All language subtitles for American Playboy s01e10 My Way.eng

[announcer] Hugh Hefner invites you

to Playboy's roller
disco and pajama party!

[Hugh Hefner] The 1970s
had been a whirlwind.

[Hugh Hefner] By the end of the decade,

Playboy operated over 30 properties

in six countries across the world.

[Hugh Hefner] And with the
center of the Playboy empire

now in Los Angeles,

we were throwing more parties than ever.

[Hugh Hefner] As we moved
into the 1980s, there was

even more excitement to look forward to.

Space Shuttle Columbia
became the first mission

of the long-awaited
space shuttle program.

[announcer] And liftoff.

[Hugh Hefner] And the
world of television

was forever changed

with the introduction of MTV.

As for Playboy,

after a rough patch in the '70s,

when circulation numbers were down

and ad revenues declined,

we still had a steady readership

of 4.5 million people each month.

Our first London Playboy
Club was so popular

that we'd opened four more
casinos across England.

Playboy's gambling
turnover in this country

amounts, in the past five years,

to something over ?660 million,

a great proportion of Playboy's profits.

[Hugh Hefner] And no one
was enjoying our success

more than the man
running our UK operation,

Victor Lownes.

[journalist] What's you're salary now?

Oh, about ?300,000 a
year. It's quite high.

[Hugh Hefner] After a decade in England,

Victor even had his own
42-room mansion that he shared

with Playmate-turned-
girlfriend Marilyn Cole,

and the two were fitting right in

with London's high society.

[James Karmel] Victor
Lownes has a lot of charisma.

He was riding horses with Prince Charles

and going on foxhunts with
the English aristocracy.

[Hugh Hefner] With his
casinos outperforming

longtime British gambling companies,

it seemed like nothing could stop Victor

and the UK operation's success.

[Victor Lownes] Yes, it's
a very profitable operation.

I've had many days here when we've won

as much money as we've
paid for the place.

[Hugh Hefner] But we
were about to find out

that being the biggest game in town

also made you the biggest target.

[woman]
Every little movement

- Synced and corrected by chamallow -
- www.addic7ed.com -

[Hugh Hefner] For nearly 15 years,

the Playboy operation in England

achieved unparalleled success...

... but all that changed
on February 20th, 1981.

[reporter] Playboy are accused
of violating the gaming laws.

Police raided its Park Lane offices.

The description by the
Westminster magistrates,

Playboy is not fit and proper

to run a casino operation.

[Hugh Hefner] The London police
staged a simultaneous raid

on all of our casinos.

Turns out, our success
was not sitting well

with some of our competitors.

They began making claims
of illegal operations

at our London club, prompting charges

that we'd violated a number
of English gaming laws.

Our staff was interrogated,

boxes of files were seized,

all in an effort to dig
up dirt on our operations.

[Karmel] Other casinos
were under scrutiny

and eventually, so was Playboy.

Playboy was accused
of some improprieties.

It's questionable whether
that was actually happening.

Lownes claimed they were not.

Lownes had always wanted his clubs

to be a model of integrity.

Today is not the end of
Playboy, but it could well be

the beginning of the end.

[Derick Daniels] The
casinos were raided.

Employees questioned. Files seized.

When did this happen?

Yesterday.

I don't understand.

Well, I don't have specifics yet,

but from what I'm hearing,
the allegations are serious,

like enough to lose
us our gaming licenses.

What?

Holy shit.

Exactly.

No. There is no way Victor is involved

in anything illegal.

Hef, I appreciate your loyalty,

but until we have the facts...

What did he say?

I haven't heard from him.

A friend of mine from The
London Times called me.

Apparently, it's all
over the newspapers.

The first thing he should
have done was call me,

but King Victor answers to no one,

and now we have a goddamn
shit storm on our hands.

He will answer to me. Forget the phone.

Get him here. Now.

My pleasure.

[Christie Hefner] Because of the
structure of the British oversight

and to some extent
because Victor liked to

keep information close to the vest,

the American executives were less aware

of the details of the business
than they might have liked.

[Hugh Hefner] I'd given
Vic a lot of freedom

to run the London operation

and I'd always trusted his decisions,

but with the London casino

responsible for 85% of our profits,

we needed to resolve this issue

as quickly as possible,

especially with a whole
new gambling operation

starting up in Atlantic City.

[Harry] Ethel, there's
something out there in the water.

[Ethel] Harry, there's
nothing out there.

Then what's rising out of the sea, huh?

Oh, that!

That's the new Playboy Hotel and Casino.

What?

Oh, Harry, it's the dawn of a new era

for the Playboy Hotel and Casino,

with their fantastic, new salon priv?.

They wait on you hand and foot.

Ethel, why is it rising out of the sea?

Oh, Harry, it's show business.

[announcer] The new, very
civilized, Playboy Hotel and Casino.

[reporter] Atlantic City is
already a new gambling mecca,

America's new Las Vegas.

[Hugh Hefner] Three years earlier,

Victor had begun construction

on a state-of-the-art
casino in Atlantic City.

[reporter] Despite the
legal wrangle in London,

the Playboy Club is alive

and profitable in Atlantic City.

[Hugh Hefner] We had invested
$30 million in the project,

and after obtaining a
temporary operating permit,

the Playboy Hotel and Casino

was open for business while we awaited

final approval from
the gaming commission.

[Karmel] Atlantic City
was a great opportunity

to import Playboy style and glamour

into the casino business,

which is something that they had

successfully been able
to accomplish in London.

That was a formula for success.

[Hugh Hefner] With so much riding

on our new casino in Atlantic City,

I needed to feel confident

that the situation in London

was under control.

[Hugh Hefner] Vic, I'm so
sorry to keep you waiting.

[Victor Lownes] Oh, no problem, buddy.

Where's Daniels?

Getting the noose ready somewhere?

This isn't about your
issues with Derick.

I don't have issues with Derick.

I have an issue. He wants my job.

He is the president of the company.

And I answer to the real boss.

Okay, then. Answer to me.

Tell me what the hell is going on.

Nothing.

Nothing. [sighing]

That's not gonna cut it, Victor.

Well, nothing of consequence.

I would call losing the licenses

a pretty stiff consequence.

We are not gonna lose the licenses.

That is not what Derick says.

Fuck Daniels.

He doesn't know the first thing

about what happened, Hef.

Okay, those raids were staged

based on evidence provided by

a crooked competitor's paid informants.

Look, it's a speed bump,
and when we're past it,

it's not just gonna
be business as usual.

It'll be bigger business.

In fact, I already have my eye

on two new locations.

Okay, okay. Let's
worry about the licenses

before we discuss expansion.

Hey, you can worry about
the licenses if you want,

but there is nothing there.

[sighing]

We've been through a lot together, Vic.

Yeah, we have.

Don't let this thing be the last.

I promise you it won't.

[Patty Farmer] Derick Daniels had
never gotten along with Victor.

They always clashed heads,
and it was often said

it was a wonderful thing
that an ocean separated them.

It was a definite clash of personalities

but also vying for the attention of Hef.

[Hugh Hefner] It didn't matter
whether or not I believed Vic.

The problems in London
were under his watch,

and now the entire company was at risk.

For Daniels, there
was only one solution.

Derick wanted to fire Victor
and Hef had a problem with it.

And then, we were told
by our British attorney

that if Victor were terminated,

we may well keep our license.

This was a moment of
truth for the company.

Our profits were coming from the UK.

Hefner had a fiduciary responsibility

as the CEO of the company

to not only protect the shareholders

but his investment and
the future of the company.

[Hugh Hefner] Victor and I had
been close friends for over 30 years

and there were few
people I respected more,

but with the future of the
London casino on the line,

I had no choice but to make

one of the hardest
decisions of my career.

[line ringing]

Yes. Can you put me through
to Derick Daniels, please?

Victor! A pleasure
to see you, as always.

Likewise. Especially unannounced.

This is my club.

It's the company's club.
And I run the company.

Really?

I'm sure Hef would be
very keen to hear that.

Oh, Hef sent me.

We'd like you to step down.

Step down?

Mm-hmm.

This will send a message
to the gaming commission

that we are serious about
cleaning up corruption.

There is no corruption,

which I will prove at the hearing.

But if you fire me, you're
basically admitting to it.

The decision has been made.

I knew we had trouble.
First trouble we'd had

in 15 years of operation in England,

and I was prepared to
do battle with them.

Unfortunately, I think

they stampeded Hefner into panicking

when we ran into difficulties in England

and made it a first order of business

to, uh, terminate me.

[Marilyn Cole] Playboy in
London, that was Victor's baby.

It was all very, very dramatic,

and Victor was devastated
in every which way,

and he was devastated for Playboy.

[reporter] After the
police raid, he was suddenly

and unexpectedly fired by
his American headquarters.

Victor Lownes, now the
interested spectator,

has not been asked to give evidence.

The sacking of you by
the men from Chicago...

Yes.

... would seem to be a rather clumsy way

of saying to the gaming
board and the law...

Yes.

... we are now clean again.

We've got rid of the number one culprit.

Give us a chance.

Do you think that's the strategy?

If I were the number one saint,

it'd still be the strategy, yes.

I mean, uh, regardless...

And I do feel that I did nothing wrong

during my administration.

[Cole] For Victor to
be fired from Playboy,

it was the biggest personal tragedy

as well as business tragedy
for both Hef and Victor.

[Hugh Hefner] Looking back now,

I wish I'd handled things differently.

Victor and I had been
through so much together

and I didn't even say goodbye.

But what made it even worse

is that it was all for nothing.

The licensing magistrates,

four women and a man,
issued their verdict.

Very simply, they said that Playboy

was not fit and proper
to hold a gaming license

and that the clubs had been
used for unlawful purposes.

[Hugh Hefner] The London Playboy Club

was still denied its gambling license.

[Karmel] What Hugh Hefner
and Derrick Daniels,

I don't think, grasped was,

Victor Lownes actually was still seen

with a lot of prestige and still had

a big influence in
the UK gaming industry

and still knew what he was doing.

He understood what
was going on in the UK

much more than anyone, and
so, by getting rid of him,

you're essentially removing
an asset from your company

and an asset that very
well might have been able

to guide Playboy
through the investigation

without having to lose
its casino licenses.

[Hugh Hefner] With the loss
of our gambling license,

we had to sell off all
of our London assets,

taking a huge financial hit,

but it turned out, we
had even more problems

in Atlantic City.

The applicant failed
the test that each of us

is required to pass in
the conduct of our affairs.

This applicant has not met its burden

to establish by clear
and convincing evidence

its qualifications to
hold a casino license.

[Hugh Hefner] Investigators
had looked through

all of Playboy's past
business operations

and dug up mistakes
we'd made in the past.

[Karmel] The Casino Control
Commission comes out with a report

detailing all these issues

with Playboy's permanent
casino application.

The vote went against
Hefner because of his part

in bribing New York officials

to obtain a liquor license 20 years ago.

[Karmel] They go back 20-plus years.

They look at anything and everything

connected to Hugh Hefner

and the fact that the
British Gaming Board

has just decided to yank
Playboy's casino licenses,

so Playboy loses its bid

for a permanent license
by a three-to-two vote.

Licensing Playboy, with its history,

would signal the abandonment

of virtually all licensing criteria

requiring ethical restraint.

If the unethical
practices and illegal acts

of corporations are not checked,

the future of a kind,
free casino industry

in Atlantic City would be in jeopardy.

[Hugh Hefner] The verdict was
a major blow to our business,

but I knew I had to put on a brave face

to maintain our reputation.

We are a sound, broadly-based company,

and we'll not only survive,

but we'll do very well
with or without gaming.

[Hugh Hefner] But after losing
both the London casino operations

and now the investment in Atlantic City,

the future of the
company was in jeopardy.

I know things look very dark right now,

but this is fixable.

Is it?

Yeah, of course.

But you had to think about it.

Oh, come on, Hef.

We just lost almost $200 million.

Yes, yes, I'm well
aware how much money...

How does that not put us
on the brink of extinction?

[Hugh Hefner] With Playboy's
reputation at an all-time low,

I knew we needed to make a major change

at the company if we were
going to get back on track,

and it was clear that
Daniels wasn't cutting it,

so I decided it was time to
put someone else in charge.

A couple of people in the news tonight.

Playboy Enterprises has a new president.

She's not a former centerfold.

She's Christie Hefner.

Christie, pretty enough
to be a centerfold herself,

will bring a new image
and new zest to Playboy.

[Richard Rosenzweig]
A moment of truth came

that things were not working
well with Derick Daniels.

Hefner said, well, so
now what am I gonna do?

We both agreed that Christie
would be an appropriate CEO.

She says she must now make Playboy

a clearly focused communications company

instead of a corporation
that is broadly based...

and I'm sure she intended no pun.

[Hugh Hefner] Christie
was my oldest child

with my first wife, Millie.

I hadn't been around much
when she was growing up,

but after she graduated summa cum laude

from Brandeis University in 1974,

Christie came to work at Playboy

in an entry-level position.

I only saw my father occasionally

when I was growing up.

I think that what allowed
us to get much closer

was when I went to work in the company,

and the outgrowth of that has been

we're actually now very close.

I joined the company not
really expecting to stay

more than a year or two,
but I did get interested

in the variety of
businesses and the challenges

and the people that it attracted,

and as I stayed and worked

in different parts of the
company and learned more,

I found it more and more intriguing.

[Rosenzweig] Christie
was extremely bright.

She had a natural knack
for organizational efforts.

[Hugh Hefner] Christie
may have been my daughter,

but she quickly carved
a path all on her own

within the company.

[Carrie Pitzulo] Christie
really earned for herself

a reputation as a very level-headed,

smart businesswoman.

Her lifestyle and her image

has been very different
than her father's.

[Hugh Hefner] And by
1982, she had proven

that she was more than capable

of taking over the reigns
of Playboy Enterprises.

I would like to introduce
another Playboy executive

who happens to be a woman,
one of whom I'm rather proud

because she's also my daughter,

but I would be very proud of her

if she weren't my
daughter, Christie Hefner.

[cheers and applause]

My being named president
actually was well received,

and I think that was because

I'd been in the company for seven years.

People had seen me, seen my work ethic,

seen how I handled myself.

Plus, I think the fact
that I was Christie Hefner,

I think people believed that I cared

and that I cared about the long term.

There is a bright and shining
star in the Hefner family

that's on the ascendency.

An articulate, committed young woman.

And we are going to be hearing

a great deal from her
in the years to come.

Christie, we thank you very much

for all that you're doing.

[applause]

[Hugh Hefner] But while there
was no better person for the job,

Christie was inheriting
a difficult situation.

They're calling it the end of an era,

the victim of changing times.

Playboy has closed
down its big city clubs

in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York.

[Hugh Hefner] Going into
the middle of the decade,

we were on the edge of bankruptcy.

[reporter] Playboy has lost
millions of dollars in recent years,

much of it because of the clubs.

Joe, that's the end of the "tail."

Oh-ho-ho. Very good, Bob.

[Hugh Hefner] With
the company in crisis,

Christie dove right into work.

When I took over as president,

my goal was to save the company.

The first order of business
was to stop the bleeding

and so we sold the businesses

that we didn't think we
could make successes of,

like the book business
and the record business

and the resorts.

[Hugh Hefner] Her efforts cut
costs by $8 million per year.

Despite these measures,

Playboy Enterprises still
lost $17.5 million in 1983.

Christie recognized that
if we wanted to survive,

we'd have to make some bigger moves.

The world was consuming
media in new ways,

and we needed to adapt
to changing times.

VCRs were in almost every
home across the country

and over 30 million people

had started paying for
premium cable stations

tailored to their interests.

Christie saw the chance to offer them

a whole new Playboy experience.

[announcer] The Playboy Channel.

When you start talking about Playboy

in combination with pay television,

people's eyes light
up, because it's about

the hottest news in the
business going right now.

[Christie Hefner] Cable
TV created the opportunity

for destination viewing

and a great way of
expanding the brand to women

because the majority of
viewing was done by couples.

Just the man I was looking for.

[David Eisenbach] Cable television
was one of these great steps

toward transforming and liberating

the dissemination of information,

and what this allowed
for, you know, Hugh Hefner

was now to have his own channel

that he doesn't have to
kind of filter himself

and his message or his information,

and this is, of course, a way to make

a tremendous amount of money.

[cheers and applause]

Hiya, Hef!

[Hugh Hefner] Airing between
8 p.m. and 6 a.m. Eastern time,

the Playboy TV Network

became the country's leading channel

for adult entertainment,
and as the channel grew

to more than 800,000 paying subscribers,

it gave us a much
needed boost in revenue.

With the channel
proving to be a success,

Christie turned to the magazine,

taking inspiration from
Playboy's very first issue.

[Christie Hefner] As there were
more and more magazines proliferated

from the time when Playboy started,

it became increasingly important

to be able to distinguish yourself

on the newsstand to attract
the interest of the buyer,

and one clear way to do
that was through celebrities.

[Hugh Hefner] Women like Vanna White

graced the covers and
helped us increase sales.

But in 1984, we were
offered exclusive rights

to nude photos of one celebrity

who was sure to cause controversy.

A year earlier,

20-year-old Vanessa
Williams had been crowned

the first African-American Miss America,

but it didn't take long

for someone from her past to surface,

looking to cash in on her celebrity.

Years ago, she'd posed
nude, but was told

the photos would only
be used in silhouette.

Now the photographer

was shopping around the full images.

Vanessa Williams' pictures
were offered to the magazine,

and there wasn't any question

that there would be
strong commercial appeal

in this beautiful young
woman who was the first

African-American Miss America,

but it was also quite obvious

that these were not pictures

that she had intended to have published.

[Hugh Hefner] We knew that
if Playboy ran those photos,

she'd be forced to give up her crown.

[Hugh Hefner] It was not a
difficult decision to make,

that if we ran those
pictures, we would destroy

the career of the first
black Miss America,

and that was the opposite

of the kind of statement
we wanted to make.

[Hugh Hefner] Playboy
rejected the photos.

[Pat Lacey] You don't
think he would have sold

a lot of Playboy
magazines? Most certainly!

Very much could've
brought those photographs

and put them in a magazine.

What kind of man would
want to give a young woman

that kind of pain?

[Hugh Hefner] But our
longtime rival, Penthouse,

published the photos in
their September 1984 issue,

and Williams was forced to resign.

[Vanessa Williams]
Potential harm to the pageant

and the deep division that
a bitter fight may cause

has convinced me that I must relinquish

my title as Miss America.

[Hugh Hefner] It became the highest
selling Penthouse issue ever,

and for the first time in history,

Penthouse sales beat ours

by nearly one million copies.

But that success was short-lived,

and soon Playboy was once again

outselling Penthouse.

Although we had been
through many struggles

over the past few
years, we never wavered

in our commitment to covering issues

that other publications

thought were too controversial.

And, in the mid '80s,
that issue was AIDS.

Scientists at the National
Centers for Disease Control

in Atlanta today released
the results of a study

which shows that the lifestyle

of some male homosexuals
has triggered an epidemic.

[Hugh Hefner] A strange, lethal,

sexually transmitted
disease with no cure.

It first appeared in the gay community

of New York City and spread quickly.

When AIDS starts off, at
least in the American mindset

and in the media as a gay disease

but suddenly then winds up

also affecting straight people...

The sexual revolution is
sex without consequences.

Now, suddenly, the
consequences can be deadly,

and this has a tremendous effect

on my generation that
grew up in the 1980s

that suddenly, wait a second,

this is something we
need to be anxious about.

Money for AIDS, not for war!

[Hugh Hefner] But the
government and the national press

largely ignored the crisis,

believing the subject
was too controversial.

The federal role must
be to give educators

accurate information about the disease.

Now, how that information is used

must be up to schools and
parents, not government.

[Hugh Hefner] But I was
determined to make sure Playboy

addressed the issue head on.

When the AIDS epidemic started,

and then-President Reagan
wouldn't even say the word,

Playboy played, I
think, an important role

in educating people
about how the disease

was transmitted and wasn't transmitted.

[Hugh Hefner] Playboy
ran dozens of articles

addressing the AIDS crisis,

along with interviews
and any other formats

we could think of to spread awareness.

When AIDS came along, it came
with the frightening thought

that everybody who engaged
in sex with a stranger

was going to get AIDS.

That was full of mythology.

I wrote a short editorial about AIDS.

We dealt with AIDS as
scientifically as we could.

[Hugh Hefner] Over
the past three decades,

Playboy had covered a wide
range of controversial topics,

and I was always proud
of the work we did,

but I was getting tired.

Christie had been at
the helm for six years

and proven she could run the company.

After 35 years, I decided, at age 62,

that I needed to step
back and settle down.

Though I'd shared my life

with many incredible
women over the years,

I'd sworn that I would
never marry again.

That is, until I met Kimberley Conrad.

[Rosenzweig] Kimberley Conrad came to us

as a potential Playmate

from a photographer in Vancouver.

Kimberley played hard to get, actually.

She was very attractive
and a lot of fun.

[Hugh Hefner] I met
Kimberley when she posed

for our January 1988
Playmate of the month.

I had met many of our
Playmates in the past,

but there was something
special about Kimberley.

[Hugh Hefner] I felt an
immediate sense of ease with her.

Hello.

This was our best Christmas ever.

It was.

[Hugh Hefner] It didn't take
either of us long to realize

that we were madly in love.

By February of that year,

Kimberley had moved into the mansion.

From there, things moved quickly.

[Hugh Hefner] Kimberly was
named Playmate of the Year

in June of 1989...

Having been in, over the years,

a number of romantic relationships,

this is different.

[Wedding March playing]

[Hugh Hefner] ... and became
Kimberly Hefner in July.

This is probably as good a moment as any

to thank all of you for sharing with us

a rather unique evening.

[cheers and applause]

One that you thought you'd never see.

[laughing]

I think that meeting
Kimberley is very much a matter

of having met the right person

in the right place at the right time.

I was ready for that
kind of relationship,

and she had the values
that I was looking for,

and she came to me at a time

in which I was looking for a safe harbor

after some very stormy seas.

[Hugh Hefner] Getting married
was only the beginning.

Wait, I'm right here! Be careful!

Don't drop it. Look! Look!

I think somebody's on his nap time.

[Hugh Hefner] Within a year,
our happy family expanded

when our son Marston was born.

Where are you going, little guy?

[Hugh Hefner] And the year
after that, his brother, Cooper.

[Rosenzweig] Hefner
was not really a parent

to his two children he had
with his first wife, Millie,

because he was busy with his business,

with starting the magazine.

The two boys he had with Kimberley

were doted on by Hefner.

In their very early years,

they spent a lot of time at the mansion,

playing with the animals and Hefner.

You're such a big guy.

When my brother and I came
along, my dad was older.

I think he, in his head,
wanted to try being a parent,

so, I mean, I saw him every single day.

He was much more hands on

in the sense of being a father.

You ready to go?

[Hugh Hefner] Almost
overnight, the mansion went

from the world's most
famous bachelor pad

to an island of domestic tranquility.

With my first marriage,
I knew I hadn't always

been the best husband or father,

but having this second chance

gave me a new lease on life.

It was truly one of my happiest times.

[Hugh Hefner] Not until the baby
was born did I really realize

what an impact it could
have on my own life.

It should've been that
way the first time,

but, of course, I just wasn't there,

emotionally or mentally.

And I think it's wonderful
to have the chance

to do it all right the second time.

I was busy trying to play catch up

with my other two children
after they were grown.

This time, I don't want to miss

all the wonderful part in between.

[Hugh Hefner] But sadly,
that happiness did not last.

Over time, it became
clear that Kimberley and I

weren't as compatible as
I had originally believed.

Our marriage came to
an end after nine years.

In the end, the most
important thing was the boys.

Although it hadn't worked
out with me and Kimberley,

I wanted my sons near me.

[Rosenzweig] He bought a
house next door to the mansion,

and Kimberley and the
boys grew up in that house.

This is to our new house.

Hopefully the neighbors won't
complain about our music.

[Rosenzweig] Hefner wanted it that close

so that he could be with the boys.

He and Kimberley had a
reasonable relationship

before the actual divorce and even now.

[Hugh Hefner] It wasn't easy at first,

but I soon realized

I still had a lot of life to live.

After years of being settled down,

Mr. Playboy was back.

Once again, the mansion became

the party destination

for Hollywood's A-list celebrities.

You know how to do it, Hugh!

[Hugh Hefner] And, of course,

the most beautiful women in the world.

Before I knew it, in 2003,

Playboy had reached another milestone...

... our 50th anniversary.

[Hugh Hefner] I could not have
imagined, on any kind of level,

the impact the magazine would have,

how it would change my life.

Who could have imagined it?

[Hugh Hefner] But the early 2000s

brought something we could
have never expected...

... the Internet.

[Eisenbach] The rise of the Internet

destroys the business model of Playboy.

There is no way that you
can sell printed material

or even a channel

when you have to
compete with free video,

open access, and any
kind of porn you want.

[Hugh Hefner] But while
we couldn't compete

with what was online,
there was one new trend

that was a perfect fit for Playboy.

Welcome to the Playboy Mansion.

[Hugh Hefner] And with
reality TV being all the rage,

I knew it could be the perfect way

to move Playboy into the 21st century.

I invited the world

into the Playboy Mansion every week

as the Playmates and I

just went about living our lives.

You look cute. Do you have boob glue on?

No.

You don't?

[Hugh Hefner] It was
called The Girls Next Door.

[Teri Thomerson] Initially
with The Girls Next Door,

there was kind of the belief that this

was going to draw more
of a male audience.

Is anybody going skinny-dipping?

[Thomerson] The truth is, it actually

attracted a predominantly
female audience.

This is the original
vibrating, rotating bed

from the Chicago Mansion, you know.

Really? Does it still work?

[squealing]

[Thomerson] People loved the girls.

There was something
relatable about each of them.

[Hugh Hefner] It lasted six seasons

and introduced Playboy
to a whole new generation,

and it became one of
the most successful shows

in the history of E! Network,

with over 2 million viewers at its peak.

Then, something unexpected happened.

In the final season of the show,

I was introduced to Crystal Harris.

She was our December
2009 Playmate of the Month

and we quickly fell in love.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce

for the first time, Mr.
and Mrs. Hugh Hefner.

[cheers and applause]

[Hugh Hefner] And after years of dating,

we were married on December 31st, 2012.

[Rosenzweig] Hef is a very romantic guy.

He adores Crystal

and they have a very,
very happy marriage,

and he is probably more of a husband now

than he was earlier in his life,

because he has more time
to spend with his wife

than he did with the other two women.

[Hugh Hefner] My
relationship with Crystal

couldn't be more perfect,

and I'm happier today
that I've ever been.

She really is my one true love.

It's been over six decades

since I started a magazine
at my kitchen table,

and in the years since,
Playboy has expanded

beyond my wildest dreams.

Our updated London casino,
which opened in 2011,

is one of the most successful

private club casinos in the world,

and our branded products

brought in $1.5 billion in 2016.

To this day, Playboy

is the third-most recognizable brand

in the world,

after only Apple and Coca-Cola.

I never could have imagined

that the conversations I started in 1953

would continue to this day.

Looking back on my life,

I see so many things.

What do you think of this?

[laughing]

[Kretchmer] Hefner is one
of the most underrated forces

in American life in the second
half of the 20th century.

Hefner changed the way
everybody thinks about sex.

Congratulations, Mr. Playboy.

[laughter]

[Brett Ratner] He took
us from '50s innocence

to '60s curiosity to '70s revolution.

He created the sexual
revolution, in my opinion,

and should have all the credit for that.

[Hugh Hefner] Cheers!
To the Playboy Club!

To the Playboy Club!

[Jesse Jackson] When most people
hear the name "Hugh Hefner,"

they think of the
magazine, the pictures,

and... and ooh-ee.

Well, Hugh Hefner was a real, authentic,

First Amendment devotee.

To him, it really was about
the freedom of expression.

[Mike Wallace] Police yesterday

carted two tons of obscene magazines,

films, and photographs

to the city incinerator and burned them.

[Bill Maher] I am not
a big fan of censorship,

and I'm glad I was born

after the people who came
before me, like Hugh Hefner.

A lot of these people
have got a lot of arrows.

Now, I've gotten some,
but not the way they did.

We stand on each other's shoulders.

[Cooper Hefner] It
wasn't that his attitudes

or point of view on
sex were revolutionary.

It was his ability
to deliver the message

as well as promote a
conversation about it

that was really revolutionary.

The magazine and the company
just became the messenger of,

these are conversations
we should be having

and these are topics we should
be thinking about a lot more.

He didn't introduce the world to sex.

He just allowed it to
step out of the closet.

Yes, yes. Straight down the lens.

Perfect.

I think he was confident
of what he had done,

how he had lived, what he believed.

He's remarkably able to
weather very difficult times

because of that.

[Hugh Hefner] I think part of
what my pursuit of happiness

has been all about has been an attempt

to walk a different road.

There is no fantasy that
I have not lived out.

If I were gonna rewrite my life

from beginning to end,

I might change a few punctuation marks,

but the things that mattered

could hardly have worked out any better.

[woman]
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