In the mids, however, Playboy Enterprises fell on hard times. The United States hit a recession, and Playboy faced increasing competition from more explicit men's magazines such as Penthouse , helmed by rival Bob Guccione.
At first, Hefner responded by presenting more revealing photos of women in less wholesome poses and circumstances. Some advertisers rebelled, and circulation fell even further. From then on, Hefner concentrated the company's operations on magazine publishing. Playboy Enterprises eventually divested itself from its unprofitable clubs and hotels and downsized its ancillary media endeavors. The magazine kept its new photography standards and began presenting features like "Girls of the Big Ten.
However, the magazine has also been targeted by critics who take issue with its objectification of women and barely veiled emphasis on commercialism. Feminist icon Gloria Steinem famously went undercover as a bunny waitress in to showcase what female workers endured for a two-part Show magazine article.
In , Hefner decided to make Los Angeles his permanent home so he could more closely supervise his interests in television and film production. He became involved in the restoration of the famed Hollywood sign and was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In , he started the Playboy Jazz Festival, an annual event featuring some of the best jazz musicians in the world. In , Hefner suffered a minor stroke, with the entrepreneur blaming it on stress from director Peter Bogdanovich's book The Killing of the Unicorn: Dorothy Stratten , which profiled the life and murder of a former Playmate.
The stroke served as a wake-up call for Hefner. He stopped smoking, began to work out and adopted a slower pace in his pleasurable pursuits. He married his longtime girlfriend, Kimberly Conrad, in , and for a time, the Playboy Mansion reflected an atmosphere of family life. The marriage produced two sons, Marston and Cooper. The Hefners separated in , and officially divorced in After the separation, Kimberly and the two boys lived on an estate next door to the Playboy Mansion.
Hugh Hefner poses at his home in Los Angeles, California in In , Hefner turned over control of Playboy Enterprises to his daughter Christie, naming her chair and chief executive officer. She played a key role in directing Playboy's ventures in cable television, video production and online programming, with Hefner continuing to serve as the magazine's editor-in-chief.
Christie stepped down from her position in January While the magazine saw more modest sales in a changing publishing landscape, the Playboy brand remained a formidable entity in terms of global licensing opportunities.
The famed logo also made inroads into various avenues of pop culture, as seen with its display on a chain regularly worn by fashionista Carrie Bradshaw Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City. In his later years, Hefner devoted much of his time to philanthropy and civic projects. Additionally, he made major contributions to the restoration of classic films, one of his great passions. Hefner received numerous awards for his contributions to society and the publishing industry.
He was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the American Society of Magazine Editors in , which, ironically, was the same year Steinem earned induction. True to form, the series served as a promotional vehicle for many of Hefner's projects. Throughout the s and s, Hefner made guests appearances on various TV shows. He also starred in and produced the E! The show aired from until In more recent years, the magazine and brand began to struggle. The New York Times reported in that the magazine began promising advertisers a 1.
Playboy announced in October that it would no longer be featuring nude photos in its pages. By February , however, the magazine said nude photos would be back. He will be greatly missed by many, including his wife Crystal, my sister Christie and my brothers David and Marston and all of us at Playboy Enterprises," Cooper Hefner said in a statement. Loading Something is loading. Email address. Hugh Hefner. Deal icon An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt. Related: Playboy founder Hugh Hefner dead at The Playboy interview became a major vehicle for newsmakers, eliciting tidbits such as Jimmy Carter's famous admission that he had lusted after women and "committed adultery in my heart many times.
A marketing genius, Hefner's life became a kind of running promotion for his empire, with the Playboy Mansion conveying the image of a sexual Disneyland.
Yet he was also a media visionary, moving Playboy into television and later onto its own cable channel. Related: Tributes pour in for Hugh Hefner. After they had sex, when he was 22, his first wife, Mildred Williams , revealed that she had cheated on him before their wedding while he served in the army. Hefner's iconic smoking jacket look started in the late s.
At that point, Playboy was a roaring success and Hefner moved his office into his bedroom to make things easier. Then he realized he could wear them all day. He reportedly owned more than custom-made smoking jackets and pajamas. He did not wear underwear underneath, according to the New York Times. As an infantry clerk, he made cartoons for military publications. His colleague and future Popeye cartoonist Hy Eisman wasn't a fan of his drawings and suggested he look for other jobs after the war.
He quit in , took a few other jobs in the journalism and publishing industries, and then went on to start Playboy in Before founding Playboy, Hefner worked in the publishing industry in different jobs, including some stabs at cartooning and as a copywriter for Esquire.
One of his positions was being the circulation director of a Chicago-based children's magazine. Hefner eventually took Eisman's advice and hired other people for the job instead. In its early days, cartoons were a major part of the magazine.
Two of the illustrators he hired were Shel Silverstein and Jules Pfeiffer.
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