Hugh Hefner

Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American magazine publisher, businessman, and chief creative officer of Playboy Enterprises. He was best known as the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine. Hefner expanded the publication's brand into a global network of Playboy Clubs and resided in luxury mansions, including the Playboy Mansion West, while promoting a bon vivant lifestyle through his media ventures and personal brand.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Hefner was the eldest son of Glenn Lucius Hefner and Grace Caroline Hefner, and grew up alongside his younger brother, Keith. He attended Sayre Elementary School and Steinmetz High School before serving as a United States Army writer for a military newspaper from 1944 to 1946. Hefner graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1949 with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and minors in creative writing and art, later briefly attending graduate sociology courses at Northwestern University in 1950.

After working as a copywriter for Esquire, Hefner launched Playboy in 1953 using a mortgage loan and capital raised from investors. The debut issue in December 1953 featured Marilyn Monroe and sold over 50,000 copies. Over the following decades, Hefner shaped the magazine by including fiction, articles, and lengthy interviews with notable public figures. He also created racially diverse private key clubs in the 1960s and hired comedian Dick Gregory to perform at the Chicago Playboy Club in 1961.

Hefner hosted the television shows Playboy's Penthouse from 1959 to 1960 and Playboy After Dark from 1969 to 1970. In his later career, he frequently appeared as himself across various television series and films, including cameos on The Simpsons, Sex and the City, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Entourage, Robot Chicken, Family Guy, and Hop. He starred in the reality television series The Girls Next Door from 2005 to 2009 and was featured in documentary projects such as Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel in 2010.

Hefner married Mildred Williams in 1949, with whom he had two children, Christie and David, before divorcing in 1959. He married Kimberley Conrad in 1989, having two sons, Marston Glenn and Cooper, before their divorce was finalized in 2010. In 2012, Hefner married Crystal Harris and designated his son Cooper as the future public face of Playboy. That same year, the Playboy Mansion was sold to Daren Metropoulos for $100 million, with a stipulation allowing Hefner to live there for the rest of his life.

Beyond publishing, Hefner engaged in political fundraising, First Amendment advocacy, and philanthropy. He established the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation in 1964, financed the restoration and preservation of the Hollywood Sign, and contributed major donations to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts. Hefner died at the Playboy Mansion on September 27, 2017, at the age of 91 from cardiac arrest and respiratory failure caused by sepsis. He was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.