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| Centrefolds exposed in playful
Heff’s world |
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner has created an
aura of mystique, and no little envy, by spending his days surrounded
by beautiful, scantily-clad women, writes Mark Blunden
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A 1968 cover, picture by Mario Casilli
A cover from 1970, picture by Dwight Hooker
A cover from 1969 Picture by Dwight Hooker
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MOST men of Hugh Hefner’s age would be spending more time
in their potting sheds than running a global pornography empire.
But at 79, the founder of Playboy magazine lives in a huge mansion
with an endless string of nubile young beauties at his fingertips.
The pipe-smoking gent even has enough energy to host twice-weekly
orgies, if a recent reveal-all autobiography by an ex-Playmate bunnygirl
is anything to go by.
This “secret” is one of the few to slip from the Playboy
mansion, home to hedonistic parties for Hollywood’s glitterati.
Playboy recently celebrated its 50th anniversary and regardless
of your opinion on the ethics of the operation, it has undoubtedly
produced iconic and memorable images.
And not just the mucky ones, mind, for this is not a readers’
wives kind of operation.
Marilyn Monroe, Ursula Andress, Jane Birkin and Pamela Anderson
are among the subjects tastefully captured by some of the biggest
names in 20th-century photography.
Someone had the slavish task of picking 150 of the best photographs
of some of the world’s most beautiful women from a picture
library of 15 million.
And it’s not only bums and boobs captured by the likes of Helmut
Newton, Franco Rubartelli, Thierry Mugler and David LaChapelle.
A new exhibition, at the Proud Gallery in Camden Town’s Stables
Market, also showcases “the Playboy good life”.
Yes, everything sales reps daydream about while stuck on the Norwich
ring road is encapsulated in the Playboy ethos.
Indeed, it is the code by which Hugh Hefner lives.
Think golf, girls and razzing about in a powerful sports car.
The exhibition, called Playboy Exposed, also features transcripts
from a string of celebrity interviews, including The Beatles, Muhammad
Ali, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen.
But it is the visual matter for which Playboy is most famous.
The improbably named Pompeo Posar, who some may regard as a lucky
bugger, has shot 40 of the magazine’s covers and more than
65 centrefolds.
Other images on show include stills of the Playboy Mansion and the
Big Bunny jet.
In the uncensored historical section of the exhibition, brace yourselves
for the first uncensored photographs of pubic hair.
Mr Hefner has come far since the first edition of the magazine (featuring
Marilyn Monroe) was produced on a kitchen table in his Chicago apartment
in 1953, selling 50,000 copies.
By the start of the 1960s, Mr Hefner was living the Playboy good
life.
He hosted the Playboy’s Penthouse television show, bought the
Playboy Mansion and opened the first Playboy club in Chicago.
Throughout the 1960s, he challenged America’s puritanical censorship
laws and continued to march forward the Playboy brand.
By the late 1970s the portfolio of Playboy Enterprises, with its
distinctive bunny logo, included 23 clubs, luxury resorts, hotels
and casinos.
Further to the millions of Playboy magazines sold each month, Mr
Hefner now controls a massive internet conglomerate.
And there’s small matter of all the merchandising, a record
label, modelling agency, television and film companies. But despite
this he has managed to keep what goes on inside the Playboy Mansion
(mostly) top secret. So intrigued is the outside world with the
life of pyjama-clad Mr Hefner there is even a computer game where
gamers can tour the mansion’s grounds and hook up with Playmates.
Over half a century since the launch of Playboy magazine, and Hugh
Hefner and he certainly still knows a thing or two about commissioning
a decent photograph.
• Playboy Exposed runs until February 26, at the Proud
Gallery, Stables Market, The Gin House, Chalk Farm Road, NW1. 020
7482 3867 |
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