Kansas City News Blog

Photo courtesy of the Playboy archive.

The Hef shared his life story with Missouri author Steven Watts.

​When Hugh Hefner accepted Steven Watts' request for an interview, the University of Missouri history professor got years of unfettered access to the archives, social circle and mind of America's favorite dirty old man. The result, Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream, is a riveting look at Hefner's evolution as an individual and, more importantly, the impact of his magazine and viewpoint on America over the last 50-plus years. Watts will talk about his book on Thursday at the Central Branch of the Kansas City Public Library.

Here, he dishes with us.

The Pitch: What do you want people to get out of this book?

Steven Watts: I think there's a temptation with a book like this one to see it as a celebrity-type book, one of these tell-all type books that's only after sort of the sensationalist aspects of a topic. On the one hand, God knows there are a lot of really flashy stories about Hefner. But what I would like to underline is that I think it's a serious book about a serious topic. And I think Hefner and Playboy really have played an important cultural role in our modern history.

How did this project change your opinion of Hugh Hefner?

Oh, gosh, that's a good question. Actually, I'm trying to remember what my opinion was before. I can hardly remember. I think before I started this I just had just the most general kind of impressions of Hefner that had come through in popular culture -- of course editor of Playboy, and sort of this member of the beautiful people, sort of celebrity class. Other than that, not a whole lot.

When I started to do the project and started to look into his career and his activities more deeply, I think I came to see him as an important cultural figure in the post WWII period, primarily -- as you know from reading the book -- from his role in the sexual revolution, but also because of his role in sort of advancing this consumer ideal in the post-war world. So I think in general, I think I came to see him as a lot more important, rather than merely a celebrity, after I spent a good deal of time studying him.

How did you make this book happen?

Well, it was very strange, actually. I sort of kicked this idea around -- I guess it was summer 2003. I put a book proposal together and had some interest from presses. I had a couple of friends in Los Angeles, who I contacted who were attorneys, actually. And it turns out they knew some people who were attorneys for the Playboy organization, and I ended up getting numbers and addresses and all of that, and I ended up sending a letter off pretty cold actually, to a gentleman named Dick Rosenzweig who's a VP for Hefner and sort of his right-hand man at the mansion.

I was expecting this to take several weeks to sort of work out and wasn't sure I could get access. To my astonishment, I sent this letter off, and -- I think it was within three or four days, actually -- I got a call in my office from Rosenzweig, and he said, "Well, I showed this to Hefner, and he's extremely interested. Actually he's been waiting for decades for a serious guy to do a book on him, and he'd really like to talk to you. So why don't you come out to L.A. and we'd like to chat."

The next weekend, I was sitting in the Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills, talking to Hefner. It all just happened almost instantly. The whole thing was quite shocking, actually.

Did you come of age reading Playboy?

Actually, not. I come from a kind of a religious family and background, and that sort of thing certainly would have been frowned upon. I don't think I actually ever saw a Playboy until I was in college. I'm reasonably sure I Only bought one Playboy in my life before this project and that was the one with Jimmy Carter, the "Lust in My Heart" interview, back in the presidential election of '76. I wasn't really a big Playboy reader.

Well, I was going to ask who's your favorite Playmate. Maybe you developed one over the course of your research?

I met some very nice young women who were in the magazine out there. Actually, I guess one who I'm very fond of has kind of become a friend. Tiffany Fallon, who was a Playmate of the Year, gosh I guess it's been three or four years ago. She was out there when I was doing the book, really lovely -- and she ended up marrying -- I'm a musician, too --- [Joe Don Rooney] a guitarist in a Rascal Flatts. She's really nice, I'm extremely fond of her.

What were your experiences like at the Playboy Mansion while you were researching the book?

A wide variety of experiences I guess. I spent the vast majority of my time just working on the book pretty hard. Hefner, as you may have picked up from reading the book, has just an enormous archive of material, and it took me a lot of time just kind of wading through all this stuff. It was really a goldmine of archival material. So I spent a lot of time working.

In addition to that, he sort of gave me the chance to observe his life from the inside. So I would go out there three or four times a year for a week or sometimes two. So I was around for a lot of the activity -- the movie nights on the weekends, what he calls Manly Night on Monday, when his old buddies come around, and I sort of got to be a member of that group. I went to a number of the big parties out there, which was quite an experience. ... It's a different world from the Midwest that we live in.

Was it shocking to be there?

It's sort of like parachuting into a foreign country or something because when you go there, especially initially, it's a very different place -- it kind of has its own atmosphere and its own rules. And there's this elderly gentlemen who sort of is the king of the heap at this place where hundreds of people it seems are always around. ... And all of these young women from the magazine are hanging around the big parties. And he's got several girlfriends. The whole thing just sort of works very differently from the normal society we're used to, so there's a lot of cognitive dissonance.

What did your wife think about it?

Well, she thought it was an interesting place, I think. She was a very good sport about this -- the joke I always make, it's really true -- is that when I first sort to talked to her about doing this -- you know, under the rubric of research -- she sort of arched her eyebrow and said, "Well, you can look but not touch," sort of like kids at Christmastime.

I think that she really enjoyed the parties -- the New Year's Eve party that she went to, for example, was kind of a formal affair, a little smaller than the others, maybe 400-500 people when usually there's over 1,000. There's tuxes and gowns, and there's a lot of famous people hanging around, wonderful food, a big dance floor -- and you know the whole thing's pretty neat and, again, a little off the beaten track from our normal life. I think she enjoyed it quite a bit, actually.

But it is a little bizarre also, even at the formal party there are lots of young women who are running around in body paint. You know you're standing next to some movie star and maybe chatting with them a little bit and you turn around and there's a young woman in body paint offering you an hors d'oeuvre. Your eyes kind of go around in your head a little bit.

What will you say if your daughter grows up and wants to pose for Playboy?

A number of people have asked me that and sort of poked me a little bit. You know I don't know. By the time she's grown up I'll be a really old coger, so god knows what I would think at that point. Actually, I think what I probably would think is -- like with anything in life -- I just hope she would use good judgment. If it's something that for some reason is important for her to do and she had good reasons for doing it, I would sort of grit my teeth and not throw a fit. On the other hand, being a kind of normal father I expect that it would give me pause. I would probably have very mixed feelings about it, to be honest.