When I first started telling people that I was going to get to
interview Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion, the shock and
excitement was unbelievable. “Are you kidding? That guy is my
idol! If I pay you 20 bucks, will you take me with you?” said
a guy in one of my classes, wide-eyed and awestruck. What is it
about this man that makes people elevate him to demi-god status?
It’s easy to forget that the 76-year-old icon ““ the
torchbearer of the sexual revolution, armed with an entourage of
seven buxom blondes ““ is really just a regular 76-year-old
guy. In many ways, Hef (as he told us to call him) is and will
remain immortal. It was not through some swanky press conference
that I got to meet Hefner, but through the English seminar
“Art of the Interview” taught by Larry Grobel, a
freelance journalist and regular contributor for Playboy. He
arranged for 14 other students and me to make a pilgrimage one mile
east of UCLA to the Emerald City where playmates play and party
people party to do a group interview with the wizard himself. The
way the jittery crew fidgeted walking into the ostentatious Tudor
mansion filled with fine art and exotic animals, you’d think
we were preparing to meet the pope. But when we finally did meet
Hef, he was significantly smaller than the larger-than-life image I
had in my head. While he definitely looked young for his age (which
he credits partially to some snips and tucks around the neck), I
couldn’t get over how much he resembled my grandfather. When
I shook his hand, he said, “Pleasure,” just like a
polite gentleman. He warned the class that he had one bad ear. When
asked which one, he pointed to his left ear and said jokingly,
“At least, I think it’s this one. It was this one this
morning.” He referred to sex as “intercourse” and
told us one of his biggest turn-offs was spitting on the sidewalk.
That’s not to say Hef is an old fogey, he’s undeniably
hipper than most people one-third his age. He still appeared to be
the immortalized bachelor, clad in his red satin robe, black
pajamas and slippers just like in his days of “Playboy After
Dark.” But it was the silly white cotton socks that I could
see peeking out from his satin pant leg and velvet slippers that
revealed something human about him, something that didn’t fit
the glossy image. While the class may not have gotten to see the
true being beneath the silk pajamas, we got a peek at the white
socks. “¢bull; “¢bull; “¢bull;
Daily Bruin: What direction do you see Playboy headed now? Hugh
Hefner: Because explicit sexual images are so commonplace now, I
think they’re less important. I would like to find other ways
to attract attention, to reemphasize other aspects of the magazine
— more lifestyle, good nonfiction pieces, good interviews. DB: How
much do you deal with the business part of company? HH: I’ve
never cared about the business end of business. In my heart of
hearts, I wish I’d never taken the magazine public. DB: What
do you think about competitors like Maxim and FHM magazines? HH:
FHM, Maxim and variations are dumbing down on Playboy. What makes
them work is that instead of girls and champagne, it’s beer
and babes ““ it’s the attitude, the impudent kind of
irreverence, quick hits. The new generation has a shorter attention
span. DB: Christina Aguilera announced recently she’s willing
to be the first non-nude celebrity cover. Is there any chance that
the clothes might go back on permanently? HH: No, but I think we
will be doing some pictorials that are semi-nude. (The media)
imagined that somehow the centerfolds were going to disappear, all
the girls would be wearing clothes again. That would be the saddest
thing. DB: Are you still personally involved with picking out the
centerfolds every month? HH: Oh, yes. I wouldn’t give that up
for the world. DB: The centerfolds are said to have the
girl-next-door look. What prompted that image? HH: The whole idea
of the centerfold is to make them as natural as possible. The
statement was simply, nice girls like sex too, that it’s a
natural part of life. Not very revolutionary today, but very
revolutionary in 1953. DB: You’re seeking to portray women as
natural, yet Playboy has been one of the biggest influences in
making breast implants so popular. HH: Probably true. When I say
natural, I’m not making a statement about silicone. I’m
talking about the models in the 1950s. They wore girdles, bullet
bras, and skirts that went halfway down to the ankle. It was a very
unnatural look. (Women today) are comfortable in their own skin and
in their own nature. Women dress more naturally even if it may be
in boots and miniskirts or Levis. DB: What is it that you find
personally attractive in women? HH: Rationally, it has to do with
symmetry. On a subjective level, it has to do with whom you fell in
love with before or someone who captured your imagination when you
were six or seven. The part beyond that is magic. DB: What about
the magical drug you’ve been associated with recently:
Viagra. Is it all that it’s cracked up to be? HH: Yeah, and
more so. It is the best legal recreational drug out there. DB: What
is the greatest sexual experience you have ever had? HH: I have no
idea. In some lives there are three or four magic moments. My life
has been so filled with them. DB: You said once that one birthday
you had eighteen naked women in the Grotto. Is that pretty high on
the list? HH: That was like stocking the koi pond. How important is
quantity? DB: You tell me. HH: Not as important as quality. Then
again, if you can combine the two … DB: Do you ever just want a
vacation from all the sex? HH: That’s what I’m doing
now! My life is not just sex all the time. DB: One of the reasons
why you’re so revered is that you have maintained such an
active sex life. HH: It’s great to have a full sex life. A
close friend commented on how he was very popular when he was
younger, but now the women look right through him. I wondered, as
my marriage (to Kimberley Conrad) was ending, if that was what lay
ahead for me. What a wonderful revelation that it was exactly the
opposite. DB: Do you ever worry it’s not you that all the
women see? HH: I know what they see. They see the image. They see
the perception of something created by the media and created by
publicity. If I spent time worrying about that, then my life would
not be so satisfying. You can worry that somebody is interested in
you because you are rich and famous, but I know the unique nature
of my celebrity. I didn’t inherit it. A movie studio
didn’t give it to me. I created it myself, so it’s not
a long way from who I really am. DB: There’s so much to your
personality beyond your sexual image that you don’t really
show anymore. How did you use the magazine to show the socially
progressive side of you? HH: The other half of who I am was a
setter of liberal social values, so in the early 1960s with the
success of the magazine, I thought I could really publish the
magazine that I wanted. That’s when the Playboy interview
came along, that’s where I started doing the Playboy
Philosophy and started to run a variety of nonfiction pieces on a
variety of subjects: on the Vietnam War, violence, race. DB: What
about your feelings on marijuana legalization? HH: Solving drug
problems shouldn’t include putting people in prison.
It’s naive to criminalize marijuana when it is less harmful
than cigarettes or alcohol. It’s nuts to solve those kinds of
social problems by turning it into a crime. DB: How do you feel
about today’s music? HH: I dance to hip-hop but I don’t
listen to it. I grew up on Cole Porter and Gershwin. That’s
symphonic music today. I often think about young people falling in
love now and identifying with a particular music and will they in
20 years look back and think, “They’re playing our
song, “˜Who Let the Dogs Out.'” DB: How do you
look back at the music and films of yesteryear? HH: I think that my
definition of romantic love was perceived through the movies. My
life has really been a quest for a world where the words to the
song are true. It’s an impossible quest. DB: If your romantic
ideal comes from the classic movies and music, why is your romantic
life so far from the classic depiction? Humphrey Bogart never ended
up with seven girlfriends. HH: That’s probably true. I think
that what I’m probably doing is avoiding being hurt again.
Safety in numbers. DB: So you don’t think you’ll find
that one special person, and marry a third time? HH: The third
felony, they put you away for life. We’re raised with the
ideal that we will find the perfect person and live happily ever
after. Well, it works for some people. I’ve never known a
fulfillment of love. I think I have been searching to fill that
hole that was left there in early childhood. DB: You’re very
analytical about your life. HH: I majored in psychology at the
University of Illinois. I have always been fascinated with why we
do the things we do. We are all working out some variation on what
happened to us when we were very young. That’s what life is
all about, and trying to bring as much as we can to a conscious
level is the answer to happiness. There are so many things in our
world that tend to (mess) it up. If we can make some sense of it,
we’re very lucky. DB: You have been included in some lists of
the most influential Americans of the 20th Century. How do you rank
yourself? HH: I thought the three major inventions of civilization
were fire, the wheel and Playboy. DB: Do you see Playboy lasting as
long as fire and the wheel? HH: It will be around after me and I
don’t plan on leaving for a while.