# RIP Hugh Hefner **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 28, 2017, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484 "2017-09-28T03:37:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/21 "2017-09-28T12:06:11Z")
Tremendous increase in STDs during his lifetime. His readers had intelligence: in 1958 Pat Boone finished second in Playboy’s first “Jazz and Pop Poll” behind Sinatra and far ahead of Elvis Presley. Playboy didn’t much cover rock in their reviews until about 1967. Lots of jazz but the early 1960s may have been the golden age for jazz. I remember an issue a couple years ago railing against building a wall in Mexico. Yup, I am sure the Bunny Mansion was open to all with no walls or security guards. I used to get a “LaserDisc Newsletter” (anyone remember laserdiscs?) that when they reviewed “Playmate” LE would faithfully transcript the wisdom of the girl next door with the silicon implants. I’ll miss Hef. Enjoy eternity next to Marilyn Monroe ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/22 "2017-09-28T12:15:49Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > As a teenager, I used to roll my eyes every time I heard someone rave about the writing in Playboy. It wasn’t until I was an adult I realized PB really does (Or did anyway) have excellent writing. The joke of course was about people claiming that they _only_ read Playboy for the articles. I will freely admit to looking at the pictures but the articles and interviews were frequently top quality and featured some heavy hitters of the literary world. Kudos to the man for not settling for Playboy being just another skin mag. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/23 "2017-09-28T12:47:15Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Tremendous increase in STDs during his lifetime. His readers had intelligence: in 1958 Pat Boone finished second in Playboy’s first “Jazz and Pop Poll” behind Sinatra and far ahead of Elvis Presley. Playboy didn’t much cover rock in their reviews until about 1967. Lots of jazz but the early 1960s may have been the golden age for jazz. I remember an issue a couple years ago railing against building a wall in Mexico. Yup, I am sure the Bunny Mansion was open to all with no walls or security guards. I used to get a “LaserDisc Newsletter” (anyone remember laserdiscs?) that when they reviewed “Playmate” LE would faithfully transcript the wisdom of the girl next door with the silicon implants. > > I’ll miss Hef. Enjoy eternity next to Marilyn Monroe The early 60s was a golden age in jazz. Miles, Coltrane, Dizzy, Bill Evans, Stan Gets, the legendary vocalists…Ella Sarah Dinah Washington. Playboy helped spread love of this music to many new places. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/24 "2017-09-28T12:53:55Z")
I didn’t know that he was such an early supporter of the Civil Rights movement (based on what I’m seeing on the news). RIP. ---
**Author:** ![WildBlueYonder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ce7236/32.png) [@WildBlueYonder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildBlueYonder)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/25 "2017-09-28T13:19:58Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Sorry to see him go, but he really did have an incredibly long run. And I’m glad they restored Playboy before he went. It wasn’t just the nudes – they took out all the cartoons and the color and sucked all the _fun_ out of it. They put some of that back > One thing that people didn’t seem to get about Hefner. He projected the image of the sexy swinger (which he was, of course), but he was also the Consummate Nerd. He started out doing fanzines. He loved science fiction and comic strips. The man’s favorite quaff was Pepsi, not Dom Perignon. There’s a reason that Playboy ran all that science fiction in its early days ( George Langelaan’s _The Fly_ debuted in its pages before it became a movie. He reprinted Ray Bradbury’s _A Sound of Thunder_ and printed stuff by Asimov, Clarke, and other top-notch science fiction authors. He continued to do so into the 1980s at least, although it was never a major part of the magazine’s makeup. His love of comics and cartoons definitely was, though, and iit got closest to High Fan in the 1980s when he started up Playboy Funnies, which frequently featured edgy, funny science fiction (_Through Time and Space with Shwimmer and Jones_ and suchlike). Sometimes I think the suave, smoking jacketed sex advisor was just camouflage for the reclusive nerd. It certainly had its fringe benefits. Sexy? :dubious::dubious: No. At least for me, he would never do it. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/26 "2017-09-28T13:23:29Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I didn’t know that he was such an early supporter of the Civil Rights movement (based on what I’m seeing on the news). RIP. The radio news mentioned that he hired jazz bands to play at the Playboy Clubs long before it was considered a proper thing to do. Surprised the hell out of me. He was a part of the huge changes that occurred in the 1960’s. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Hen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Small\_Hen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Hen)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/27 "2017-09-28T13:31:04Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Sorry to hear this. I’m sure a lot of people were pulling for him. You know how gangsters spill one out on the curb for their dead friends? I feel the men of the world should consider a similar tribute for old Hef. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/28 "2017-09-28T13:32:49Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Sorry to hear this. I’m sure a lot of people were pulling for him. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/29 "2017-09-28T13:35:15Z")
Wow, the man was clearly an icon. Sad to see him go, but he had long and full life. Let’s hide some bunny ears somewhere on his tombstone! I had the fortune to be invited\* to a party at The Mansion a few years back. It was a Charity event, and very pricey, but we had a great time. Very cool estate and although it did cost a fair penny, all the food and everything was top quality and you felt like you were getting a bang for your buck, even if not literally. \*Paid to attend, so not sure “invited” is exactly the right term. ---
**Author:** ![gytalf2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ac91a4/32.png) [@gytalf2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gytalf2000)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/30 "2017-09-28T14:22:07Z")
Well, he lived a good, long, fulfilling life. Bedded tons of sexy women. A true cultural icon. Rest in Peace, Hef! ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/31 "2017-09-28T14:43:38Z")
I think I might be responsible for his death. Just last night we were watching the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm with Hugh in it. I commented something like “wow, he’s old…is he even alive?”. Oops. :smack: Thanks for all the articles. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/32 "2017-09-28T15:16:52Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > One thing that people didn’t seem to get about Hefner. He projected the image of the sexy swinger (which he was, of course), but he was also the Consummate Nerd. He started out doing fanzines. He loved science fiction and comic strips. The man’s favorite quaff was Pepsi, not Dom Perignon. There’s a reason that Playboy ran all that science fiction in its early days ( George Langelaan’s _The Fly_ debuted in its pages before it became a movie. He reprinted Ray Bradbury’s _A Sound of Thunder_ and printed stuff by Asimov, Clarke, and other top-notch science fiction authors. He continued to do so into the 1980s at least, although it was never a major part of the magazine’s makeup. Nitpicking to give credit where it’s due. Hefner liked sf but didn’t really know anything about it. Or any modern fiction. Ray Russell, who did, told him so and got hired as fiction editor. He was the one to put all the sf in the magazine, and Alice Turner continued that when she became editor. Asimov never published in _Playboy_, though he wrote a spoof of William Knoles’ spoof “Girls and the Slime God” called “Playboy and the Slime God” for _Amazing_. Knoles was one of the many writers who supported themselves by dozens of soft core sleaze novels. He’s best known as Clyde Allison who wrote the 0008 James Bond spoofs. Playboy probably was one of the most important magazines in America for a decade or so. It saw the future when almost everybody else saw the past. Not the science fiction Future, though he ran plenty of that. (See 1984 and Beyond: The Playboy Panel in 1963.) He proselytized the liberal culture-is-changing future that came to overtake him by the millennium, and did it in the 1950s when it cost him dearly in time, money, and disapproval. Sure, he exploited the culture’s love of beautiful young women to make it happen. He’s an equivocal hero at best. (And the Pepsi drinker got lost in a cocaine nightmare in the 1970s.) Don’t put up statues to him. Just remember how really, really important he was for a while. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/33 "2017-09-28T16:12:38Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Here’s hoping he went with a smile recalling the good times. From what I’ve read of his later years, I’m sure he had everything well in hand. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/34 "2017-09-28T16:17:10Z")
> [@](#): > > **How did Nelson Rockefeller die? Low blood pressure: 70 over 25.** Oy, _I_ should be so lucky! :o ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/35 "2017-09-28T16:22:15Z")
> [@gytalf2000](#): > > Well, he lived a good, long, fulfilling life. Bedded tons of sexy women. A true cultural icon. Gave whole new meaning to the term “filthy rich.” 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/36 "2017-09-28T16:22:23Z")
Here are 10 of the better playboy interview…snippets free full deal $1. > **[10 of the Most Fascinating ‘Playboy’ Interviews](https://www.flavorwire.com/412697/10-of-the-most-fascinating-playboy-interviews)** > > Playboy magazine is known for its sexy centerfolds and covers, but the gentleman’s glossy has a long history of publishing short stories and interviews with notable personalities. The eternal joke that people read Playboy for the articles is really… ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/37 "2017-09-28T16:23:43Z")
> [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](#): > > More people should try to make sex sexy. … Instead of criminalizing it. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/38 "2017-09-28T18:33:21Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > As a teenager, I used to roll my eyes every time I heard someone rave about the writing in Playboy. It wasn’t until I was an adult I realized PB really does (Or did anyway) have excellent writing. > > The original Play’a has died. RIP. When I bought Playboy, I loved both the articles and the girls. It was a perfect magazine. Intelligent and witty and of course the beautiful girls. I had a subscription for a few years in my early 20s. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/39 "2017-09-28T18:35:14Z")
I’d say he was in a better place but he did live in the playboy mansion. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484/40 "2017-09-28T18:57:43Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Here are 10 of the better playboy interview…snippets free full deal $1. > > [10 of the Most Fascinating ‘Playboy’ Interviews](http://flavorwire.com/412697/10-of-the-most-fascinating-playboy-interviews) You can read the Lennon/Ono one for free: [John Lennon Interview: Playboy 1980 (Page 1) - Beatles Interviews Database](http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1980.jlpb.beatles.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rip-hugh-hefner/797484.md?page=3)