Hugh Hefner, who founded Playboy magazine, and became personally synonymous with its louche approach to sexuality and its advocacy of progressive liberal ideals like civil rights and sexual freedom, has passed away. He was 91.
“Hugh M. Hefner, the American icon who in 1953 introduced the world to Playboy magazine and built the company into one of the most recognizable American global brands in history, peacefully passed away today from natural causes at his home, The Playboy Mansion, surrounded by loved ones,” Playboy confirmed in a statement. “He was 91 years old.”
“The major civilizing force in the world is not religion,” Hefner wrote in his Playboy manifesto, “it is sex,” and the magazine, whose first centerfold was a nude Marilyn Monroe in 1953, would publish some of the best writers of its generation—including Ray Bradbury, Vladimir Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Saul Bellow, James Baldwin, John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates, among many others—as well as featuring figures like Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre and Malcolm X in what would become know as the standard-setting “Playboy interview.” The magazine and its founder quickly became known for more than just their proclivities towards blondes, and as advocates for free speech, civil rights, and sexual freedom, as they took on America’s hypocritical puritanism “at a time when doctors could refuse contraceptives to single women, and the Hollywood production code dictated separate beds for married couples” as noted in the New York Times. Hefner would win civil liberties awards for his support of progressive social causes, and understood the importance of optics, inviting black guests to his televised parties at a time when much of the nation still had Jim Crow laws.
“My father lived an exceptional and impactful life as a media and cultural pioneer and a leading voice behind some of the most significant social and cultural movements of our time,” Cooper Hefner, Playboy Enterprises’ chief creative officer and Hugh’s son, said in a statement. “He defined a lifestyle and ethos that lie at the heart of the Playboy brand, one of the most recognizable and enduring in history.”
Hefner’s infamous Playboy Mansion—replete with grotto, and over 22,000 feet of living space, and accordant reality show following the romantic travails of himself and his multiple young girlfriends— became one of the most well-known residences in the world, and a certain type of Valhalla for those able to garner an invitation. It was sold for $100 million in August, but the deal included the stipulation that Hefner could continue to live there for the rest of his life.