Autorentext
Steven Watts is Professor of History at the University of Missouri. He is the author of five books, including The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century and The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life.
Klappentext
Mr. Playboy
Hugh Hefner and the American Dream
"[An] exhaustive, illuminating biography."
—Los Angeles Times
"A fun book. How could it not be?"
—Associated Press
"Hugh Hefner has affected all of us, so I treasured learning about how and why."
—Chicago Sun-Times
"There's plenty to enjoy here, from the factual wealth . . . to the photographs aplenty . . . to the fundamental pleasures of watching a larger-than-life figure scuttle social norms and satisfy his own lavish urges."
—The Atlantic
"Watts carefully details the life of Hugh Hefner and the influence his Playboy magazine has had on American culture. Using unrestricted access to the magazine's archives, Watts skillfully charts the intersection of Hefner's professional and personal history."
—Publishers Weekly
"A nuanced portrait of Hefner's life that also serves as a panorama of hip culture from the 1950s onward. . . . Probably the last word on the man behind a million adolescent fantasies."
—Kirkus Reviews
"Riveting. . . . Watts packs in plenty of gasp-inducing passages."
—The Star-Ledger
"A well-documented biography written with access to Hefner's over 1,800 scrapbooks, the company archives, and interviews."
—Library Journal
Zusammenfassung
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 n
Inhalt
Acknowledgments.
Introduction: The Boy Next Door.
PART I BEGINNINGS.
1 A Boy at Play.
2 Boot Camp, College, and Kinsey.
3 The Tie That Binds.
PART II ASCENT.
4 How to Win Friends and Titillate People.
5 Hedonism, Inc..
6 The Pursuit of Happiness.
7 An Abundant Life.
8 Living the Fantasy.
PART III TRIUMPH.
9 The Philosopher King.
10 The Happiness Explosion.
11 Make Love, Not War.
12 What Do Women Want?
13 Down the Rabbit Hole.
14 Disneyland for Adults.
PART IV MALAISE.
15 A Hutch Divided.
16 The Dark Decade.
17 The Party’s Over.
18 Strange Bedfellows.
PART V RESURGENCE.
19 The Bride Wore Clothes.
20 All in the Family.
21 Back in the Game.
Epilogue: Playboy Nation.
Notes.
Index.