Mr. Playboy : Hugh Hefner and the American Dream

by Watts, Steven

• ISBN13: 9780471690597
• ISBN10: 0471690597
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-10-06
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

The real Hugh Hefner-the extraordinary inside story of an American icon"Riveting... Watts packs in plenty of gasp-inducing passages."-Newark Star Ledger"Like it or not, Hugh Hefner has affected all of us, so I treasured learning about how and why in the sober biography."-Chicago Sun Times"This is a fun book. How could it not be? Watts aims to give a full account of the man, his magazine and their place in social history. Playboy is no longer the cultural force it used to be, but it made a stamp on society."-Associated Press"In Steven Watts' exhaustive, illuminating biography Mr. 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."-Los Angeles Times 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. From his spectacular launch of Playboy magazine and the dizzying expansion of his leisure empire to his recent television hit The Girls Next Door, the publisher has attracted public attention and controversy for decades. But how did a man who is at once socially astute and morally unconventional, part Bill Gates and part Casanova, also evolve into a figure at the forefront of cultural change? In Mr. Playboy, historian and biographer Steven Watts argues that, in the process of becoming fabulously wealthy and famous, Hefner has profoundly altered American life and values. Granted unprecedented access to the man and his enterprise, Watts traces Hef's life and career from his midwestern, Methodist upbringing and the first publication of Playboy in 1953 through the turbulent sixties, self-indulgent seventies, reactionary eighties, and traditionalist nineties, up to the present. He reveals that Hefner, from the beginning, believed he could overturn social norms and take America with him. This fascinating portrait illustrates four ways in which Hefner and Playboy stood at the center of several cultural upheavals that remade the postwar United States. The publisher played a crucial role in the sexual revolution that upended traditional notions of behavior and expectation regarding sex. He emerged as one of the most influential advocates of a rapidly developing consumer culture, flooding Playboy readers with images of material abundance and a leisurely lifestyle. 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. Ironically, Hefner also became a controversial force in the movement for women's rights. Although advocating women's sexual freedom and their liberation from traditional family constraints, the publisher became a whipping boy for feminists who viewed him as a prophet for a new kind of male domination. Throughout, Watts offers singular insights into the real man behind the flamboyant public persona. 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. Punctuated throughout with descriptions and anecdotes of life at the Playboy Mansions, Mr. Playboy tells the compelling and uniquely American story of how one person with a provocative idea, a finger on the pulse of popular opinion, and a passion for his work altered the course of modern history. Spans from Hefner's childhood to the launch of Playboy magazine

Author Biography

Steven Watts is Professor of History at the University of Missouri. He is the author of four books, including The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century and The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Introduction: The Boy Next Door	p. 1
Beginnings
A Boy at Play	p. 11
Boot Camp, College, and Kinsey	p. 34
The Tie That Binds	p. 49
Ascent
How to Win Friends and Titillate People	p. 69
Hedonism, Inc.	p. 85
The Pursuit of Happiness	p. 105
An Abundant Life	p. 123
Living the Fantasy	p. 143
Triumph
The Philosopher King	p. 169
The Happiness Explosion	p. 187
Make Love, Not War	p. 206
What Do Women Want?	p. 228
Down the Rabbit Hole	p. 250
Disneyland for Adults	p. 272
Malaise
A Hutch Divided	p. 297
The Dark Decade	p. 323
The Party's Over	p. 346
Strange Bedfellows	p. 367
Resurgence
The Bride Wore Clothes	p. 391
All in the Family	p. 407
Back in the Game	p. 426
Epilogue: Playboy Nation	p. 447
Notes	p. 455
Index	p. 515
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