December 1, 1953: The 1st issue of Playboy magazine hits newsstands. It sells over 50,000 copies.
It was founded by Hugh Hefner, a 27-year-old writer who was fired by Esquire magazine 2 years earlier, because he demanded a raise of $5 a week. In other words, for what would have amounted to an extra $56 a week in 2022 money, Esquire could have kept a man who, while not a literary genius, turned out to be an organizational one.
Esquire was already America's premiere "men's magazine," and it had pictures of scantily clad women. Hefner upped the ante, with centerfold photos of nude women. He bought some nude photos that Marilyn Monroe had posed for in 1949, right before becoming famous, included them, and included a photo of a dressed Marilyn on his 1st cover. There was nothing she could legally do. "Hef" and Marilyn never met, but he was obsessed with her until the end, eventually buying the crypt next to hers at Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
Hef believed that people should be liberated, every which way. He supported "the sexual revolution," and some people suggest he even started it. He supported gay rights. He supported civil rights for black people. He supported animal rescue. He was not, however, a supporter of feminism. And the way he treated the women he hired left a lot to be desired.
Among the women who accepted the big money that Hef was willing to spend for them to pose nude have been:
* Actresses: Jayne Mansfield in 1955, Ursula Andress in 1965, Linda Evans in 1971, Suzanne Somers in 1980 and 1984, Kim Basinger in 1983, Shannen Doherty in 1994 and 2003, Drew Barrymore in 1995, Farrah Fawcett in 1995 and 1997 (at ages 48 and 50), and Denise Richards in 2004.
* Singers: La Toya Jackson in 1989 and 1991, Nancy Sinatra in 1995 (at 55!), Joey Heatherton in 1997 (at 53, not quite topping Nancy), Belinda Carlisle of The Go-Go's in 2001 (at 43), Tiffany in 2002, Carnie Wilson of Wilson Phillips in 2003 (showing off her big, though temporary, weight loss), and Debbie Gibson in 2005.
* Athletes: Figure skater Katarina Witt in 1998, volleyball player Gabrielle Reece in 2001, and swimmer Amanda Beard in 2007.
The old joke was, "I only read it for the articles." Top 5 articles that Playboy was worth reading for:
1. Alex Haley's 1962 interview with jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. Davis' choices of words have been retroactively labeled "cringeworthy," but his views about race and American culture are still worth reading.
2. Haley's 1963 interview with Malcolm X, adapted after Malcolm's assassination into the book The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
3. Haley's 1965 interview with Dr. Martin Luther King. By this point, Malcolm X had been assassinated, and Dr. King had faced attempts on his own life. Presaging his last speech in 1968, just 1 night before his assassination, he said here, "If I were constantly worried about death, I couldn't function." As far as I know, Haley, later to be the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family, is the only man to interview both Malcolm and Martin.
4. The interview by Robert Scheer, previously best known for the "New Left" magazine Ramparts, with Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, late in the 1976 campaign, in which Carter spoke of "lust in my heart," nearly costing him the election.
5. David Sheff's interview with former Beatle John Lennon, mere days before Lennon's 1980 assassination. This interview would also be published in book form.
The magazine also had a long history of publishing short stories by notable novelists such as Ian Fleming (no surprise there), Vladimir Nabokov (ditto), Arthur C. Clarke, Saul Bellow, Chuck Palahniuk, P. G. Wodehouse, Haruki Murakami, and even the author of The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood.
Believe it or not, from 1970 to 2020, a Braille edition of Playboy was published, including all the written words in the regular version, but no pictorial representations.
In the 1959-60 and 1960-61 television seasons, Playboy's Penthouse was nationally syndicated, taped at the studio of Chicago station WBKB (now WLS), Channel 7. The show portrayed a "typical" party at Hefner's place, complete with Playboy Playmates and celebrities, who then chatted with Hefner and performed for the party. In the 1969-70 season, moving from Chicago and black & white to Los Angeles and color, Hef hosted a similar series, Playboy After Dark, also syndicated. Syndication offered him the chance to broadcast with fewer censors, since networks weren't involved; but while he showed women in skimpy outfits, even he wouldn't go so far as to show nudity on television in the 1960s.
In 1975, Hefner moved the company's operations from Chicago to Los Angeles, establishing the Playboy Mansion at 10236 Charing Cross Road, in the Holmby Hills section of West L.A. His hedonism reached a new level: Although his previous appearances on television showed him wearing a tuxedo, he now seemed to wear only pajamas and a red bathrobe, even conducting business dressed that way in the Mansion.
In 2006, an ex-girlfriend of Hef's published a book stating that the Mansion, and the furnishings inside, were in bad shape. As it turned out, the finances of the once fabulously wealthy Hef were also in bad shape. He had become a real-life version of Citizen Kane's Charles Foster Kane, a once-great publisher having taken his pleasures too far, now alone in a decaying mansion, a caricature of himself, outliving his legend and his fortune.
Hugh Hefner died on September 27, 2017, at the age of 91. The next day, I wrote on Facebook, "Say what you want about Hugh Hefner, and I wouldn't recommend his lifestyle to anybody. But he wanted everybody -- regardless of gender, race, religion, orientation or identity -- to have the same freedoms that he enjoyed. His obituary is definitely an article worth reading Playboy for."
He married 3 times, and had 4 children. His company is now publicly owned, and no member of his family has any control over it. The magazine went online-only in 2020. The Mansion is privately owned, and the City of Los Angeles has declared it a landmark.
UPDATE: In 2024, Hef's youngest child, son Cooper Hefner, a hedge fund manager who was decorated as a U.S. Air Force officer, bought Playboy Enterprises for $100 million, and relaunched the print edition in 2025. He is married to Scarlett Byrne, an actress who appeared in the Harry Potter films.
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December 1, 1953 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. No NHL games were scheduled. There were 3 games in the NBA:
* The Boston Celtics beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 89-86 in overtime at the Boston Garden.
* The Rochester Royals beat the Fort Wayne Pistons, 92-69 at the Edgerton Park Arena in Rochester, New York.
* And the Syracuse Nationals beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 76-69 in overtime, at the Milwaukee Arena. In 1974, it was renamed the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.
