The legend is no more!
News came in late on the night of 27th September 2017, that the founder of the Playboy magazine Hugh Hefner has passed away. Born on 9th April 1926, Hefner was 91 years old at the time the company announced his death on Wednesday night.
The Hefner story is truly inspiring. He founded the Playboy magazine in 1953 with just $600 of his own money. The magazine was an instant hit and he made an outstanding revenue with Playboy’s first edition itself, allowing him to pay back all his investors, and still leaving him money to buy himself a new car.
Over the years, he became so famous, moving his office out of his kitchen, to an office building, to a day where he had his own building, and much more. He was not only known for his successful businesses, but more for his lifestyle and his different approach to life.
Even though he started the ‘Playboy’ brand, it took a while before Hef became an actual Playboy, but once he did, there was no turning back. Critics always considered Hefner as a sexist, and there were many who believed that he was being obscene with his ‘centerfold pictures’ of naked women in the magazine.
Playboy Enterprises was at its peak in the 1970’s, where Hefner owned the magazine, over forty Playboy clubs with waitresses wearing bunny ears and cotton tails, Playboy casinos, a TV show, a plane called the ‘Big Bunny’, Playboy mansions, a publishing house, and much more.
In 2015, Playboy dropped the idea of having centerfold pictures but over the years, the company has been falling apart. In 2016, Hefner even sold his Los Angeles Playboy mansion for a whopping $100 million, a property that he acquired for just $1.1 million in 1971.
“I would like to be remembered as somebody who has changed the world in some positive way, in a social, sexual sense, and I’d be very happy with that. I’m a kid who dreamed the dreams and made them come true.”
Just before his death, an Amazon Original known as ‘American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story‘ was released – a fascinating documentary series that depicts the entire Hugh Hefner story. The series has done very well to show how he came up with almost nothing to start with, and also how he saved his company from going bankrupt. The series has a lot of ‘never seen before’ footage and it makes a great watch.
All in all, a true legend has passed away in his mansion from natural causes – someone who truly lived ‘The American Dream‘. May his soul rest in peace!
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