cutrara on Thursday.

Story continues below advertisement

Watts said that through Playboy, Hefner purposely intended to “shake up the sexual order with its usual proprieties and restrictions.”

“I often sort of chuckle that the images in the ’50s that were seen as so salacious and outrageous are now ones, you know, you would probably see in [the] Sears catalogue and PBS television shows,” he said.

“So in many ways, I think he sort of won that war over the long haul.”

In addition to Playboy‘s impact on sexuality in popular culture — including criticisms regarding the objectification of women — Watts said Hefner will also be remembered as a key figure in a different cultural shift.

Hefner, he said, had an important role in the consumer revolution that occurred after the Second World War.

Playboy, from the very beginning, was a kind of guidebook for young men on leading the good life,” Watts said. “And what that meant, according to the magazine, was not only sexual activity but a nice apartment, nice clothes, good restaurants, a sports car.”

Advertisement
Advertisement

You are viewing an Accelerated Mobile Webpage.

View Original Article