Playboy

Playboy (stylized in all caps) is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine published in print and online. Founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and associates, it was partly financed by a $1,000 loan from Hefner’s mother (about $12,000 in 2025). The magazine is famous for its centerfolds of nude or semi-nude female models called Playmates, and it was a key player in the sexual revolution. It remains a globally recognized brand, extending into nearly every type of media. Besides the U.S. flagship edition, country-specific versions are produced worldwide by licensees, including Dirk Steenekamp’s DHS Media Group.

The magazine regularly featured interviews with well-known celebrities, authors, and politicians, along with short stories from novelists such as Arthur C. Clarke, Ian Fleming, Vladimir Nabokov, Saul Bellow, Chuck Palahniuk, P. G. Wodehouse, Roald Dahl, Haruki Murakami, and Margaret Atwood. Full-page color cartoons were a staple, showcasing cartoonists like Jack Cole, Eldon Dedini, Jules Feiffer, Harvey Kurtzman, Shel Silverstein, Doug Sneyd, Erich Sokol, Roy Raymonde, Gahan Wilson, and Rowland B. Wilson. The bunny logo was designed by Art Paul. LeRoy Neiman created the Femlin characters for Playboy jokes, and Patrick Nagel painted the headers for sections like Playboy Forum. After removing most nude photos for about a year, the magazine brought nudity back in the March–April 2017 issue.

**Publication history**

**1950s** Hugh Hefner earned a psychology degree from the University of Illinois in 1949. He then worked at Esquire in Chicago writing promotional copy, at Publisher’s Development Corporation in sales and marketing, and at Children’s Activities as circulation promotions manager. By spring 1953, he had planned a magazine he wanted to call *Stag Party*. He formed HMH Publishing Corporation and asked his friend Eldon Sellers to find investors. Hefner raised just over $8,000 (about $96,000 in 2025), including money from his brother and mother. However, the publisher of an unrelated men’s adventure magazine called *Stag* threatened a trademark lawsuit if Hefner used that name. Hefner, his wife Millie, and Sellers met to brainstorm new names—considering “Top Hat,” “Gentleman,” “Sir,” “Satyr,” “Pan,” and “Bachelor”—before Sellers suggested “Playboy.”

The first issue came out in December 1953, undated because Hefner wasn’t sure there would be a second. He produced it in his Hyde Park kitchen. The first centerfold was Marilyn Monroe, though the photo had originally been taken for a calendar. Hefner chose what he considered the “sexiest” image: a previously unused nude study of Monroe stretched on red velvet, eyes closed and mouth open. Heavy promotion, centered on Monroe’s nudity from the already-famous calendar, made the issue a success, selling out within weeks. The cover price was 50¢, and known circulation was 53,991. By 2002, mint-condition copies of that first issue sold for over $5,000 (about $9,000 in 2025).

In 1954, Playboy serialized Ray Bradbury’s sci-fi novel *Fahrenheit 451* (published the previous year to little attention) in its March, April, and May issues, greatly boosting the book’s popularity.

An urban legend arose about Hefner and the Playmate of the Month due to markings on the magazine’s front covers. From 1955 to 1979 (except for a six-month gap in 1976), the “P” in Playboy had stars printed in or around the letter. Rumors claimed these stars rated the Playmate’s attractiveness, the number of times Hefner slept with her, or her performance in bed. In reality, the stars—ranging from zero to 12—indicated the domestic or international advertising region for that printing.

**1960s–1990s** In the 1960s, the magazine added a column called “The Playboy Philosophy,” covering topics like gay rights, women’s rights, censorship, and the First Amendment. Playboy was an early supporter of cannabis reform and helped fund the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in 1970.

From 1966 to 1976, Robie Macauley served as fiction editor. During his tenure, the magazine published stories by Saul Bellow, Seán Ó Faoláin, John Updike, James Dickey, John Cheever, Doris Lessing, Joyce Carol Oates, Vladimir Nabokov, Michael Crichton, John le Carré, Irwin Shaw, Jean Shepherd, Arthur Koestler, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Bernard Malamud, John Irving, Anne Sexton, Nadine Gordimer, Kurt Vonnegut, and J. P. Donleavy, as well as poetry by Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

At the 1968 feminist Miss America protest, symbolic feminine products—including copies of Playboy and Cosmopolitan—were thrown into a “Freedom Trash Can.” A key pamphlet, “No More Miss America!” by Robin Morgan, listed ten ways the pageant degraded women, comparing it to Playboy’s centerfold as “The Unbeatable Madonna–Whore Combination.”

After peaking in the 1970s, Playboy’s circulation and cultural influence declined due to competition—first from *Penthouse*, then from *Oui* (a Playboy spin-off) and *Gallery* in the 1970s; later from pornographic videos; and more recently from lad mags like *Maxim*, *FHM*, and *Stuff*. In response, Playboy tried to reclaim its 18–35-year-old male audience by adjusting content and focusing on relevant issues and personalities.