Hugh Hefner

A look at the battles Hugh Hefner fought over the years against the U.S. government, the religious right, and militant feminists.

Back in December 1953, the 27 years old Hugh Hefner published the first Playboy Magazine in Chicago, and the American system of values – God, family and work – got muddled up forever. There was no match for Playboy or for its founder. At the head of the company was a man whose lifestyle stimulated men's fantasies just as much as the magazine itself. Hugh Hefner, hedonist, icon of virile machismo and the most famous playboy in the world. Initiator of the sexual revolution, a fighter for civil rights and supporter of the arts, a liberal saint – or, after all, just an amoral materialist, chauvinist and pornographer?

Explores the darker side of the magazine, looking at how founder Hugh Hefner's excesses spiralled out of control as the years passed and how - over time - he came to be regarded by many in his orbit as a sinister, monstrous character.

When Hugh Hefner quit his job at Esquire to start a magazine called Playboy, he didn't just want to make money, he wanted to make dreams come true. The first issue had a Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an article on the Dorsey brothers, and a feature on desk design for the modern office. Hefner wrote much of the copy himself and drew all the cartoons. But the most memorable part by far was the set of pictures he bought from a local calendar printer of a scantily clad Marilyn Monroe.