1926
Hugh Marston Hefner is born in Chicago on April 9 to Protestant parents Glenn and Grace Hefner. Ironically, Hef's a direct descendent of Massachusetts Puritan patriarchs William Bradford and John Winthrop.
1940-1944
Hugh attends Steinmetz High on the West Side of Chicago where he founds a school paper, draws cartoons and serves as president of the student council. He adopts the nickname "Hef."
1944-1946
Hef joins the Army, serving as an infantry clerk and drawing cartoons for various Army newspapers.
1946
Hef spends the summer taking art classes (anatomy, of course) at the Chicago Art Institute.
1946-1948
Hef earns his bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana in two-and-a-half years by doubling up on classes. He also draws cartoons for the Daily Illini and edits the campus humor magazine Shaft, in which he introduces a feature called "Coed of the Month."
1949
Hef takes a semester of graduate courses in sociology at Northwestern University where he writes a term paper examining U.S. sex laws in light of the newly published Kinsey Institute research on male human sexuality.
1949
Hef takes a job as an assistant personnel manager for the Chicago Carton Company, earning $45 a week. Hef weds Northwestern classmate Mildred Williams. Their marriage lasts for ten years.
1950
Hef gets work as an advertising copywriter for the Carson, Pirie, Scott department store. Salary: $40 a week.
1951
In January Hef lands a job as a promotion copywriter at Esquire earning $60 a week. When the magazine relocates to New York, Hef's request for a $5 raise is declined, and he stays behind to found his own magazine.
1952
Hef tries to save money while working as the newsstand promotion director of Publishers Development Corporation. Hef and Millie have their first child, Christie.
1953
At the age of 27, Hef produces the first issue of Playboy magazine on a kitchen table in his South Side apartment, featuring the infamous nude of Marilyn Monroe as "Sweetheart of the Month."
1954
With the second issue, published in January, Hef introduces the "Playmate of the Month" with Miss January Margie Harrison and the Rabbit Head, designed by Art Paul, on the cover.
1955
Hef and Millie have their second child, David.
1956
After being denied his application for a second-class mailing permit, Hef goes to court. He wins, securing Playboy the mailing privileges other publications enjoy.
1957
Hef hires renowned Esquire magazine artist Alberto Vargas. The Vargas girl appears in Playboy exclusively from 1960 to 1978.
1959
Cynthia Maddox, who would become Hef's girlfriend and the magazine's Assistant Cartoon Editor, begins as a receptionist at Playboy.
1959
Hef makes his first pilgrimage to the South of France, where he hopes to meet Brigitte Bardot at the Cannes Film Festival. She's not there. But, he returns, more inspired than ever to live out his dreams.
1959
Hef introduces the Playboy Jazz Festival at Chicago Stadium. The three-day festival in August sells out and features Miles Davis, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and almost every other jazz star in the country.
1959
Playboy's Penthouse, a popular hour-long weekly television variety show hosted by Hef, premieres in October.
1959
Hef purchases the Playboy Mansion on Chicago's Gold Coast in December.
1960
Hef opens the first Playboy Club at 116 E. Walton in downtown Chicago on February 29. 1961
At Hef's invitation, comic Dick Gregory performs at the Chicago Playboy Club in January, becoming the first black performer to break the color barrier in a mainstream nightclub.
1962
Little Annie Fanny, a collaboration between Hef, and cartoonists Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder, debuts in Playboy magazine.
1962
The first installment of Hef's Playboy Philosophy is published in the December issue. 1963
Hef dates Miss December and 1964 Playmate of the Year Donna Michelle.
1965
Hef founds The Playboy Foundation to put the Playboy Philosophy into action. Since then, it has contributed more than $14 million to charitable, literacy, religious, scientific and educational causes. 1965
Hef hosts his grade school graduating class' 25th reunion at the Mansion.
1966
Hef honors his commitment to dispatch a Playmate to deliver all lifetime subscriptions by airlifting 1965 Playmate of the Year "G.I." Jo Collins to a platoon in Vietnam. The magazine's hard-hitting coverage of Vietnam includes work by Kenneth Tynan, Nat Hentoff, John Kenneth Galbraith and David Halberstam.
1966
Playboy moves into new headquarters in a 37-story skyscraper on Chicago's Michigan Avenue, rechristened the Playboy Building in nine-foot-high block letters. 1967
Hef appears on the cover of Time magazine for the story, "The Pursuit of Hedonism."
1968
Hef hosts the new television show Playboy After Dark and is a guest on Laugh-In.
1969
Hef buys a black stretch DC-9 jet, known as the Big Bunny.
1969
Barbara Klein poses for the July 1969 cover. Readers come to know her better as Hef's girlfriend Barbi Benton. Their relationship lasts for more than eight years.
1971
Hef buys the Playboy Mansion West in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles.
1971
Hef takes the company public, issuing a stock certificate illustrated with a reclining nude.
1971
Hef meets Bunny-in-training and future Miss December Karen Christy, who becomes his girlfriend at the Chicago Mansion.
1971
Hef, a lifelong film buff, and Playboy Productions produce Roman Polanski's critically acclaimed Macbeth. 1972
Playboy launches its first overseas edition in Germany.
1975
Hef's daughter Christie joins the company as Special Assistant to the Chairman.
1975
Hef meets Norwegian Lillian Müller, who becomes Miss August, the 1976 Playmate of the Year and Hef's lover.
1977
The Playmate Data Sheet, conceived by Hef, is introduced with Miss July Sondra Theodore. Sondra, Hef's love interest, is nicknamed "Baby Blue," from the song she and Hef danced to on their first night together.
1977
Hef hosts Saturday Night Live on October 15. 1979
Christie Hefner founds the Playboy Foundation's Hugh M. Hefner Awards to honor individuals who have made significant contributions to protect and enhance First Amendment rights for Americans.
1979
The Playboy Jazz Festival is reborn at the Hollywood Bowl and has continued without interruption since, with Bill Cosby as perennial master of ceremonies.
1979
One hundred and thirty-six Playmates gather at Playboy Mansion West for a Playmate Reunion. "Without you," Hef tells them, "I'd have a literary magazine."
1980
Hef champions for the reconstruction of the Hollywood sign and is honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1981
Hef and 1982 Playmate of the Year Shannon Tweed become an item.
1981
Writer-director Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire) goes undercover for his September Playboy piece, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," which will later be made into a movie.
1982
Christie Hefner is named president of Playboy Enterprises, Inc.
1983
Hef meets Carrie Leigh, a Toronto model shooting the magazine's April cover. By the time a pictorial of Carrie appears in July 1986, she and Hef are romantically linked.
1985
Hef suffers a stroke that changes the direction of his life. He refers to it as "a stroke of luck."
1985
Playboy wins the National Magazine Award for fiction.
1986
Hef commissions Andy Warhol to create the cover of the January issue.
1988
Hef's daughter Christie is elected chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises, Inc. Hef remains Editor-in-Chief of Playboy magazine and chairman emeritus of the corporation.
1989
Hef marries 1989 Playmate of the Year Kimberley Conrad in a ceremony seen around the world.
1990
Kimberley and Hef's first son, Marston Glenn, is born on Hef's birthday, April 9.
1991
Kimberley and Hef's second son, Cooper Bradford (named for Agent Cooper on TV's Twin Peaks), is born on September 4.
1992
David Lynch and Mark Frost, the creators of TV's Twin Peaks, premiere their documentary Hugh Hefner: Once Upon a Time.
1994
Playboy becomes the first national magazine on the World Wide Web, quickly becoming one of the most popular destinations on the Internet.
1994
Hef writes the introduction to The Playboy Book: Forty Years.
1996
Hef is the subject of an extraordinary two-hour profile, Hugh Hefner: American Playboy on the A&E Network's prestigious Biography series.
1996
Hef wins the top award in international publishing, the International Publishing Award from the International Press Directory in London.
1998
On April 28, Hef is inducted, with Ms. magazine founder Gloria Steinem, into the Hall of Fame of the American Society of Magazine Editors.
1998
Kimberley and Hef announce their separation, and Hef heads back out on the town, armed with Viagra.
1998
After a seven-year hiatus, Hef officially reopens the doors to the Playboy Mansion West in August for the Midsummer Night's Dream lingerie blowout. On hand are Jack Nicholson, Jim Carrey, Cameron Diaz, Leo DiCaprio, Cuba Gooding Jr. and George Clooney.
1998
On October 9, the Friars Club of California convenes more than 1200 entertainers, celebrities and philanthropists at the Century Plaza to roast Hef and present him with its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. Hef attends with his sons Marston and Cooper. Larry King is the roastmaster.
1998
Hef writes the introduction to Inside the Playboy Mansion by longtime Playboy staffer Gretchen Edgren.
1998
Hef's first Halloween gala in 18 years draws stars like Ben Stiller, Steve Martin, Courtney Love, Shannen Doherty, Pamela Anderson, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and John Stamos. Hef, with dates Sandy and Mandy Bentley and Brande Roderick, comes aptly costumed as the prisoner of love. The party lasts until dawn.
1999
Playboy celebrates its 45th anniversary and the Chinese Year of the Rabbit.
1999
Hef steals the spotlight on the French Riviera when he sets anchor at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. With PMOY Heather Kozar and girlfriends Brande Roderick, Jessica Paisley and the Bentley twins on board, Hef's 176-foot yacht the Galu becomes the most exclusive party venue at the fest.
1999
Hef and droves of Playmates welcome more than 800 fans to the first-ever Playboy Expo at West Hollywood's Pacific Design Center on July 17 and 18. The same weekend, Hef and 150 Playmates celebrate a Playmate Reunion at the Mansion.
1999
Hef and the Playboy Rabbit are immortalized alongside the likes of Albert Einstein, Gandhi, Madonna and the Cookie Monster on the New York School of Visual Arts' "Turn of the Century" carousel, a restored Victorian carousel in New York's Grand Central Terminal.
1999
Harper's Bazaar features a 14-page spread on Hef and his house.
1999
Hef is featured in Vanity Fair's 1999 Hall of Fame, with photographs by Annie Liebovitz.
2000
On April 11, the City of Chicago renames a portion of downtown's Walton Street -- the location of the original Playboy Club -- honorary Hugh M. Hefner Way.
2000
On April 13, Hef -- flanked by Mandy and Sandy Bentley -- rings the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
2000
A tuxedo-clad Bill Maher pays homage to Playboy After Dark with a week of Politically Incorrect tapings with Hef, poolside at the Playboy Mansion.
2000
A steamy Sex and the City episode set at the Playboy Mansion, featuring Hef and the Bentley twins, premieres on HBO.
2001
To commemorate his 75th birthday, Hef gets a taste of his own medicine when he's immortalized, in silicone, at the Hollywood Wax Museum. Hef's figure is accompanied by wax models of five Playmates, including Marilyn Monroe.
2001
On March 31, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences awards Hef its Ribbon of Hope for Playboy's support in the battle against AIDS. Bruce Vilanch, The West Wing, Sex and the City and 60 Minutes II are also honored.
2001
Drew Carey, Ice-T, Adam Carolla, Rob Schneider and a dozen other comics skewer Mr. Playboy at the New York Friars Club Celebrity Roast of Hugh M. Hefner, aired in October on Comedy Central. The Jimmy Kimmel-hosted event raises $550,000 for the World Trade Center Relief Fund.
2002
On January 30, the Magazine Publishers of America honor Hef with the Henry Johnson Fisher Award for lifetime achievement. Newsweek chairman and editor Richard Smith also receives the magazine industry's most prestigious award at Manhattan's Waldorf Astoria.
2002
On March 28 Hef is inducted as an honorary member of the Harvard Lampoon, joining the ranks of Robin Williams, Jay Leno, Billy Crystal and Kurt Vonnegut. He is honored as "The Harvard Lampoon's Best Life-Form in the History of the Universe."
2002
On June 27, the Museum of Television & Radio in Beverly Hills pays tribute to Hef's TV shows Playboy's Penthouse (1959-1960) and Playboy After Dark (1969). They screen clips of the landmark programs, featuring Bob Newhart, Sammy Davis Jr. and Barbi Benton.
2003
Hef becomes spokesman for gourmet burger chain Carl's Jr. In the TV spots he appears with three models saying, "People always ask me, 'Hey, Hef, do you have favorites?' I tell them no. It's not about that. I love them all. It just depends what I'm in the mood for."
2003
On October 4, Hef celebrates the 50th anniversary of Playboy magazine with a star-studded Mansion party attended by Hollywood's A+ list. The media-embargoed event airs December 7 on a two-hour A&E documentary special hosted by Playmate Jenny McCarthy.
2004
On September 14, Hugh M. Hefner becomes the first inductee into the Erotic Museum of Hollywood's hall of fame for being "one of the most democratizing forces in sexuality in the last century."
2004
Las Vegas's trendy Palms Casino Resort announces the construction of the Hugh Hefner Sky Villa, a two-story penthouse with its own glass elevator overlooking the Strip, an indoor and outdoor pool and a facade that will feature a giant illuminated Playboy Rabbit Head. Scheduled opening: early 2006. http://www.playboy.com/palms/
2005
Hef is immortalized in pixels in Arush Entertainment's videogame Playboy: The Mansion, debuting January 31. Donning Hef's pajamas, players take control of his publishing empire, planning articles, laying out covers, schmoozing with celebrities and conducting photo shoots.
2005
On June 12, Hugh M. Hefner joins the ranks of George Washington, Lance Armstrong, Benjamin Franklin, Walt Disney and Oprah Winfrey in the Discovery Channel's "Greatest American" countdown special of the 100 most important Americans in history.
2005
Starting August 7, Hef grants TV cameras full access to the upstairs of the Playboy Mansion for the first time. The reality series The Girls Next Door -- starring his girlfriends Holly, Bridget and Kendra -- fast becomes one of E!'s top-rated shows in history.
2006
Following his 80th birthday bash at the Mansion, Hef makes a rare trip overseas on a European birthday tour. He and the girlfriends leapfrog via private jet from England to France, Spain, Germany and Italy.
2007
On June 24, Daily Variety announces that the long-awaited Hef biopic is a "go." Hef approved the project to be helmed by Rush Hour director Brett Ratner and produced by Brian Grazer for Universal Pictures.
2008
Hef wins the 2008 Alpha Male award during Spike TV's second annual Guys Choice Awards. Presenters Snoop Dogg and Jeremy Piven present Hef with his trophy gold "Mantlers."
2008
Hugh Hefner's 544-page biography, written by Walt Disney/Henry Ford biographer Steven Watts, is released. Hef tells the New York Post that Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream "is the most authoritative book ever written about me . . . It's all essentially true."
About me: Welcome to Hugh Hefner's profile. Crystal manages this page and shows Hef the comments and love from his fans. It's still under construction but should be updated and current with photos and everything soon!
Hugh Marston Hefner was born in Chicago on April 9, 1926, the older son of conservative Protestant parents, Glenn and Grace Hefner, and a direct descendent of distinguished Massachusetts Puritan patriarchs William Bradford and John Winthrop. He attended Sayre Elementary School and Steinmetz High on the West Side of Chicago, where he was no more than an average student, despite a genius IQ (152), distinguishing himself instead with his extracurricular activities, founding a school paper, writing, cartooning and serving as president of the student council, where he championed student causes.
Following graduation from high school in January 1944, Hef (a nickname preferred since adolescence) joined the army serving as an Infantry Clerk and drawing cartoons for various Army newspapers. After his discharge from service in 1946, he spent the summer taking art classes (anatomy, of course) at the Chicago Art Institute, enrolling that fall at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana. Hef earned his bachelor's degree in two and a half years by doubling up on classes while drawing cartoons for the Daily Illini and editing the campus humor magazine Shaft, where he introduced a new feature called Coed of the Month.
He subsequently took a semester of graduate courses in sociology at Northwestern University where, pursuing his interest in individual freedom, he wrote a term paper examining U.S. sex laws in light of the then-astonishing Kinsey Institute research on human sexuality.
In June 1949, Hef married a classmate, Mildred Williams. Their ten-year marriage produced two children: Christie in 1952 and David in 1955.
Following college, Hef tried his hand at cartooning and, failing to sell any of his ideas for a cartoon strip, published a book of satirical cartoons about Chicago titled That Toddlin' Town.
Hef worked as an assistant personnel manager for the Chicago Carton Company for $45 a week in 1949 and as an advertising copywriter for the Carson, Pirie, Scott department store for just $40 a week in 1950. His future seemed uncertain when he landed a promising job as a promotion copywriter at Esquire at $60 a week in January 1951. When Esquire moved its offices to New York, his request for a five-dollar raise was denied, and he decided to stay behind and start a magazine of his own.
Hef and a fellow copywriter from Esquire tried to raise enough capital to launch a Chicago magazine and failed. While working as the newsstand promotion director of Publishers Development Corporation in 1952, he became convinced there was a market for a sophisticated men's magazine that would reflect the views of the post-War generation and he was the man to start it.
To support his family, he took a better-paying job as circulation manager of Children's Activities magazine in January 1953, but that spring and summer the dream of starting his own magazine became an obsession. He found a printer willing to print the first issue and a distributor to distribute it. He got friends and family to invest in the venture, raising just $8000, including $600 of his own money borrowed from a bank using his family's furniture as collateral.
The first issue of Playboy magazine, featuring the now-famous calendar photo of Marilyn Monroe, was produced on a kitchen table in his South Side apartment. On the newsstands in December 1953, it carried no cover date because Hef was not sure when or if he would be able to produce another. But the first issue sold more than 50,000 copies, enough to pay for the paper and printing costs and to finance another issue.
Thereafter, Hef never doubted that the magazine would be a success. He plowed profits back into the publication and hired a young, enthusiastic editorial, art, promotion and advertising staff to assist him. Playboy grew at a phenomenal rate. By the end of the decade, the magazine was selling more than a million copies a month and, to celebrate, Hef held the first Playboy Jazz Festival at the Chicago Stadium. It was called, at the time, the greatest single weekend in the history of jazz.
At the start of the new decade, Hef began to live out the "Good Life" depicted in the pages of his publication. He hosted a popular syndicated television show called Playboy's Penthouse, purchased the Playboy Mansion at 1340 North State Parkway, and opened the first Playboy Club on the Near North Side of Chicago on February 29, 1960.
Throughout the Sixties, Hef and Playboy became what Chicago columnist Bob Greene has called "a force of nature." Hef wrote an extended series of editorials titled "The Playboy Philosophy," championing the rights of the individual and challenging the country's heritage of puritan repression. The magazine became the largest-selling, most influential men's magazine in the world.
By 1971, when Playboy Enterprises went public, the magazine was selling 7 million copies a month and there were 23 Playboy Clubs, resorts, hotels and casinos with more than 900,000 members worldwide. The corporation also included book publishing, merchandising, a modeling agency, a limousine service, a record label and a TV and motion picture company. It was truly an empire ruled by one man.
Hef hosted a second syndicated television show, Playboy After Dark, taped in Hollywood in 1968 and 1969, and in 1970 acquired the famed black Big Bunny jet, a DC-9 from McDonnell Douglas, in which he regularly commuted between Chicago and California, and toured the world.
In 1971, he established a second residence in Los Angeles with the acquisition of a five-and-one-half acre estate in Holmby Hills, which quickly became known as Playboy Mansion West, where he was able to more closely supervise Playboy Enterprises' increasing interests in television and film production.
In 1975, Hef decided to make Los Angeles his permanent home, reflecting the extent to which Hollywood movies had influenced his dreams and aspirations as a boy. In 1980, Hef championed the reconstruction of the Hollywood sign (then in serious disrepair) and was honored with a star on the Hollywood walk of fame for his efforts. In saving the sign, Hef referred to it as "Hollywood's Eiffel Tower." The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce honored him further, with its First Annual Hollywood Hall of Fame Award as Outstanding Citizen of the Year. In October of 2006, Brenden Theaters at the Palms Casino Resort also recognized Hef's ongoing dedication to the big screen with a star on its Brenden Theater Walk of Fame.
The Hollywood sign restoration was only one of Hef and Playboy's major projects as a part of the Hollywood creative community. The company produced such features as Roman Polanski's Macbeth, distributed by Columbia Pictures, which was voted Best Picture of the Year in 1971 by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures; Monty Python's first film, And Now For Something Completely Different; and The Naked Ape, with Universal Studios.
Playboy also produced such popular television movies as Third Girl from the Left, with Kim Novak and Tony Curtis; The Death of Ocean View Park; The Cop and the Kid; and A Whale for the Killing.
The increasingly conservative Eighties took their toll on both Hef and his company. In 1985, he suffered a stroke that changed the direction of his life. He referred to it at the time as "a stroke of luck."
Bringing his life full-circle, the world's most famous bachelor was married on July 1, 1989 to Kimberley Conrad, Playboy's 1989 Playmate of the Year. Their fairy tale courtship resulted in an uncommonly romantic wedding ceremony conducted at the wishing well where Hef first proposed at Playboy Mansion West. Their first son, Marston Glenn, was born on Hef's birthday, April 9, 1990, and their second son, Cooper Bradford, was born on September 4, 1991. The Hefners are currently separated, and Mrs. Hefner and the boys live on an estate adjacent to the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.
Since the mid-Eighties, daughter Christie Hefner has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Playboy Enterprises, but Hef continues to serve as the magazine's editor-in-chief, plays a key role in determining the path of Playboy Enterprises and directs other areas of the corporation including cable television, video production, licensing and online.
Frequently interviewed by major news and entertainment media the world over, Hefner was the subject of an A&'E 2003 special, Playboy's 50th Anniversary Celebration, a star-studded two-hour event filmed at the Playboy Mansion featuring live music, comedy performances and interviews. Hefner was also profiled in a two-hour special, Hugh Hefner: American Playboy, as part of A&E's prestigious Biography series in 1996. That program was so well received that it was repeated in its entirety on the network only three months after its original airing.
He had previously been the subject of a feature-length documentary film, Hugh Hefner: Once Upon A Time, produced by Lynch/Frost Productions and distributed by IRS Releasing. After its first run in theaters, the film became a popular addition to many international film festivals and continues to attract new viewers on cable television and home video in the U.S. and on broadcast, cable and satellite-delivered television around the world.
Hefner's most recent venture on the small screen is The Girls Next Door on E! Entertainment. Beginning with its highly rated premiere, this behind-the-scenes look at the Playboy Mansion remains one of the network's top rated programs.
In September 2001, Hef was inducted into the New York Friars Club as an honorary Friar on the occasion of his gala Roast in New York City, an evening of uninhibited comedy subsequently aired nationwide on the Comedy Central network.
In addition to numerous ongoing national and international television appearances, Hef has been the subject of a host of recent print profiles in publications including Esquire, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Time magazine and the Times of London. In March 2001, Vanity Fair published an exhaustive, photo-illustrated 15-page profile on Hefner, his lifestyle and the resurgence of the Playboy brand.
Recent features on Hefner include a one-hour Celebrity Profile on the E! Entertainment Television Network and an in-depth look at five decades of Playboy's wildest and most famous parties hosted by Hef in Playboy 2000: The Party Continues. The roster of famous names who have enjoyed the legendary Hef hospitality at Playboy's Mansions in Chicago and Los Angeles over the years runs the gamut from Sammy Davis Jr., Ray Charles, Buddy Rich, Mel Torme, BB King, Tony Bennett and The Grateful Dead to Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Elizabeth Hurley, Gwyneth Paltrow and many more.
The recipient of a number of awards for his contributions to society in general and the publishing industry in particular, Hefner received the 1996 International Publishing Award from the International Press Directory in London and was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the American Society of Magazine Editors at its 1998 ceremonies in New York. January of 2002 brought Mr. Hefner to New York again where he received the Henry Johnson Fisher Award, the highest honor of the Magazine Publishers of America. In March 2002, Hef was inducted as an honorary member of the Harvard Lampoon, which named him "Harvard Lampoon's Best Life-Form In The History Of The Universe."
Throughout the past few years, Hef has become a fixture on the Hollywood celebrity club scene and the Mansion has once again become a Mecca for entertainment industry superstars including a new wave of young motion picture and television celebrities, rock groups and more.
Hollywood and cinema continue to be major factors in Hef's personal and professional life. At his direction, the Playboy Foundation instituted an annual Freedom of Expression Award, given at the Sundance Film Festival. Hefner recently underwrote the West Coast retrospective of the late British filmmaker Dennis Potter's works at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art; he personally endowed a course in Censorship in Cinema at USC, for which he serves as a guest lecturer; and he has been a major contributor to UCLA's project to restore classic films. In 2006, Hef made a new $1 million donation to the UCLA Film & Television Archive for public screenings of American cinema, establishing The Hugh M. Hefner Classic American Film Program.
Hef was a sponsor of the acclaimed American Cinema series on PBS, and he has long been active in seeking out and restoring such vintage films as Vitaphone shorts and the films of the Twenties British crooner Al Bowlly.
In 1994, Hefner established and Playboy funded the Playboy Jazz Film Festival, the first-ever showcase on the West Coast for many of the best and rarest films in the jazz lexicon. This event was in addition to the annual Jazz on Film program traditionally presented free to the public by Playboy on the eve of the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. In 2007, the Playboy Jazz Festival celebrates its 29th successful season.
On March 28, 1996, Hefner was honored in formal ceremonies at USC for his lifelong dedication to film and his endowment of a chair for the Study of American Film at the University's School of Cinema-Television. The Hefner gift marked only the second such endowment in the history of the prestigious film school. The other chair was endowed in memory of the late Steve Ross, who had served as chairman of Time-Warner.
Hefner's personal archive at the Playboy Mansion in Holmby Hills contains more than 4,000 feature films. Each weekend, he screens films at the Mansion for celebrities and personal friends. Each Sunday is a first-run feature. Friday nights are vintage classics. Often, Saturday nights are a mini-festival of silent films.
Hef has frequently been quoted as believing that the United States' most important export is "the American Dream," which he feels is conveyed to the world through motion pictures. His own dreams will soon reach the large screen theatrically in Playboy, a feature film helmed by Brett Ratner and produced by Brian Grazer for Universal Pictures.
Those dreams and fantasies also manifest themselves in the new Playboy Club and Casino in Las Vegas. In 2006, Playboy, in partnership with the Palms Casino Resort and the Nine Group, debuted an entertainment destination located in the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. The development features a nightclub, boutique casino and lounge, retail store, sky villa and the famous Playboy Rabbit Head, making its Las Vegas debut.
On April 9, 2006, Hef celebrated his 80th birthday with weekend long festivities at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. The celebration included the annual "Casablanca Night" movie screening and buffet dinner, a glamorous pajama and lingerie party with Playboy Playmates, celebrities and nearly 1,000 partygoers, and an appearance at the Long Beach Grand Prix in support of Playboy Racing (from the Grand Am Series) where thousands of race fans joined together to sing "Happy Birthday" to Hef. He continued the festivities in Europe as he and his girlfriends embarked on a two-week, eight-city tour visiting London, Cannes, Paris, Barcelona, Munich, Rome, Pompeii and Venice.
On January 17, 2007 Hef unveiled the Playboy Legacy Collection at the Republic in Los Angeles. Numerous celebrities including Pamela Anderson attended the event, which was covered by Entertainment Tonight, E! Entertainment Television and other international press and media outlets including the Financial Times of London. The Playboy Legacy Collection comprises the most oustanding images from Playboy and represents the visual history of the magazine. There are over 15 million images archived. Along with Hef, photographers, editors, archivists and designers compiled the 48 gallery-quality prints for the collection, which includes models such as Marilyn Monroe, Anna Nicole Smith, Pamela Anderson and Bettie Page.
For his 81st birthday, Hef decided to step outside the Mansion gates for his birthday celebration. Since moving to the L.A. Mansion in 1971, Hef never left home to celebrate his birthday. This time, he and the girls took to Sin City for a wild Vegas weekend. Hef kicked off his birthday celebration with Holly, Bridget and Kendra at The Beatles LOVE musical performed by Cirque de Soleil. After the show, he was greeted backstage with a birthday cake and the entire cast singing him "Happy Birthday". From there, they were back to the Palms Casino for a weekend filled with non-stop partying at the Playboy Club, Moon nightclub and the Hugh M. Hefner Sky Villa.
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Be sure to check out the trailor for Miss March, in theaters March 13th!
...........✯ .........✯*✯ .......✯*✯*✯ .....✯*✯*✯✯ ..✯*✯*✯*✯*✯ ✯*✯*✯*✯*✯*✯ ............lll ............ HI HEF XOXOOXOX I LIVE IN EDMONTON AB WE HAVE THE 2 BIGGEST MALL IN THE WORLD AND WE NEED A PLAYBOY STORE THER CAN U PLEAS MAKE 1 XOXOXO YOUR FRIEND CUTIE xXXx
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