PLAYBOY PRINCE HUGH HEFNER AT 82 REVEALS A NEW MARRIAGE AND A NEW BABY ARE “CLOSING IN”—AN EXCLUSIVE EXTRAORDINARY CANDID INTIMATE INTERVIEW
One of the highlights each month of Playboy magazine is the big celebrity interview. When my longtime pal Hugh Hefner came to town to celebrate his 82nd birthday with Palms hotel owner George Maloof (click here for yesterday’s amazing Luxe Life coverage) I decided to turn the tables. His documentary film crew is shooting The Life of Hefner so here’s all of our candid conversation—part of which will wind up in the movie.
RL: Did you ever think you would make 82 with the life you have led, and are you still a playboy?
HH: That’s a good question. Certainly back in the 60’s when I was really going around the clock, I was popping the Dexedrine and building an empire. Probably at that point … the bet would be that I would not be here at 82. The miracle is not that I reached 82, cause I have longevity in my family—my mother lived to 101—but Playboy the brand has become so hot again.
It has been more than half a century for Playboy and to be a part of, with my three girlfriends, a hugely popular worldwide TV show, to have the publication and the brand, and Playboy products so hot, and to have a Playboy club/casino here in LV, and one in Macao next year and London coming, we hope, a major new book on my life coming this fall, a major documentary being made, and a major motion picture: Things are pretty good.
RL: Has being a playboy man-about-town changed from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s now into the 2000’s? After all even you have cut back from many girls to three?
HH: Well, yes. I have gone from seven down to three. I guess I am getting conservative in my old age, but truth is now there really is only one of the three. They are three very special ladies and most especially Holly, we have been together five years and this is the best it has ever been for me.
RL: You look back at love and romance—have they changed for you and the world? You went through the swinging 60’s, you went through the 70’s, and today it is all a little more respectable?
HH: I don’t know if it is more respectable, but it is certainly more politically correct. I don’t know if that is the same thing. It is a curious phenomenon that we in the second half of the 20th century and certainly in the 21st century I began Playboy in the 1950’s to play a part of the whole sexual revolution in the 60’s and 70’s and then to see this kind of backlash is curious because we live in a time where there is a controversy related to sexuality and nudity at the same time that everything explicit is available on the Internet and on TV. It is a curious time.
RL: Could there be a better place then Vegas for everything that Playboy stands for?
HH: Well I do think that Playboy and that Las Vegas has gone through a metamorphosis itself, and has become the epicenter for entertainment. Therefore it is a Playboy town. There is a point, as we know where I go back to the Rat Pack days in the late 50’s. After that of course it went through family orientation and a Disneyland for adults and now it is back to its roots in a wonderful kind of way. I have traveled the world and there is no other place like Vegas in the world.
RL: 82!—Do you feel 82? What do you feel? How do you feel?
HH: I don’t feel 82. I feel younger than I did 10-15 years ago. Part of that has to do with my current personal relationships and things going so well for Playboy.
RL: Talk about the personal for a minute in terms of pharmaceutical aids or enhancements. You once told me Viagra had changed your life and lengthened your life.
HH: We use the term lengthen advisably. I don’t think there is any question that it does keep you younger sexually. Without Viagra I would not have had three girlfriends, and previously would not have had seven. I think it is a mental attitude that keeps you young, not a pill. As long as you are healthy age is just a number. You don’t know how long you are going to live. I have had girlfriends and very dear friends pass away 10-15 years ago.
RL: Do you ever think of what you might want inscribed on that tombstone?
HH: The mind boggles…. it was a wonderful life…
RL: You look back over this extraordinary life back to Chicago, starting out as a journalist and breaking all the rules about sexual taboos and creating an empire out of enjoyment and pleasure. What is that legacy that you leave?
HH: I think it has to do with the part that I played in changing sexual values. It has to do with changing sexual taboos and censorship in terms of print and film and certainly in terms of personal behavior. I grew up normally but before Playboy, young, nice, middle-class people could not live together before they got married. So they got married in order to sleep with one another. I say the best chance at marriage is to wait till you are a little older so you know who you are before you pick your mate. Kids would get married in their teens and twenties and they would be divorced by the time they were 30 or 40.
RL: You have had two marriages and what did you learn about that for number three?
HH: That I am happiest when I am not married.
RL: Do you think you would do it again? There are three girls, but there is one special lady out of them…
HH: It wasn’t planned, it just happened. The notion of going from seven to three wasn’t planned. I found three that were very compatible and very happy and as those relationships evolved there was one very special
relationship that was going to last.
RL: So in the end, like most men you are monogamous?
HH: In a certain sense, in my fashion. If I do get marred I would do it for Holly not for myself.
RL: She wants a child, you are in the back end of life and they want to remember you with another son or daughter!
HH: I would say if it is possible for us to have a baby, I would have a baby. We probably will. We have talked about it. She talks about it all the time.
RL: Would you say within a year, the next two that this would be a possibility?
HH: Anything is a possibility.
(At this point Holly interjects: “ That would be awesome. Don’t call it nagging but I ask him all the time. I want to get married and have his baby. We’re definitely getting closer on the subject.”)
RL: Talk about this adopted “Vegas son George Maloof” and what he has done for Playboy and what Playboy has done for the Palms, and Playboy for Vegas. I think he’s that “chip off the old block”.
HH: I do too. We had other options here. Corporate in Chicago wasn’t sure which direction to go. I saw in George, and through the relationship in the Palms, what we wanted. He had already established his brand before we arrived, the kind of following with young people and celebs that I felt was essential to Playboy. It was a win win situation going in. It kicks off from the successful Palms. We won before we started.
RL: Do you ever look around and say “is there anything that’s out there after 82-years that I still want to do?”
HH: Yes, and I did them-all of them.
RL: But its important to set goals to keep on going?
HH: Yes. There has never been a major motion picture on my life, or a book. Both of those are about to happen in the months ahead. We are opening in Macao and that is in 2009. Things just keep getting better
and better. Who could imagine at this age that I, along with my girlfriends, would be the star of a successful reality TV show? It’s hugely popular with young women.
RL: That is what you have done your whole life.
HH: Surprise people…yes.
RL: No hugely successful with young women.
HH: ha-ha you are a rascal.
RL: You’re expanding into China but don’t see the Chinese people moving
and grooving to Playboy.
HH: Playboy is already hugely popular with men’s clothing. It has been for several years. They have over 3000 stores selling Playboy products in Mainland China, where the magazine is not yet allowed.
RL: Will there be Chinese centerfolds?
HH: There will in time. It is going to be global. The social sexual revolution that has taken place in America and other parts of the world will come to all countries.
RL: You are selling Playboy lingerie in China?
HH: It is primarily men’s clothes…men’s lingerie.
RL: Do you set things way in advance knowing that it is a good thing to
live to that point? How do you keep active?
HH: I live day by day. I make plans but…
RL: Do your girlfriends keep you young?
HH: Of course.
RL: So look back over 82 years and say here is 18 years looking forward to your 100th. Give me a message from the past to the future.
HH: A message from the past—it has been an adventure beyond anything I could have imagined, to play some part in the social sexual values of my time, to take pride in that and to have a good time doing that, and for the future, in a very real sense, much of the same.
RL: That very first edition of the magazine, in Vegas terms, it was a roll of the dice. You could have crapped out. You look back…
HH: and it worked out well.
RL: The best bet of your life?
HH: I would say so. It proves without question that impossible dreams come true.
It was time to ask George Maloof some questions about his good friend:
RL: What is this phenomenon called “Hef”? Here is a guy 82 years of age and he is still rocking better than you and I.
GM: It is unbelievable. It is fascinating. How can you explain it? You can’t explain it. He is at the best time of his life. He has a great girlfriend; he still has new projects coming out. The Girls Next Door show has become a phenomenon. He is in a great part of his life.
RL: He describes you as a “younger Hefner” and he talks about this is “the perfect marriage” of Maloof, Hefner, the Palms, Playboy, and Vegas and everything that it represents. Did you see all that going into this relationship?
GM: I think the first time we had a promotional event, before we actually opened the Palms, was at the Playboy mansion. I felt there was some connection. There were two brands, then we did the deal and right after that the show came out. That was a big part of it. It exposed a lot of people to this mystique of this brand and Hef and he hit it. It created a whole fascination with a market.
RL: You’re the former marketing student from UNLV competing with the big boys on the Strip, Playboy had run it’s lifetime course and it all came back to life because of the marriage between you two.
GM: There has always been a fascination with the brand and Playboy and the girls and the whole idea and the innocence of the girl that can make it. The fact that it is Las Vegas, people fantasize and it is fantasy and here is Hef and I felt it could work. We are creating special events and moment’s—that is what the Palms is about.
RL: This Playboy mansion suite triggered all the other fantasy suites!
GM: Actually, we had the idea of the crazy pools off the edge and taking the top one and making it into our version of the mansion and we created our identity with it and that was our idea.
RL: How does it feel for Hef to call you a chip off the old block?
GM: That is one of the most amazing compliments you could ever have; Even just being compared. I don’t think he could be compared to anybody. He is in his own class.
RL: You look at him now at 82, do you think of yourself at 82 and where you will be in Vegas?
GM: I hope I make it there—and he is an inspiration. It is the fact that he is what he is and he is a great partner. He has a great mind and he cares. He is one great guy.”