Hefner hangs with Jesse Jackson, who frequented the mansion, in 1969. (
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Grab your pipe, your silk pajamas and a pneumatic blonde . . . or seven. We’re all living in Hef’s world now. “It has been suggested that in social-sexual sense we now live in a Playboy world, and I think there’s some truth to that,” says Hugh Hefner. “You can now have sex outside of marriage, nice moral kids can now live together outside of marriage, birth control is legal now, abortion is legal now. All those things were part of the sexual revolution that Playboy played a major part in.”
The 84-year-old renaissance man, who claims to be a devoted Post reader (“I read [it] every morning,” he says), is the subject of Friday’s “Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel,” a documentary from Oscar-winning director Brigitte Berman that examines the magazine founder’s clashes with the government and his role in the civil- and abortion-rights battles.
The Post phoned Hef at the Playboy Mansion, and perhaps because he’s down to just one girlfriend these days, he had time to talk.
*Have you become desensitized to seeing women naked?
I guess I got used to it over the years, yes. I think that it never really loses its magic, if it’s the right girl. I have always been essentially a tradition-bound romantic. I’ve never really lost that.
* Is there a woman over 70 you’d consider dating?
[Laughs] Well, if there was, it’s the one that’s sitting right across from me, Mary O’Connor. She’s my secretary, and she’s the wonder of my life.
* It was surprising to learn from the movie that Martin Luther King, Jr. hung out at the mansion.
Back in the 1960s, a lot of members of the clergy came to the Playboy Mansion. It was a time of real revolution in the social scene in America, and the church was very much involved in that. So the same kind of re-evaluation in terms of values was going on inside religion, as well.
King was actually in Chicago, because at that time, the city was still very segregated, and he was trying to desegregate the schools. That is how I first met Jesse Jackson. He was with King, and King had done some writing for Playboy.
As a matter of fact, his last piece appeared in Playboy posthumously and was edited by his widow.
*Which presidential administration was most hostile to you?
Probably Reagan. The 1980s, the arrival of Reagan, was really the beginning of the religious right being involved in politics, and it was the religious right that helped get Reagan elected, and he paid them back by establishing the Meese Commission, which for the first time wound up labeling Playboy porn. It hasn’t fully escaped from that label since.
* Speaking of, are fake breasts going out of style?
I see no evidence of it. I think, quite frankly, it’s nicer if you’re well-endowed, but if you come up lacking in that department, one understands that that’s what cosmetic surgery exists for.
* Has there been a time since you started your empire when you couldn’t score with women?
No.
* Is it true that Playboy offered Justin Bieber’s mom a chance to pose nude?
If so, I’m not aware of it. I don’t think so.
* What’s the greatest length someone has gone to sneak into a mansion party?
[Actor and son of famed TV star Dick Van Patten] Jimmy Van Patten, who’s now a good friend, hid in the trunk of a car and was discovered. People have tried to find ways to get over the fence.
A couple of guys recently managed to get into a party hidden inside a fake cake. They were wearing costumes that made them look as if they belonged at the party once they got in.