Given the self-parody he became in his last few decades, it may be hard for some to recall the time when half the men in America wanted to grow up to be Hugh Hefner. For one thing, you didn't have to grow up. For another, there were omnipresent beautiful women who were not reticent to disrobe and, presumably, offer their bodies for other things besides modeling. And for yet another, he was very rich and the monarch of a world where he controlled everything and servants catered to his every need.
He was not shy about showing off the lifestyle or the women. One time, a friend of mine who was producing shows for The Playboy Channel told me he was about to go to The Mansion and pitch Hef — as everyone called him because he asked everyone to call him that — on some new show ideas. The friend said, "I don't know why I've been wasting time developing all these different ideas. The only thing Hef seems to want is tours of his home and shows about what a cool life he has." I was at that home a few times and even when he was nowhere to be seen, you were always aware you were in his kingdom, subject to banishment at his slightest whim. The ass-kissing was about as prevalent as inhaling and exhaling.
Hefner was controversial and probably always will be. He did much for the liberation of women but too often, the idea was to free them from one second-class existence so that that might enter into a different one. If you could overlook a sometimes-fratboy attitude about sex, Playboy was for a long time a very good magazine, well worth reading "just for the articles." I doubt anyone who was ever successful in mainstream publishing was more willing to pay writers and artists and especially cartoonists well if that's what it took to get the best work. Playboy now limps along as a low-selling, utterly unimportant publication produced on a minuscule (by comparison) budget. When Hef was Hef, an issue was an event.
In the eighties, I worked with him on one TV show and we got along well, especially when I started talking to him about one of his greatest loves — cartooning. He'd wanted to be in that profession at one point and in early issues of Playboy, when funds were tight, he drew a few cartoons which showed why he was wise to pursue other avenues. In terms of sheer dollar value, the most expensive gift I've ever received was when he gave me a lifetime subscription to the magazine. I hope he didn't mean his lifetime.
I found him to be a sweet, charming man when you were on his turf playing by his rules. I don't know how he'd have been outside that environment because he never allowed himself out.
One moment that has always stuck with me came about because a meeting we were having was interrupted by someone bringing in the sales figures on a recent issue of Playboy. Hef paused to study the numbers and then he turned to me and said, "You know, after all these years of doing this, I still have no idea what makes one issue sell better than another." I thought that was an extraordinary thing to say.
I know people of power in the comic book industry, past and present, who would never suggest they aren't infallible experts at knowing what will sell. Since that moment with Hef, if someone tells me they know how to make Batman a best-seller, I think, "No, you don't. If Hugh Hefner doesn't know how to make Playboy sell, you don't know how to make Batman sell." I guess to admit what he admitted, you have to own the company.
I'll probably think of other stories to tell in the coming day. Right now, I just wanted to say I'm sorry to hear he died. And you have to wonder, with all that Viagra in his system, if rigor mortis didn't set in a long time ago. And if the mortician is going to be able to get that smug smile off his face.