Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, December 11, 1993 TAG: 9312110055
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Medium
Soon he had the recipe: the bunny. The photo of Marilyn Monroe. And, of course, THE name. Playboy.
Playboy celebrates its 40th anniversary this month and both the magazine and the man have changed. Hugh Hefner, once the guru of hedonism, is a cocooning senior citizen and family man. His empire is run by a feminist - his daughter, Christie - and his middle-age creation has gone from scandalous to only naughty. Yet it remains a success.
"Playboy is no longer at the leading edge of sexual shock," said Bernard Beck, an associate sociology professor at Northwestern University. "It's conventional."
"It's no longer cutting edge . . . but it's still the biggest men's magazine and probably the best in the country," said James Kobak, a New York magazine consultant who has worked with Playboy.
"They really changed with the culture. Or maybe the culture changed with them."
This James Bond-like-fantasy empire, long accused by feminists of regarding women as sex kittens, is run by a no-nonsense woman who has lectured at Harvard Business School.
Christie Hefner, chairman and chief executive officer of Playboy Enterprises Inc., who was a year old when the magazine was born, rejects the criticisms.
"I'm very secure in what the values of Playboy are . . . and am proud of its humanism and political values," she said.
"Playboy is now in the mainstream because of the changes in the culture and in attitudes about nudity."
In an era when Dr. Ruth blithely chats about orgasms on TV and Madonna's private parts are in public view, nudity is everywhere: movies, prime-time TV, cable, videos.
But when Playboy debuted in the button-down '50s - a nude Monroe picture Hefner bought for $500 appeared in the first issue - bare bosoms and bottoms were relegated to gas station calendars.
Hefner, then working for a kiddie magazine, started Playboy from his apartment; a graphic designer, Art Paul, created the rabbit head logo.
Playboy's U.S. circulation now is 3.4 million, half its peak in the 1970s; about 80 percent are subscriptions. It has 1.6 million readers of 17 foreign editions.
The $215 million empire, which in the 1980s closed its U.S. Playboy clubs featuring cotton-tailed waitresses, has expanded into videos, cable and other electronic media.
While Playboy's content has changed with the transiution from the Atomic Age to the AIDS age, "the magazine has very much remained entertainment for men and it always will be," Christie Hefner said. "The women who read it are over-the-shoulder readers."
Hugh Hefner, 67, who had a minor stroke in 1985, remains active in shaping Playboy. "He's the universal conscience," beamed publisher Michael Perlis.
He still approves the Playmates. He married one in 1989. They have two sons.
Though the Playmates get the most attention, some media experts say Playboy often is overlooked for providing a forum for great American fiction. Among writers it has featured: Joyce Carol Oates, John Cheever, Philip Roth, John Updike and Joseph Heller.
Its interview subjects have included Jimmy "lust in my heart" Carter, Fidel Castro, David Bowie and Bob Hope.
Perlis, who is as old as Playboy, doesn't worry it will become passe.
Being 40 isn't what it used to be, he boasts. "We're just in the middle of our best years."
by CNB