Hugh Hefner Trivia : 55 facts about the founder of Playboy

Hugh Hefner was an American magazine publisher, editor, businessman, and playboy. He was best known as the editor-in-chief and publisher of playboy magazine, which he founded in 1953, and his playboy mansion. Lets see some interesting facts about the businessman!

1. His full name was Hugh Marston Hefner.

2. He was born on the 9th of April in 1926.

3. His place of birth was Chicago, Illinois.

4. He was the first child of Grace Caroline and Glenn Lucius Hefner.

5. His parents were both teachers.

6. They were from Nebraska.

7. Hefner’s mother was of Swedish descent, and his father had German and English ancestry.

8. Hugh attended Sayre Elementary School and Steinmetz High School.

9. In the second world war he served as a writer for a military newspaper in the U.S. Army from the year 1944 to 1946.

10. Hefner graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 1949.

11. He obtained a bachelor of arts in psychology and a double minor in creative writing and art.

12. He wrote and drew his own comic book, called School Daze, when he was in high school.

13. After graduation, he took a semester of graduate courses in sociology at Northwestern University but dropped out soon after.

14. Hefner quit his job in January 1952 as a copywriter for esquire after being denied a $5 raise.

15. He first married his college girlfriend, Mildred Williams, in 1949.

16. She confessed to cheating on him before they were married. He said her confession was the most devastating moment of his life.

17.  Playboy was originally going to be called Stag Party.

18. Hefner has been married three times, and always has multiple girlfriends around him. His first two marriages have given him four kids.

19. In 1955 he wrote a short story about straight men in a homosexual world called  “The Crooked Man” which was rejected by Esquire magazine and instead published by Playboy magazine.

20. He took out a loan for $600 and borrowed $1,000 from his mom to start Playboy.

21. He holds two Guinness World Records: Longest tenure as editor-in-chief and the largest collection of personal scrapbooks.

22. Hefner has actually been arrested in the past for promoting pornographic literature after publishing an issue of Playboy that featured nude pictures of Jayne Mansfield, an American actress and early Playboy playmate.

23. The first issue of Playboy was released in December of 1953. He didn’t put a date on the premiere issue because he wasn’t sure if a second would be issued.

24. His IQ was of 152, but he was an average student.

25. He made a guest appearance in the 1993 The Simpsons episode “Krusty Gets Kancelled”, where he guest-voiced himself.

26. He also guest starred as himself in a 2006 episode of Seth Green’s Robot Chicken which can be found on the widely known mature cartoon website Adult Swim.

27. He lost his virginity at the mature age of 22.

28.  In 1971, he made it known that he had experimented in bisexuality.

29. The first issue of Playboy sold 50,000 copies, because it contained a calendar featuring Marilyn Monroe in the nude.

30. Hugh Hefner’s son Cooper is engaged to Harry Potter actress Scarlett Byrne.

31. His daughter, Christy Ann Hefner, stepped down from running the Playboy empire and is currently chairman of the board of Hatch Beauty, and serves on the advisory board of Springboard Enterprises.

32. In 1992, Hugh Hefner purchased the plot next to Marilyn Monroe’s grave in Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery for the astonishing amount of $75,000.

33. In 1989 he married Playmate of the Year Kimberley Conrad.

34. They had an age gap of 36 years.

35. They had two sons together.

36. When they broke up she bought the mansion exactly next to his.

37. Girls living in the Playboy mansion aren’t allowed to do drugs and will be evicted if they violate that rule. They have to be home by 9 PM every night unless they’re with Hugh.

38. In January 2016, the Playboy Mansion was put on the market for $200 million, under the strict condition that Hefner would continue to work and live there.

39. In 2010, he donated $900,000 to preserve the 138 acres surrounding the Hollywood sign.

40. The Playboy Mansion has its very own zoo license as it is home to plenty of animals.

41. In 1960, when racial segregation denied black Americans equal rights, Hefner started the first Playboy Club in Chicago and offered admission to people of all races.

42. He has absolutely no idea how many women he’s slept with, but imagines it to be around 2,000.

43. Hefner used the pages of his magazine to write lengthy articles fighting censorship and promoting various other libertarian causes.

44. He supposedly drank 36 bottles of pepsi a day.

45. Hefner donated $100,000 to the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts to create a course called “Censorship in Cinema”.

46. In 1985 Hefner suffered a stroke that left him temporarily partially paralyzed and unable to speak from which he successfully made a full recovery.

47. Because of that incident he tried to mantain a more “lowkey” kind of lifestyle.

48. His mansion is the only residence that has obtained a fireworks license for the annual event of the 4th of July.

49. Hefner steadily supported the legalization of same-sex marriage, and he stated that a fight for gay marriage was a fight for all our rights.

50. John Lennon was almost banned from the mansion after he drunkenly stamped out a cigarette on a Matisse painting.

51. A species of rabbit named Sylvilagus palustris hefneri, found in Lower Keys marsh was named after him.

52. There is also a braille version of Playboy magazine.

53. The magazine is banned in all Muslim countries and in some Asian countries.

54. Hefner passed away of natural causes at his home in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, California on September 27, 2017, at the age of 91.

55. He will be buried next to the grave of Marilyn Monroe.