Playboy Turns 60
Los Angeles is the city built on dreams, as we were told in the film Mondo Hollywood. The Hollywood sign is a big shining beacon to those dreamers, including those of us that landed a little south of the mark. |
| The famous December 1953 issue. |
Like all major cities, L.A. has its institutions: the football rivalry between USC and UCLA, the L.A. Lakers and L.A. Dodgers; the Getty, the Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach/Muscle Beach (there’s a fence around the gym — you gotta be a member), the mystique of the film and television industry, TCL Chinese Theater (it used to be Grauman’s and then Mann’s Chinese Theater); the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Roosevelt Hotel, the Chateau Marmont and the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Transvestite hookers on Hollywood Boulevard … well OK, maybe that’s not an institution, but it’s certainly part of the folklore.
For gastronomic institutions there’s the Formosa Cafe, Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles and Pink’s hot dog stand, among others. Seriously, Pink’s is outstanding!
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| The Formosa Cafe |
Then there is a relatively new one, started officially in 1971. It’s an institution that has its roots in Chicago, IL, the windy city with the big shoulders.
Like Los Angeles itself, this institution has a reputation for licentiousness, liberal in all things, especially of the flesh. When it dropped into the American landscape in December 1953, it shook the nation to its core, with Marilyn Monroe leading the shake.
This new institution is Playboy, in particular, the Playboy Mansion (pictured in the top photo, courtesy of Google Maps), home to the founder of the empire, Hugh Marston Hefner,
Started in December 1953, Playboy quickly became the hottest item on the newsstand. It not only had articles people loved to read, it had photos of Marilyn Monroe — nude! Yep, 60 years ago Hugh Hefner launched his iconic magazine from the kitchen table of his apartment in Chicago.
As a kid growing up we knew about the magazine and its founder. A publication that had nude women and encouraged — celebrated — debauchery? Oh my god! What an assault on the good Christian morals of America!
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| Pink’s Hot Dogs in Hollywood. |
It was such an assault Hefner became a millionaire within a few short years, buying a huge mansion on Chicago’s North Coast and driving around town in the hottest Mercedes-Benz money could buy.
And he smoked a pipe.
Our mother was appalled of course. She was an upstanding member of the St. Gregory the Great Christian Mothers, a fine collection of good Catholic women devoted to the moral character of their children.
So devoted were they to our moral fiber that when Playboy first arrived in our neighborhood at the local drug store (we call them pharmacies now), Mom and the other Christian Mothers not just picketed, they went into the store and caused a ruckus.
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| The former Playboy Mansion in Chicago. |
Fast-forward about a dozen years, after Hefner survived the charges of indecency and various assaults by the Christian Mothers of America, when the magazine was so popular it spawned clubs and two TV shows. Somehow my brother Rick was able to purloin a copy of the December 1968 issue, the one with Cynthia Myers in the centerfold.
We were excitedly walking down Idaho St. (where we lived in Milwaukee), looking at the pictures and attracting the attention of the neighborhood kids, none of whom had ever seen naked women before. It was phenomenal. Cynthia Myers’ nude body was the most exciting thing I had ever seen.
We also caught the attention of one of the nosy neighborhood mothers, our mom’s best friend no less.
So, within a matter of minutes our mother, the anti-Playboy crusader, knew we had a Playboy in our possession, rotting our souls with that filth! They always called it filth. In fact, some people still do.
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| The Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Blvd, with the Cinegrill. |
In the 1980s the Reagan Administration, under the direction of Ed Meese, tried to bury “pornography” once and for all, including Playboy, with a faux scientific committee made up of Christian evangelists and hard-core extreme feminists.
It didn’t work.
Their “science” was laughed out of the scientific world and now holds a place in history that is largely forgotten.
At any rate, that was my introduction to the world of Playboy, in 1969.
In 1975 I further demoralized Dear Mom when I started subscribing to Playboy. Away from home in the Marine Corps, the monthly arrival of the latest issue was always a hit around the barracks.
That subscription continued off and on for the next 40 years, noting every change in cultural mores, the beginning of the cultural wars; the changes in fashion and hairstyles (head and pubic), right into the new millennium.
In that time Playboy grew as an international icon, a brand if you will. Even if fewer people were reading the magazine (subscriptions and readership began to drop about 30 years ago), everyone knew Playboy and knew who “Hef” was — is.
With the founder permanently based in the L.A. suburb of Holmby Hills in 1975, the Chicago roots of the magazine began to lose their significance in the Playboy world. The headquarters continued to be in the Windy City and many photo shoots were done in the Chicago studios, but with Hefner in L.A., the center of attention shifted to the West Coast, in particular the Playboy Mansion West, which eventually became know as simply, the Playboy Mansion.
Then last year the management of Playboy Enterprises, Inc. (PEI) closed the Chicago offices completely, a process that had been taking place for at least a couple years.
Although its roots will always be in Chicago, Playboy is now an entirely L.A. institution. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills and studios can be found in Burbank.
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| The north side of the Playboy Mansion. |
If you watched the TV show on the E! Network, The Girls Next Door, you have an idea of how many parties take place on the grounds, the most popular being the mid- summer’s and Halloween parties.
For some of those parties, like the two mentioned, you need an invitation. For others, you can buy your way in, starting at $1,500. That money generally goes to a charity and they have plenty of parties devoted to raising money for various causes.
At these parties there are always models wearing nothing but a few baubles and some body paint and men walking around in various kinds of sleepwear. Everything you can imagine takes place at a licentious bacchanal dedicated to fun, frivolity and unfettered debauchery, well, most of it probably happens at a Playboy Mansion party.
So, I asked some Playboymodels, via email, for their impressions of Playboy and its 60 years, and the founder Hugh Hefner, “Hef” if you think you know him and what it’s like to be in and around Playboy and the mansion parties.
Playboy models talk about Hefner, posing nude and the mansion parties
The Playboy Mansion, like the magazine, would not be so legendary without the Playboy models, the women that made the magazine and the empire what it is today. In fact, without that first centerfold, featuring Marilyn Monroe, it’s a good bet Playboy would not exist and Hefner would have retired as an editor for some big publishing firm. Hefner left Esquire magazine in 1952.
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| The tell all book by Izabella St. James, with the author on the cover. |
Most Playboy models won’t comment on having sex with Hefner or anyone else at the parties, not on the record anyway. Most of them liked the experience of being a part of the “Playboy family” and treat those subjects as family secrets.
Privately they might talk about it, but unless someone is writing a tell-all book, as was done by Izabella St James, sex with Hefner (or anyone else at the parties) is off the list of things to talk about. The most any Playboy models have said was that people hook up (have sex) at the parties and some of the party guests can get touchy-feely, groping the models.
Three models agreed to share their views with us, on the company, it’s founder and the mansion with it’s parties. None of them spoke about any sex at the mansion, but the two that attended the parties both said they loved the experience.
They wish to remain anonymous, but one was a Playmate, another a Cyber Girl and another a model who has appeared online in the Cyber Club and on Playboy TV.
The Playmate
The Playmate said she could be identified as a “Miss August.”
On Playboy’s 60th anniversary Miss August said, with a little laugh, “Wow that must make Hef really old. (He is 87 -Editor’s note). It’s awesome that a company can be in business and successful for that long. They are a huge trend-setting and graphic icon and deserve a big birthday party!”
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Miss October 2011 Amanda Cerny in costume as the Big Bad Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood. |
She has been at many mansion parties and said this about the parties, “It’s the best. Absolutely the most amazing party you will ever go to for many reasons. There is a lot of skin showing of course, a ton of hot chicks, great costumes and attire, food is yummy, music is great, and decorations are out of this world.
“If you are a Playmate you feel right at home and its like going to a normal party. If you are a guest it’s awe-inspiring and you can’t stop looking at everything. There is not enough time to explore and take it all in.”
As for the celebrities that attend the parties and make them A-List events, Miss August said, “Most of the celebrities are super nice. They are in a place that can be relaxing because it’s closed off to crazy fans.
“The ones I met that were very cool were Kevin Spacey — super nice, very fun; Randy Jackson — very friendly and relaxed. Toby McGuire — very quiet and seemed to like the anonymity. Pauly Shore completely lives up to his rep. Jose Conseco — not a big talker but a big guy. He is so tall and wide.
Too many to remember them all.”
Miss August wasn’t on the GND TV show, but of Hefner she said, “Hef is an amazing and generous person. He is very kind to those he cares about and in general just likes to have a good time. I didn’t know Crystal well but did know Holly (Madison). Although Holly was a little eccentric, she loved Hef deeply and I was sad to see them split up.”
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| Playmates (L-R) 2012 Playmate of the Year Jaclyn Swedberg, Miss September 2012 Alana Campos, 2013 Playmate of The Year Raquel Pomplun, Miss April 2013 Jaslyn Ome and Miss September 2011 Tiffany Toth. |
Finally, I asked her about posing nude. “It’s great! It’s amazing what a team can do to make you look gorgeous: lights, photography, make up and of course the model. I have no problem being nude, you just treat it like any other job. You’re just naked. Ha!
“The only con is weather and long hours. They don’t care if its 105 degrees or 35 degrees and your naked. You still shoot. And the hours are long. You may get stuck in a pose for 2-3 hours and be stiff the next day.”
As for the critics of Playboy, Miss August would only say this, “Everyone is entitled to his or her own belief. I would just ask that they respect my decisions to pose, as I respect their opinions.”
The Cyber Girl
Our second model was featured primarily online with Playboy’s Cyber Club and had the title of Cyber Girl of the Week.
Cyber Girls came about in 2000 when PEI management realized the benefits of having more than one featured model per month, so they created the title of Cyber Girl of the Week, And then each month they would choose one of those weekly Cyber Girls and make her the Cyber Girl of the Month.
Then at the end of each year one of those Cyber Girls of the Month would be chosen as the Cyber Girl of the Year. And of course Playboy takes photos and shoots videos of all the Cyber Girls for those titles, the Cyber Girl of the Year having 20 or more total pictorials and nearly as many videos.
If being a Playboy Playmate was not in the cards, then Cyber Girl was a pretty nice title too.
The first Cyber Girl of the Week was Stephanie Heinrich who went on to be the first Cyber Girl of the Month and then Miss October 2001.
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| Hugh M. Hefner photographed at an event in 2010. |
Our Cyber Girl had this to say about Playboy’s 60th Anniversary, “That’s very exciting that Playboyis sill strong. They have come a long way.”
The model has a high opinion of the founder, saying, “Hefner has always been a very nice guy. He loves to entertain his guests and enjoys the company of so many beautiful girls.”
What was it like posing for the iconic brand? “It was a very tasteful and it was a nice layout, very classy. At first I was a little concerned but once I saw the pictures, I felt safe.”
She went to a number of the Mansion parties and said, “Everything is fancy — the food, the drinks and even the music. They always hire an artist to perform at the end of the night. It is a big show.”
Her opinion of the celebrities at the parties was relatively the same as that of Miss August.
“The celebrities are very neutral. I will probably say some of the regular rich people who are invited could be mean. They act like they own the mansion.”
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| Comedian and actor Dane Cook being interviewed by Jessica Hall at the Midsummer’s Night party at the Playboy Mansion in 2011. |
The Playboy TV Model
Our third model, like the first two, has moved on from modeling, but had good things to say about the experience and has no regrets about posing nude.
Her name is Virginia and she said, “I don’t remember the first time I saw a Playboy magazine, but I was generally aware of the magazine’s social magnitude from a young age. From my early teens, I had aspirations of (among many other things) becoming a fashion model, as well as posing for Playboy.
“Sherilyn Fenn’s pictorial in the ’90s is one of my favorites. Kate Moss is my all time favorite supermodel, and the beauty and boldness of her nude work was a further inspiration for me to pursue nude modeling. I am very excited to pick up my copy of her anniversary issue.”
Fenn was one of the stars of the TV show (and movie) Twin Peaks. She appeared on the cover of the December 1990 issue and was featured in a pictorial. Kate Moss is on the cover of the 60th Anniversary issue of Playboyand she has a celebrity pictorial inside.
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| Sherilyn Fenn on the December 1990 cover of Playboy. |
Now that she is pursuing other things, I asked Virginia what she thought about her experiences as a Playboy model. “I’m happy that I had the opportunity to pose for Playboy. I worked for Playboy Live, appeared on Playboy TV and Playboy Radio, and had a pictorial in the Cyber Club (now called Playboy Plus, I believe). I began modeling as a fine art nude model before pursuing any men’s magazines or glamour modeling. I think it’s important for women to be completely comfortable with this kind of work on a small scale before pursuing anything bigger.”
One question nude models are always asked is, “How did your family react?”
Virginia’s reply, “My family wasn’t always supportive of my modeling choices, although I never participated in pornography (I think most will agree that Playboy is not pornographic). I have always been a bit of a rebel with my life choices, however, so I don’t think it particularly shocked them.”
Some former Playboy models have found that posing for the iconic men’s magazine did cause problems with employment and even where their children went to school (yes, some Playboy models were mothers when they decided to pose). For Virginia that hasn’t been a problem. “It has not had a negative effect on my life in any other way. Were I to pursue a career in teaching, politics, or working for conservative law or business institutions, I would have perhaps made different decisions.
“I thoroughly enjoyed my years as a model, and I am also self-disclosing and non-censored in my writing and artwork. I simply don’t believe in living a life based on fear of social consequences.
“I have done some acting as well as modeling, and my Playboy resume was of some help to me when I landed a lead role in my first feature film, an R-rated college comedy that required a topless scene. I have never been told that I lost a gig because of my nude Internet presence — quite the contrary!
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Virginia Mae, in a photo she supplied, as she appeared in a Playboy pictorial. |
One should be completely comfortable with such work, and not be tempted by paychecks or prestige.”
Playboy and the Playboy Mansion are Los Angeles institutions, especially now that the entire company is headquartered in Beverly Hills. The Mansion will continue to host the parties that have become legendary.
Thousands of women will flock to the company’s casting calls and now they pay for the experience and the chance to appear in that centerfold.
In fact, if you wish to try out at a casting call you’ll need to make an appointment. CLICK HERE if you’re interested.
They will get paid anywhere from $350 for one photo shoot to $100,000 if chosen to be the Playmate of the Year. Plus, the models make money from appearances at car shows, special nightclub and other events that comes their way due to their exposure in a Playboy publication or on Playboy TV/Radio.
Marilyn Monroe
That’s slightly more than the $50 Marilyn Monroe was paid in 1949 to pose for the photos used in that iconic first issue. The photographer sold the photos to a distributor and then Hefner bought the photos for the magazine. Although they never met, Hefner said he spoke with Monroe once over the phone and at least from his side it sounds like they has an amicable conversation.
Some of the women that attend a casting will find themselves at a Mansion party, covered in nothing but a little jewelry, some stilettos and body paint, which is a paid modeling gig — the way it’s been happening for over 30 years.
After 42 years as an L.A. institution and 60 years as an international icon, the Playboy Mansion shows no signs of slowing down.
Congratulations Playboy and Hugh Hefner on your 60 years of publishing success, becoming an L.A. institution and an international icon. Let the party continue.
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