Hugh Hefner

A self-styled pioneer of the sexual revolution, Playboy’s founder certainly profited from it – despite being derided as exploitative along the way.

- Helen Gent

On a balmy August evening, a stream of Hollywood actors, sports stars and singers pulled up at one of LA’s most famous addresses and exited their limos to join the throng of partygoers. As guests feasted on sushi and tequila, scantily clad women – some in nothing more than fairy wings and body paint – drifted past. Suddenly, all eyes turned to an elderly gentleman wearing purple pyjamas and a white sailor’s hat. Within minutes, the old man was barely visible, caught up in a sea of beautiful young women peppering his wrinkled face with kisses.

It was 2014 and Hugh Hefner was once more the king of one of his legendary Playboy Mansion parties. Six decades after launching Playboy magazine and just two years short of his 90th birthday, the self-styled Casanova was still centre stage at the infamous mecca for celebrities such as Jack Nicholson, Mick Jagger and Leonardo DiCaprio. Throughout the years, it had played host to an ever-changing harem of women and was known as a place where anything could, and usually did, happen – until Hefner’s death on September 27 last year.

“Hef ”, a thrice-married father of four, credited himself as one of the pioneers of America’s postwar sexual revolution. He directed readers of his magazine, with its famous Playmate centrefold, to prioritise sex over settling down and practised what he preached. He slept with more than 1000 women – his own conservative estimate – and often accommodated up to seven at a time on his huge revolving bed, with its headboard stashed with sex toys.