Mr Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream

Mr Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream Features

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The real Hugh Hefner-the extraordinary inside story of an American icon

"Riveting... Watts packs in plenty of gasp-inducing passages."-Newark Star Ledger

"Like it or not, Hugh Hefner has affected all of us, so I treasured learning about how and why in the sober biography."-Chicago Sun Times

"This is a fun book. How could it not be? Watts aims to give a full account of the man, his magazine and their place in social history. Playboy is no longer the cultural force it used to be, but it made a stamp on society."-Associated Press

"In Steven Watts' exhaustive, illuminating biography Mr. Playboy, Hefner's ideal for living -- marked by his allegiances to Tarzan, Freud, Pepsi-Cola and jazz -- proves to be a kind of gloss on the Protestant work ethic."-Los Angeles Times Gorgeous young women in revealing poses; extravagant mansion parties packed with celebrities; a hot-tub grotto, elegant smoking jackets, and round rotating beds; the hedonistic pursuit of uninhibited sex. Put these images together and a single name springs to mind-Hugh Hefner. From his spectacular launch of Playboy magazine and the dizzying expansion of his leisure empire to his recent television hit The Girls Next Door, the publisher has attracted public attention and controversy for decades. But how did a man who is at once socially astute and morally unconventional, part Bill Gates and part Casanova, also evolve into a figure at the forefront of cultural change? In Mr. Playboy, historian and biographer Steven Watts argues that, in the process of becoming fabulously wealthy and famous, Hefner has profoundly altered American life and values. Granted unprecedented access to the man and his enterprise, Watts traces Hef's life and career from his midwestern, Methodist upbringing and the first publication of Playboy in 1953 through the turbulent sixties, self-indulgent seventies, reactionary eighties, and traditionalist nineties, up to the present. He reveals that Hefner, from the beginning, believed he could overturn social norms and take America with him. This fascinating portrait illustrates four ways in which Hefner and Playboy stood at the center of several cultural upheavals that remade the postwar United States. The publisher played a crucial role in the sexual revolution that upended traditional notions of behavior and expectation regarding sex. He emerged as one of the most influential advocates of a rapidly developing consumer culture, flooding Playboy readers with images of material abundance and a leisurely lifestyle. He proved instrumental-with his influential magazine, syndicated television shows, fashionable nightclubs, swanky resorts, and movie and musical projects-in making popular culture into a dominant force in many people's lives. Ironically, Hefner also became a controversial force in the movement for women's rights. Although advocating women's sexual freedom and their liberation from traditional family constraints, the publisher became a whipping boy for feminists who viewed him as a prophet for a new kind of male domination. Throughout, Watts offers singular insights into the real man behind the flamboyant public persona. He shows Hefner's personal dichotomies-the pleasure seeker and the workaholic, the consort of countless Playmates and the genuine romantic, the family man and the Gatsby-like host of lavish parties at his Chicago and Los Angeles mansions who enjoys well-publicized affairs with numerous Playmates, the fan of life's simple pleasures who hobnobs with the Hollywood elite. Punctuated throughout with descriptions and anecdotes of life at the Playboy Mansions, Mr. Playboy tells the compelling and uniquely American story of how one person with a provocative idea, a finger on the pulse of popular opinion, and a passion for his work altered the course of modern history. Spans from Hefner's childhood to the launch of Playboy magazine and the expansion of the Playboy empire to the present Puts Hefner's life and work into the cultural context of American life from the mid-twentieth-century onwards Contains over 50 B/W and color photos, including an actual fold-out centerfold

What Customers Say About Mr Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream:

The author mentions occasionally the mix ups Hef would get into. I was so thoroughly taken with this book. It's unlikely this book will disappoint. but the sex mishaps are light and the focus is on the history of the man. Hef is a very very interesting and unique character in my opinion. If you choose to read this book, I think you'll find it takes much more of a historical perspective on the influence of Hef and Playboy.

Whatever you think of Hefner, he is certainly a person who has lived an amazing life as promoter of sensual pleasure, civil libertarian, and cultural trend-setter. The psychological sequelae are treated fairly without the hysterical screeching usually heard from the so-called conservative right or the pandering platitudes of the blathering left. I found this a compelling biography as well as a sociological and psychological treatise. In paralleling the life of Hefner and Playboy Enterprises, Watts gives us a tour of five decades where the "American Dream" became essentially synonymous with consumer culture.

Find a copy of that and stay away from this one. I could have used more fact and less guessing about what goes on inside Hefner's head, as if anyone could really know. A better history of his life can be found inside Gay Talese's book "Thy Neighbor's Wife" which is a great read.

I'm getting to the last chapters and finally it is getting a bit more interesting. The book could be 1/2 the size it is. I won't recommend this book to anyone. This book is SO BORING. The author writes the same stuff over, over and over again.

Society and the media were not always kind to this man who had the nerve to openly boast about his wild days living in his adult playground. This appears to enhance the credibility of the story, and lessens the appearance that this is an unauthorized smutty tell-all tale.Quill says: A thorough and enlightening examination of one man's life that is often seen as overly crude and abundant. Steven Watts, a noted biographer of books about Walt Disney and Henry Ford, has this time tackled the story of another American icon by writing a thorough, page turning, and entertaining biography of the quintessential playboy and seeker of the American Dream, Mr. He received a good education, found solid employment, fell in love, got married and had children, but something was missing for him in that life -- he wanted more.Since childhood, writing and creating fantasy had been one of the ways Hefner escaped from reality. Although it did appear to be a bit wordy at times, readers are not only given plentiful information concerning Hefner's life, including a few notable pictures, but they are afforded easy access to where, and from whom, the information was obtained. Of course, not every road to success is always effortlessly paved, and Hefner is definitely no stranger towards adversity. Unfortunately, this often came at a price that at times would seem to signal the end of his reign as king of his empire.

This appears to enhance the credibility of the story, and lessens the appearance that this is an unauthorized smutty tell-all tale.Throughout the book the author easily engages the reader with his well organized prose. Although it did appear to be a bit wordy at times, readers are not only given plentiful information concerning Hefner's life, including a few notable pictures, but they are afforded easy access to where, and from whom, the sources of information were obtained.

The critical importance of this magazine was not only to display photos of scantily clad women, but to create a road map for the modern male, offering a model for a new lifestyle that included everything from food to clothing to entertainment. He would pick himself up after every downward spiral and stand by his gut feelings and beliefs of what society, and most importantly, he needed out of life.Throughout the book the author easily engages the reader with his well organized prose.

Hugh Hefner.Being born into, and growing up in the era of post war monetary depression and sexual repression, Hefner's early life reflected the aspirations of his generation. But these dark days of societal ridicule, errors in business maneuvers and blunders in his own personal life, never deterred this man.

Told through his own personal and professional quest for obtaining the American Dream, this book may afford the reader a different, more respected perspective on Hefner's life. This led him into latching onto an idea of a lifestyle magazine for men who wanted to break free from the stifling mold set in place by previous generations.

Yet, not only did he manage to create an empire through an unswerving and strong business ethic, he also managed to practice what he preached.