From Marilyn Monroe to Cindy Crawford, Linda Evans to Farrah Fawcett, Playboy has celebrated the sensuality (and even launched a few careers) of celebrities for more than fifty years. Here, in all their glory, are over 150 breathtaking photographs of the magazine's most famous heavenly bodies. Celebrity models such as Naomi Campbell and Stephanie Seymour, Playmates Jenny McCarthy and Pamela Anderson, rockers such as Debbie Harry, and many more reveal all—posing for equally renowned photographers such as Herb Ritts and David LaChapelle. With an introduction by Hugh Hefner himself and an afterword by Gary Cole, the magazine's director of photography for the past 30 years, this definitive collection from Playboy is a potent portfolio of celebrity nudes.
From the diaries of a Playboy model, experience the swingin' 70's from behind the guarded gates of the Playboy Mansion West. After being chosen as one of the original Playboy Models, Dianne is soon invited to join the elite group at the Sunday afternoon barbeques at Hef's. Dazzled by a wonderland of celebrities and glamour, she is now rubbing elbows with Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Joe Namath, Ryan O'Neal and the beautiful people. The sexual revolution is in full swing and opportunities abound at Hef's new Shangri-la in Holmby Hills. The game room has a private bedroom, the infamous grotto with piped in music has the Jacuzzi and of course there's the legendary upstairs master bedroom. The line between fantasy and reality soon begins disappearing within her new life. She has found herself in this fantasy world after a heartbreaking end to a love affair with a major league baseball player in Orange County. Hollywood had seemed like the place to mend her broken heart. Ignoring her boyfriend's warnings about "the casting couches" she strikes out alone to find out for herself. As a naive small town girl diving head first into the allure of Hollywood, initially each adventure seems more exciting than the next. Soon she is jetting off to Vegas with Telly Savalas' Kojak gang. She is sharing an after show cocktail with Johnny Carson in his dressing room backstage. And her best friend is dating Elvis. It's one icon after another and some of the experiences are shocking. Sadly, she begins to realize the perverted reality of tinseltown as even the legendary George Burns inquires "You'd drop your panties for an acting job wouldn't you?" After a second appearance on a Bob Hope Show she reflects on the endless disappointments and constant rejections. Now only one question has to be answered. Is it worth it?
As legendary as the Playboy Playmates themselves are the mansions where hundreds of them partied, worked, and lived. Playboy founder Hugh Hefner has led a Caesar-like existence unlike anyone else in the 20th century, and for the first time, the doors to that world are opened to the public in this titillating visual tour of the Chicago and Los Angeles pleasure palaces. Overflowing with archival photographs from Hefner's private collection, the book exposes not only Playmates, celebrities, and luxurious attractions such as the game rooms, the alluring pool and grotto, and the private zoo, but it also depicts an unparalleled, almost mythic lifestyle. By revisiting the fantastical events hosted there over the years, it becomes evident that the Playboy Mansion boasts one of the most enviable guest sign-in books in contemporary times. Of course, the history of life inside the mansions offers a rarely-seen side of the history of the magazine as well.
You already know about the Bunnies, now learn about the music that helped shape Playboy. Playboy—the magazine, the empire, the lifestyle—is one of the world's best known brands. Since the launch of Playboy magazine in 1953, two elements have been remarkably consistent: the first, is the celebration of the female form. The second, readers may be surprised to learn, is Playboy's involvement in the music scene. The playboy experience has never been just about sex, but about lifestyle. Hugh Hefner's personal passion for music, particularly fine jazz, has always been an essential component of that. Full of interviews with hundreds of people who were on the scene throughout the rise, fall, and on-going renaissance, Playboy Swings carries readers on a seductive journey. Farmer focuses on Playboy's involvement in the music scene and impact on popular entertainment, and demonstrates how the empire helped change the world by integrating television and festivals. Join Patty Farmer as she guides the reader through the first inception of the Playboy empire through the 1959 Jazz Festival, and club opening after club opening. With 60 pages of photos and a complete reference guide, readers will associate music, not just Bunnies, when thinking about Playboy after reading this enthralling look into the history of one of the world's most infamous brands.
In the vein of Running with Scissors, Playground is the glitzy, glamorous, and surreal true story of a young girl who grew up inside the Playboy Mansion and never learned where the party stopped and the real world began. You are six years old. Every day after school your father takes you to a sprawling castle filled with exotic animals, bowls of candy, and half-naked women catering to your every need. You have your own room. You have new friends. You have an uncle Hef who's always there for you. Welcome to the world of Playground, the true story Jennifer Saginor who grew up inside the Playboy Mansion. By the time she was fourteen, she'd done countless drugs, had a secret affair with Hef's girlfriend, and was already losing her grip on reality. Schoolwork, family, and "ordinary people" had no meaning behind the iron gates of the Mansion, where celebrities frolicked, pool parties abounded, and her own father—Hugh Hefner's personal physician and best friend, the man nicknamed "Dr. Feel Good"—typically held court. Every day was a party, every night was an adventure, and through it all was a young girl falling faster and faster down the rabbit hole—trying desperately hard not to get lost.
For some, nothing is as pleasurable as the smell and taste of a great cigar. For them, Playboy The Book of Cigars will be the next best thing to lighting up. Whether you want to learn the ?ner points of cutters, cutting, or humidors, or want to understand more about how ?ne tobacco is grown and ?ne cigars rolled, it’s all here for you. Learn why Cuban cigars are so sought-after, what ?ne cigars from the Dominican Republic and Honduras have to offer, and whether cigars from Cameroon and the Canary Islands are worth your time. With a foreword by artist and bon vivant LeRoy Neiman and an afterword by award-winning actor Joe Mantegna, there is more than a touch of the good life here. Sprinkled with photographs from around the world, enlivened by sexy Playboy beauties, and featuring illustrated images of celebrities by Risko, there has never been a cigar book offering more of the good life than Playboy The Book of Cigars. It’s the perfect book to keep next to your humidor.
The real, untold, and unvarnished story of life inside the legendary Playboy Mansion—and the man who holds the key—from the woman who was Hef’s #1 girlfriend and star of The Girls Next Door. A spontaneous decision at age twenty-one transformed small-town Oregon girl Holly Sue Cullen into Holly Madison, Hugh Hefner’s #1 girlfriend. But like Alice in Wonderland after she plunged down the rabbit hole, what seemed like a fairytale life inside the Playboy Mansion—including A-list celebrity parties and her own #1-rated television show—quickly devolved into an oppressive routine of strict rules, manipulation, and battles with ambitious, backstabbing bunnies. Losing her identity, her sense of self-worth, and her hope for the future, Holly found herself sitting alone in a bathtub contemplating suicide. But instead of ending her life, Holly chose to take charge of it. In this shockingly candid and surprisingly moving memoir, this thoughtful and introspective woman opens up about life inside the Mansion, the drugs, the sex and the infamous parties, as well as what her relationships with her Girls Next Door co-stars, Bridget and Kendra were really like. Holly talks candidly about a subsequent abusive relationship, her own successful television series, and the hard work of healing, including her turn on Dancing with the Stars. A cautionary tale and a celebration of personal empowerment, Down the Rabbit Hole reminds us of the importance of fighting for our dreams—and finding the life we deserve.
Behind the "lights, camera, action" of Hollywood lies a world of deception, love, and seduction. Are you ready for Hollywood Royalty? Jessica An entertainment journalist was the last thing I thought I would be doing.I thought once I got my degree, I would be reporting on stories that made a difference, but now all I do is report on who broke up with who and who is dating who.I was over it.Then I got my next assignment. He's Hollywood's bad boy.He works hard, and he plays even harder.He's rude, he's condescending, and he's made it known he doesn't want me on the tour. With one month on the road with him, two things might happen.One, I may never work in this industry again.Two, I may just be like everyone else and fall for Hollywood's Playboy.
The real Hugh Hefner-the extraordinary inside story of an American icon "Riveting... Watts packs in plenty of gasp-inducing passages."-Newark Star Ledger "Like it or not, Hugh Hefner has affected all of us, so I treasured learning about how and why in the sober biography."-Chicago Sun Times "This is a fun book. How could it not be? Watts aims to give a full account of the man, his magazine and their place in social history. Playboy is no longer the cultural force it used to be, but it made a stamp on society."-Associated Press "In Steven Watts' exhaustive, illuminating biography Mr. Playboy, Hefner's ideal for living -- marked by his allegiances to Tarzan, Freud, Pepsi-Cola and jazz -- proves to be a kind of gloss on the Protestant work ethic."-Los Angeles TimesGorgeous young women in revealing poses; extravagant mansion parties packed with celebrities; a hot-tub grotto, elegant smoking jackets, and round rotating beds; the hedonistic pursuit of uninhibited sex. Put these images together and a single name springs to mind-Hugh Hefner. From his spectacular launch of Playboy magazine and the dizzying expansion of his leisure empire to his recent television hit The Girls Next Door, the publisher has attracted public attention and controversy for decades. But how did a man who is at once socially astute and morally unconventional, part Bill Gates and part Casanova, also evolve into a figure at the forefront of cultural change?In Mr. Playboy, historian and biographer Steven Watts argues that, in the process of becoming fabulously wealthy and famous, Hefner has profoundly altered American life and values. Granted unprecedented access to the man and his enterprise, Watts traces Hef's life and career from his midwestern, Methodist upbringing and the first publication of Playboy in 1953 through the turbulent sixties, self-indulgent seventies, reactionary eighties, and traditionalist nineties, up to the present. He reveals that Hefner, from the beginning, believed he could overturn social norms and take America with him.This fascinating portrait illustrates four ways in which Hefner and Playboy stood at the center of several cultural upheavals that remade the postwar United States. The publisher played a crucial role in the sexual revolution that upended traditional notions of behavior and expectation regarding sex. He emerged as one of the most influential advocates of a rapidly developing consumer culture, flooding Playboy readers with images of material abundance and a leisurely lifestyle. He proved instrumental-with his influential magazine, syndicated television shows, fashionable nightclubs, swanky resorts, and movie and musical projects-in making popular culture into a dominant force in many people's lives. Ironically, Hefner also became a controversial force in the movement for women's rights. Although advocating women's sexual freedom and their liberation from traditional family constraints, the publisher became a whipping boy for feminists who viewed him as a prophet for a new kind of male domination.Throughout, Watts offers singular insights into the real man behind the flamboyant public persona. He shows Hefner's personal dichotomies-the pleasure seeker and the workaholic, the consort of countless Playmates and the genuine romantic, the family man and the Gatsby-like host of lavish parties at his Chicago and Los Angeles mansions who enjoys well-publicized affairs with numerous Playmates, the fan of life's simple pleasures who hobnobs with the Hollywood elite.Punctuated throughout with descriptions and anecdotes of life at the Playboy Mansions, Mr. Playboy tells the compelling and uniquely American story of how one person with a provocative idea, a finger on the pulse of popular opinion, and a passion for his work altered the course of modern history. Spans from Hefner's childhood to the launch of Playboy magazine and the expansion of the Playboy empire to the present Puts Hefner's life and work into the cultural context of American life from the mid-twentieth-century onwards Contains over 50 B/W and color photos, including an actual fold-out centerfold
