Hugh Hefner Dead at 91; Playboy Founder Challenged Society

Hugh Hefner, the legendary publisher who started Playboy Magazine in 1953 and challenged the prevailing morals the country at that time, is dead. He was 91 years old.

His death was announced by the magazine's publisher, Playboy Enterprises.

Hefner died at his home, the Playboy Mansion, located near Beverly Hills in Los Angeles.

"My father lived an exceptional and impactful life as a media and cultural pioneer and a leading voice behind some of the most significant and cultural movements of our time," his son, Cooper Hefner, the chief creative officer of Playboy Enterprises, said in a statement.

Watch: 7 Facts You Probably Didn't Know About Hugh Hefner

From its first issue that featured Marilyn Monroe on the cover, Hefner pushed the concept of what was acceptable and presided over an empire that, at various points, encompassed nightclubs, a cable channel and movies.

Hefner left a job as a copywriter at Esquire in Chicago to start Playboy with $1,000 borrowed from his mother and $7,000 from other investors.

He originally planned to call it Stag Party but shifted gears after finding out there was already a magazine called Stag.

The first issue, in December 1953, featured shots of Monroe that had been taken before she became famous and quickly sold 50,000 copies. It was undated, Hefner would later say, because he didn't believe there would be a second issue.

But there was, and it featured the drawing of a bunny that became Playboy's symbol from then on. The centerfold made its debut two years later.

The Playboy Clubs, with their bunny outfit-clad waitresses and regular performers like Frank Sinatra and Dean Marin, were iconic.

As was Hefner.

Almost always seen in pajamas, a silk robe and holding a pipe, he defined a certain style. He also threw legendary parties at his Playboy Mansion (first at the one in Chicago, then in Los Angeles), where he surrounded himself with beautiful women.

"I’m living a grown-up version of a boy’s dream, turning life into a celebration," he told Time magazine in 1967. "It's all over too quickly. Life should be more than a vale of tears."

Hefner's L.A. Playboy Mansion — a 20,000-square-foot home built in 1927 — was acquired by his company in 1971.

Just last month his neighbor Daren Metropolous, whose family's company owns Hostess Brand foods, bought the mansion for $100 million.

There was one caveat: Hefner would be allowed to live there for the rest of his life.

As with many magazines, Playboy found itself buffeted by changing times. The availability of pornography on the Internet was particularly hard.

In March 2016, the magazine abandoned nude photos.

That lasted one year.

"I'll be the first to admit that the way in which the magazine portrayed nudity was dated, but removing it entirely was a mistake," Cooper Hefner said earlier this year in announcing the return of nude photos.

Originally out of necessity and then out of habit, Hugh Hefner was a fierce defender of free speech and made several contributions to the civil rights movement — perhaps most notably with his decision in 1961 to buy back the Playboy Clubs in Miami and New Orleans when they refused to admit black members.

He also hired comedian Dick Gregory to headline at The Playboy Club in Chicago at a time when few black comics were given that kind of opportunity.

Additionally, he helped finance the lawsuit that led to the famous Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, and was a strong supporter of same-sex marriage and LGBTQ rights.

While Playboy was best known for its nude pictures, including centerfolds, it also developed a reputation for publishing some of the world's best fiction and non-fiction.

From Jimmy Breslin and Alex Haley to Joseph Heller and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the work of top writers appeared so often that a now famous joke about reading Playboy only for the articles was almost believable.

The magazine started publishing its famous "Playboy Interviews" in 1962 when Hefner hired Alex Haley to interview Miles Davis.

The interviews often made news, such as in 1976 when then-presidential candidate Jimmy Carter famously told the magazine, "I've committed adultery in my heart many times."

Playboy published excerpts from works as wide-ranging as The World According to Garp, Roots and All The President's Men.

Cameron Crowe's Fast Times at Ridgemont High started as an article for the magazine.

Hefner was also something of a television pioneer with his Playboy's Penthouse show in the late 1950s. That was followed by Playboy After Dark in 1969.

Hefner returned the magazine to television in 1982, starting the Playboy Channel on cable. It later became Playboy TV.

In 2005, he was back on television regularly when he launched The Girls Next Door, a reality show on E! that followed the lives of his girlfriends as they lived their lives at the Playboy Mansion. The show ran for five years.

Hefner was also a semi-regular on other people's shows over the years, appearing as a guest star on programs ranging from Get Smart to Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Simpsons and Sex and the City.

The shows, which had plenty of women on the set, also regularly featured performances by comics and musicians, including Bob Newhart and The Grateful Dead.

In 1985, when he was 59, Hefner had a stroke and started winding down his day- to-day involvement in business. Four years later, he handed control of the company to his daughter Christie. She would run things for the next 20 years.

Despite his iconic status and general success, not everyone was a fan.

Famed writer and feminist Gloria Steinem made a name for herself in 1963 writing about her experience working undercover at the Playboy Club in New York.

Years later, Camille Paglia, one of the foremost writers on gender issues, called Hefner "one of the principal architects of the modern sexual revolution."

Hugh Hefner was born in Chicago on April 9, 1926.

He joined the Army in 1944 but never was assigned overseas. Once out, he returned to Chicago, where he enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and got a bachelor's degree in psychology.

Hefner also earned a pilot's license, which he used when he purchased a private plane dubbed "The Big Bunny."

He was married four times, most recently to Crystal Harris in 2012; they never separated. Besides Harris, he is survived by his daughter Christie and his sons, Cooper, David and Marston.

In 2011, Hefner told The New York Times that he had already selected his final resting place. He bought the crypt next to Marilyn Monroe's at L.A.'s Westwood Village Memorial Park.

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