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We're All Ears

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By CURTIS ROSS

cross@tampatrib.com

Published: February 1, 2009

In the annals of heroes and villains, few men have been planted so solidly in both camps as Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner.

To his admirers, Hefner is a liberator who freed America from sexual repression. To his detractors, he's a depraved hedonist whose pursuit of pleasure has led to a host of social ills.

Hefner calls himself "a romantic who has made most of his dreams come true."

"Walt Disney always said he liked to make movies for the child in everybody. I think Hefner wants to stay in contact with the adolescent in him," says Steven Watts, author of "Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream" (Wiley, $29.95).

Watts also has published biographies of Disney and Henry Ford, and sees a thread running between them and Hefner.

"They promoted a consumer culture of self-fulfillment," Watts says, a culture that stressed "happiness rather than self-denial."

Hefner's Playboy, now 55 years old, portrayed the pursuit of happiness in terms of free-wheeling sexuality and a nonstop whirl of consumer goods: powerful sports cars, fashionable clothes, fine stereos and a well-stocked liquor cabinet.

Hefner points to his upbringing as the impetus for his career as a pleasure seeker.

"I was raised in a home with not a lot of hugging and kissing, and I saw that as related to the fact that the movies I went to see were censored," Hefner says in a telephone interview. "Even sophisticated couples like Nick and Nora in 'The Thin Man' films had to sleep in twin beds."

Hefner poured his "repression bad-sex good" notions into Playboy. From his initial dreams of simply making enough money to keep publishing, Playboy and its rabbit's-head symbol have become icons, wielded as both sword and shield in the culture wars.

If Ford and Disney are forever linked with their creations, Hefner and Playboy are inseparable. That is by design.

"Since the beginning the magazine has always been associated in a unique way with the life and values and experiences of the man who founded it," Watts says.

Watts portrays the early days of Playboy, with Hefner juggling various duties while directing his staff to convey in the magazine a sophisticated but breezy tone, descriptions of Hefner's idea of the good life as well as a progressive political tone.

Hef's A Homebody

Publishing a guide to leisure brought out Hefner's workaholic tendencies, but pleasure seeking is only part of Hefner's makeup, Watts shows.

"The idea of him as a party animal belies the fact that he's a very orderly man, from the moment he gets up to the moment he goes to bed," Watts says.

"He tends to have the same meals each night of the week. Each night has a different activity. The joke with his friends is that nuclear warfare may cause a change in his schedule, but maybe not," Watts says. "He's orderly almost to the point of being rigid."

Hefner's Playboy Mansion home also is inseparable from his public image. He spends most of his life there, venturing out to clubs once or twice a week, but otherwise preferring to have the fun brought to him.

"By and large he likes to stay at home," Watts says. "Everything that means something to him tends to happen in the mansion. He's created a paradise for himself, and he's perfectly happy to stay there."

The mansion and its constant influx of young women are part of Hefner's public image, and although Hefner has lived out more than his share of sexual fantasies, Watts discovered Mr. Playboy's description of himself as a romantic to be accurate.

"He is, deep down, very romantic in an old-fashioned sense. He's very sentimental," Watts says. "Most people think he's all about sex, but what I was struck with about Hefner and women is that he falls in love over and over.

"He's in love with being in love. He wants to get that emotional charge that you get from falling in love, where you can hardly bear to be out of their sight," Watts says. "He has a big attraction with women, but it's not just sex pure and simple. There's a let of sentimentalism at work there."

Compared To Jay Gatsby

Watts draws parallels between Hefner and Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby."

"He throws the big parties. He arranges the revelry and the grand, crazy, good times, but he's never the guy who loses control," Watts says. "Part of him is just watching all this.

"In our discussions, I observed that he liked to view his life as a movie, as a set of episodes that unfolds. He sees his life in cinematic terms."

"My life is an open book," Hefner, 82, says. "I am the person I appear to be."

Who he appears to be depends on who's looking.

"The nature of my life has turned me into a Rorschach test," Hefner says. "People project their dreams, fantasies and prejudices onto my life."

Watts' book gets beyond the perceptions into Hefner himself. It's to Hefner's credit that he gave Watts both great access to him and Playboy's archives as well as full editorial control. The result is overall sympathetic but doesn't ignore Hefner's failings, both personal and professional.

Playboy has been a part of the American landscape for 55 years and shows no signs of disappearing.

"My life has been wonderful, and I'd be reluctant to change anything," Hefner says. "Life is always a crapshoot, but I've been shooting sevens for a long time. I'm a lucky cat."

Reporter Curtis Ross can be reached at (813) 259-7568.

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