All language subtitles for American Playboy s01e02 Birth Of The Centerfold The Girl Next Door.eng

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[Hugh Hefner] 1953 was a
year of all-American values.

"I Love Lucy" was the number
one show on television.

Dwight Eisenhower was sworn in

as the country's 34th President.

And suburban culture was a way of life.

But under the surface,

society was as repressed as ever.

It was a very culturally and
sexually conservative time.

Men and women were
expected to go to college,

get a job, get married, settle
down, and raise a family.

It was the new American dream,

the white picket fence
out in the suburbs.

And that's exactly the
life that Hefner was living,

but he found it deeply
unsatisfying and boring.

[Hefner] It was clear to me
that America needed a change,

so I decided I was going
to create a magazine

that would challenge conformity.

A modern men's magazine about lifestyle,

art, culture, and sex,

and I'd call it Stag Party.

But I knew the first issue
needed the perfect cover girl,

and after months of searching,
I had finally found her.

[door opening]

[door closing]

Hey, Hef, I got some
more girls here for you.

- What do you think about that?
- Good.

I have an option myself.
What do you think of this?

Um... that's Marilyn Monroe.

That's her. She's our pin-up girl.

[laughing]

[Hefner] In the spring of 1953,

I bought the rights to nude photos

of one of the most
famous women in the world,

Marilyn Monroe.

Now that we had our model,
I worked around the clock,

creating every single
aspect of the magazine...

... what would be in
it, how it would look.

He put the first issue
out singlehandedly.

He went over all the material,

he did some of the drawings himself.

[Hefner] I was determined to
create the perfect first issue.

There was a section with party jokes,

another on designs
for the modern office.

We would even publish classic literature

from some of the most well known authors

in the world.

[Jason Buhrmester] The boldest
thing Hef did with the magazine

is that he really dismantled the idea

of the 1950s masculinity.

In the first issue,
in the editor's letter,

Hef very plainly says,
other men's magazines

focus on hunting and fishing and sports.

We're not doing any of that.

We're gonna talk about jazz
and cocktails and Picasso.

[Hefner] We'd talk about culture,
but we'd also focus on sex.

[Hefner] When people raised questions

about why we included
sex in the magazine,

my response always was,
how could you put together

a men's magazine and not include

the primary thing that
men are interested in?

The whole idea from the
beginning was to incorporate sex

as one, normal and logical and
healthy part of a total package

that appealed to a male audience.

We featured articles on modern
dating and married life...

and instructions for how to play

a provocative new party game

called "Strip Quiz."

I think that we have it very,
very engrained in our heads

to be very uncomfortable with sex,

but that's the reason I'm here.

That's the reason why you're here.

That's the reason why we're all here.

[Hefner] My hope was that my magazine

would bring sex to the mainstream.

[Hefner] But just as we were putting
the final touches on the magazine,

everything came to a standstill.

It turns out, there
was a hunting magazine

already on the market called Stag,

and as soon as Stag
got wind of Stag Party,

they threatened to sue us
for copyright infringement.

Now, with only a week
before our deadline,

we had to completely
re-edit the magazine

and come up with a brand new title.

[Hefner] Facing a potential
lawsuit, I gathered my staff

to try and come up with a
new name for the magazine.

Bachelor.

[Art Paul] Ah, it makes it sound

like we're not for married men.

We'd be cutting out a whole reader base.

What about something
like Sir or Gentlemen?

[Hefner] No, no, it's too literal.

It has to be fun. What
does the name Jaguar

have to do with a car company?

Nothing, but it sounds cool, right?

Oh, oh! What was the
name of that car company

my mom used to work for? Playboy.

Playboy.

[Eldon Sellers] We spent many,
many hours talking about names.

Finally, I remembered that my mother

had worked for an
automobile company in Detroit

called Playboy Automobile,

and it was a very sporty
looking automobile,

a nice looking automobile,
and that's what made me

mention Playboy as a possibility.

[David Eisenbach] Playboy. Perfect.

It isn't aggressive. It
isn't hyper-masculine.

Yeah, okay, you're
doing nudie magazines,

but there's a sophistication to it.

[Hefner] We had our new name.

Now we had to quickly revise the cover

and remove all references to Stag Party

throughout the magazine.

Back then, when you're literally
pasting print onto a page,

somebody would have to take a
knife, a little X-Acto knife,

and cut out every Stag Party
on every page of the magazine

and replace it with Playboy. Even today,

with desktop publishing
and all that kind of stuff,

that would be an
incredible amount of work.

[Hefner] Even our
cartoon mascot of a deer

would have to change to something else,

and we chose a bunny.

The rabbit captures the sophistication,

the silliness of the brand.

There is the sort of sexual
connotation of a rabbit

that comes through.

[Hefner] I had no idea at the
time, but that one little change

would come to define
the magazine for decades.

We had our mascot in place,

and with Marilyn on the
cover, we were ready to go.

Soon, almost 70,000 copies of Playboy

would be heading to major
cities across the country.

The only question was, would it sell?

In December of 1953, my
magazine hit the newsstands.

[man] Thank you.

[Sellers] Hef got up and lurked
around newsstands in Chicago

and waited to see if anyone
would pick up the copy

and has talked about how excited he was

the first time he saw someone buy it.

And I imagine he was elated to know

there were other people out
there who felt like he did,

because he was taking this gamble.

[Hefner] I was excited,
but I was also nervous,

so nervous I didn't put
my name or issue number

on our first publication.

I felt at the time, even if
there was never going to be

another issue that I'd
had my chance, and indeed,

at that point, I was not sure
there would be a second issue.

That's why it had no date on it.

Whether I succeeded or not,
I'd had the chance to try.

[Hefner] And then, the numbers came in.

In its first two weeks
on the newsstands,

nearly 80% of the 70,
000 issues we printed

were sold across the country.

[Richard Rosenzweig] It
was virtually sold out.

He edited this magazine for
himself, and he was betting

that other young men were interested

in the same things he was interested in,

and he won that bet.

[Hefner] It was enough for me
to pay back everyone I owed,

get our furniture back,

and still have enough left over
to replace my 12-year-old Chevy

with a brand-new Studebaker sports car.

"May I congratulate you
on your initial issue

of Playboy magazine."

[Hefner] And it wasn't long
before fan mail started pouring in.

[Hefner] Readers in Oklahoma,
Colorado, and Illinois

were raving about
Marilyn and the magazine.

[Hefner] Even the press
gave us positive reviews.

The magazine started from
nothing and was a success

from its very first issue.

It was as if it was
a moment and an event

that was waiting to happen.

- Just back to back.
- Good.

Yeah, with a little explanation and, uh.

[Hefner] We were so surprised
by the magazine's success

that we hadn't even thought
about a second issue,

and now we had only a
week to put one together.

To make our lives easier,
we stuck to what made

the magazine work the first time,

adding more party jokes,
comics, and literature,

but this time, we were
missing one key component.

No. There's nothing good here.

Well, this is all we
have to choose from,

so one of them has to be good enough.

I'm sorry, but none of
these girls are right.

None of these girls are Marilyn, Hef.

They're just not.

But if you want to print a second issue,

you need to pick one of them.

[Hefner] Putting Marilyn
Monroe on the cover

had drawn in readers
for the first issue,

but I knew I wasn't going
to find another Marilyn.

If Playboy was going to last
I had to find another hook,

and that's when it hit me.

[Hefner] Remember
back in my college days

when I started a column
in the school magazine

called "Co-Ed of the Month"

that featured female students?

I realized Playboy
could do the same thing,

only we'd call her the
Playmate of the Month.

[Hefner] I had completely forgotten
that the cover of Shaft Magazine

and the feature inside it was
called the Co-Ed of the Month.

It was a revelation.

[Hefner] So, a calendar
girl named Margie Harrison

became Miss January.

[Buhrmester] Publishing
photos of naked women,

that was nothing new.

It was Hef's personalized
approach to that,

where they were called Playmates.

This was someone, your partner in crime.

This was someone you did things with.

[Hefner] Was it our best issue? No.

[Hefner] But I was
confident enough this time

to put my name and issue number on it.

[Hefner] And believe it
or not, the second issue

outsold the first by 2,000 copies.

[Hefner] Now that our
magazine was a success,

I knew my staff of three wasn't enough.

[Hefner] What do you think of Playboy?

I think your fiction section
could use a little work.

Oh, really?

[Hefner] When I met Ray Russell,

he was just an unpublished
science fiction writer,

but he'd submitted a few
pieces to the magazine

and I really liked his style.

Although his only experience

was writing for Walgreens circulars,

I made Ray my associate editor.

My next focus was the visuals.

I had worked with a
guy named Vince Tajiri

during my publishing house days,

whose talent I felt was
never fully recognized.

These days, he was stuck

taking wedding photos to pay the bills,

so he was more than happy
to accept the position

as Playboy's photo editor.

The little magazine that I had started

with a couple of friends

was suddenly outgrowing
my kitchen table,

so in the spring of 1954,

with the money we had earned
from the first two issues,

Playboy moved into its own offices.

- Good morning, Mr. Hefner.
- Good morning, Julie.

[Hefner] With our new headquarters...

Eldon.

... my staff was ready to get to work.

Can I talk to you in
my office? Five minutes?

[Cooper Hefner] My dad's success
very much has to do with the fact

that he surrounded himself
with the right people,

and that comes down to his gut.

His gut allowed him to
figure out who he could trust,

who he couldn't... also to
bring out the best in his team.

[Hefner] With our sales growing,

we needed someone to take care
of the subscription requests

that came pouring in.

Hello? No, of course.

I can do that for you
right now if you like.

[Hefner] So, I hired Charlaine Karalus,

a smart, determined young woman

with meticulous attention to detail.

Perfect. That won't be a problem.

I can get a copy over to him. Bye.

[Charlaine Karalus] I
had a friend that told me

about Playboy wanting help,

so we decided we would
go for an interview.

Well, we stopped at a newsstand
and we bought the magazine.

She took it real quick
and hid it under her jacket

so no one would see it.

Turned out, my friend
backed out of the interview.

She chickened out and I didn't.

I had hoped to get on the ground floor

with this magazine and grow with them.

These various employees
that we're talking about,

one could say that Hef lucked out

with these guys, because
one never really knows,

but Hefner's gut told him

these were the right
people for the right jobs.

Okay, great, so what's your
turnaround time on that?

[Hefner] I'd assembled a team
of promising, if unproven, talent

but I knew I needed someone on staff

who could lend a little
credibility to the magazine,

so I hired a guy who had been
an editor at The New Yorker.

His name was Auguste Comte Spectorsky,

or as we'd soon call him, Spec.

Hiring Spectorsky

was a brilliant move on Hefner's part.

Spectorsky gave the magazine a maturity

it wasn't going to have,
and it's to Hefner's credit

that he understood the
magazine needed that maturity.

[Hefner] I finally had a team in place

and it was time to see
what we could accomplish.

[Hefner] The staff worked like crazy

to get the magazine
together every month.

[Hefner] Day in, day out,

we clocked long hours
and worked weekends.

[Richard Rosenzweig] Playboy was
one of the most exciting places

one could work.

Very different from most
of the other companies

that were around in Chicago
or New York or Los Angeles.

[Hefner] I even bought a
pullout couch for my office

so I could work overnight.

I started spending
most of my time at work,

away from my family.

He spent the majority of
his time in that office.

He had a small little bed,

he had a small little kitchenette,

and he just worked,

and unfortunately, his
marriage suffered from that.

[Hefner] In the marriage, I
was already missing emotionally.

I'm the product of the way I was raised.

While my father was absent emotionally,

I was soon absent.

In point of fact, I wasn't there.

[Millie Gunn Williams] That
physical change occurred

because of the success of the magazine.

It was easier for him

to set up living
quarters somewhere else,

and that's when he said,
"I'm gonna start staying...

living down at the office
a couple of days a week."

[Hefner] The team at Playboy
became my other family.

We worked hard, but we also partied.

And with the magazine's growing success,

we were getting invited to some
of the best parties in town.

[Hefner] And that's
where I was introduced

to a man named Victor Lownes.

Victor, this is the friend

I was telling you about, Hugh Hefner.

There you are. Hi, how are you?

Hef runs the magazine.

Oh, Mr. Playboy. I like your look.

Nice and casual.

Thank you. Is this your place?

Yeah, sure is.

[Victor Lownes] When I met
Hef, I thought he was terrific.

Hefner was a very ambitious businessman,

a very clever businessman.

I mean, anybody who could start

their own magazine,
I was very impressed.

[Lownes] It was great to meet you, Hef,

but I have some business to attend to.

Um, how about we grab some drinks

at Walton Walk on Friday?

Sure. That sounds good.

Good.

I'll bring along some friends.

Okay.

[Hefner] For almost a year,

I'd been creating a
magazine called Playboy.

But then one night at a party,

I actually met one.

By 1954, Victor Lownes
was the ultimate bachelor.

He came from a wealthy
family in New York

and was given anything he wanted.

By the age of 26, he
had moved to Chicago

and was living the bachelor's dream.

He had the cool
apartment, suave attitude,

and the women.

Victor was leader of the pack.

Everyone wanted to be
with him, men and women.

He just has this gift of life.

He had great style, he had great flair.

There was never a dull
moment with Victor Lownes.

[Hefner] I knew Victor could
add something to the magazine,

so I brought him on board
as manager of promotions

and he fit right in.

[Lownes] So, we got two girls, right?

One of 'em puts her
leg across me, right?

Hand underneath.

[Arthur Kretchmer] Victor Lownes
played a great role at the company.

He was something that Hefner
was not... bold, brash.

He was the complement to Hef,

who was, after all, a
little bit shy and cerebral.

Meanwhile, I'm at the front, here.

[Hefner] Victor lived the
life most guys dreamed of...

All the way at the front. Yeah!

[laughter]

[Hefner] ... and I
wanted to be a part of it.

[Lownes] Not even kidding.

No socks, no necktie, nothing.

[Hefner] I was out with Victor
almost every night of the week.

The guy could get into
any club in Chicago

and always managed to bring
along some incredible company.

[Lownes] I had a very good
bond with Hefner himself.

The two of us worked late at night

and then we would go out
and have drinks together,

and that became a regular pattern.

[clears throat] Well, we're dancing.

[Christie Hefner] Victor, in some ways,

was more the image of
the editor/publisher

of Playboy than my father was,

because Victor was someone
who loved good food and wine,

who loved to travel, who was
more gregarious and sociable.

So, are you gonna ask
me to dance or what?

Oh, of course.

[Patty Farmer] Hef really
did not have the example

or the sophistication growing up

to be what everyone now
thinks of as a playboy.

[Farmer] It wasn't until his
association with Victor Lownes

that they almost became a whole.

[Hefner] Partying with
Victor opened my eyes

to a completely different world...

... and I jumped right in.

[Hefner] The beginning of Playboy

introduced me to a bachelor lifestyle

that has much of the upside
and very few of the downside.

[Hefner] I felt no
guilt in that context.

I felt that I was
exploring the outer limits

of what it meant to really be moral.

But the truth of the matter
is, I was running away,

I think, from my traditional values.

[Hefner] You have to
remember, this was the 1950s.

You were supposed to get married

and start a family right after school.

But times were changing.

[Christie Hefner] My father had a sense

that he wanted more out of life

than he had seen his
father get out of life,

and that a part of that was the idea

of having a period of time

before you got married and settled down.

And he got married young,
and I think, too young,

and he would say that.

[Hefner] As I began
spending more of my time

living the life of a single man,

I realized it was time to
update the magazine's message.

[Hefner] When I started Playboy,
it was filled with topics

that met my interests.

[Hefner] But now I wanted to do more.

I wanted to turn the
magazine into a guide

for how to become the ultimate playboy.

[Hefner] What is a playboy?

Just toss out a word.

A bachelor.

[Hefner] What else?

[Sellers] Suave.

[Russell] Sophisticated.

- Intelligent.
- Urbane.

[Hefner] Right.

Every time someone picks
up a copy of Playboy,

I don't want him to just imagine himself

as the type of guy who
can get the girl he wants.

I want to teach him how.

How to buy the right suit,

select the right bottle of wine,

put on the right music
when a girl comes over.

I don't want to follow trends.

I want to create them.

And that is why every
article, every picture,

every page must be specifically tailored

to promote this one, singular vision...

the Playboy lifestyle.

[Hefner] The message was very clear.

We were talking about how
to live as a single male.

And nobody had done that before.

[Hefner] My staff had
their marching orders,

and we worked around the clock,

redefining every section of the magazine

to promote the Playboy lifestyle.

[Hefner] Tajiri translated
his slick photographic style

into how-to guides...

[camera shutter snapping]

... teaching our readers to
select the finest in fashion,

mix the perfect cocktail,

outfit the most
cutting-edge bachelor pad

and orchestrate the perfect date.

[Buhrmester] There's a
generation of men who said,

"I'm not gonna marry
the girl down the street

and I'm gonna move to a major city."

That really shook up America

and I think that bred the
ground for Hef to come out

and invent the idea of the bachelor.

[Hefner] I think the thing
that made Playboy so special

was that we managed to mix the lifestyle

and the sexual content

with a mix of contemporary values

that were not really getting expression

in other mass media.

[phone ringing]

[Hefner] Our readership
continued to expand...

Yeah, it's nice, it's nice.

[Hefner] ... and I realized that
we were no longer just a magazine.

We were becoming a brand.

But there was still one thing missing.

Playboy needed a logo.

So I gave Art Paul the
task of designing it.

[Hefner] Four minutes later,

he had sketched the perfect symbol...

[Hefner] ... an image so
flawless that even 60 years later,

it remains completely unchanged.

The Playboy rabbit head is iconic.

It is one of a handful of symbols that,

from very early on, became
phenomenally recognizable.

[Hefner] Our famous mascot
became a part of every issue,

with Art Paul turning it into a game,

challenging our readers

to find the rabbit
hidden on every cover.

[Brett Ratner] The best
comparison I have for Hef,

I would say Hefner is Walt Disney

and the bunny is his Mickey Mouse.

[Ratner] It's branding. It's
marketing. It's brilliance.

Pass these around, gentlemen.

[Hefner] Looking back, 1954
had been an incredible year.

The magazine I'd started
with a staff of three

had taken over four floors
of a Chicago office building,

hired over 25 employees,

and grown monthly sales
to nearly 185,000 copies,

more than doubling the print-run

of our first issue.

It's really remarkable
the magazine was profitable

in its first year. Nobody does that.

Sports Illustrated, for
a frame of reference,

started about the same time as Playboy,

and they didn't turn a
profit until the early '60s.

[Christie Hefner] My
father wasn't around a lot

when I was growing up.

Putting the magazine first,
which Hef clearly did,

meant, by definition,
that he wasn't gonna have

the same kind of family
life that he would have

if he hadn't done that.

[Millie Gunn Williams] He
was so busy with the company,

he didn't have a lot of time,

but he was Daddy, and Daddy was good,

and Daddy was caring.

But he was fairly non-existent.

[Hefner] I knew I should
have been home with my family

to be the father Christie needed,

but there was always
something at the office

that pulled me away.

[Art Paul] All right, so
you can see we're going

for a beach theme here.

We're incorporating an image
of the bunny in the sand,

making use of the bathing suit,

and you can see there's
just a pair of legs

walking into the distance,
suggesting that it may be

her suit that we're
seeing, which of course

would mean that she's not
wearing anything at all.

Uh, it was just an idea.

I can come up with a
couple other options

if you're not happy with it, Hef.

No, no. It's a good
cover. It's a great cover.

It's better than the centerfold.

This is inspired.

This is just awkward, right?

Why don't we take our own photographs?

[men groaning]

Why not?

She has a point. Why don't we?

See if you can find out
where the calendar companies

are getting their girls from.

Yeah, I'll get on it.

Thank you, everyone.

[Karalus] At the time, Playboy was using

calendar pictures for their centerfolds.

They were professional models,

and they were not exclusive pictures,

Hefner was very unhappy with
the quality and the caliber.

He wanted something
different, something new,

something unique, and
something, you know,

special that Playboy would have.

Charlaine, if you ever have any ideas,

my door's always open.

[Hefner] Charlaine was a
talented, beautiful woman.

[Hefner] The more we worked
together, the closer we got.

[Hefner] And it wasn't long

before we became more
than just coworkers.

I'm gonna get a glass of
water. Do you want one?

Sure.

Why are you looking at me like that?

Have you ever thought
about being in the magazine?

Doing what, exactly?

Miss July.

[laughing]

No, I'm serious.

Wouldn't you like to be
pictured in a magazine?

I'm sure there are
plenty of girls out there

who would be more than
happy to pose for you.

I don't want those girls. I want you.

Why?

Because you're not the
type of girl you'd expect.

[Hefner] I had sent my team out
looking for the perfect girl.

And I realized she had been
in front of me all along.

I really did the Playmate
picture as sort of a lark.

It seemed like a fun thing to do.

It was out of loyalty to the magazine,

and it was just super fun.

[Hefner] Charlaine's one condition

was that we didn't use her real name...

... so I came up with
an alias, Janet Pilgrim,

and wrote a short blurb
to go along with the photo,

explaining that she
wasn't like the models

we'd used in the past.

She was plucked right
from our own office,

and to Playboy's readers,

she would simply be the girl next door.

You look great.

[Karalus] When I did my
first Playmate picture,

I was very nervous about it
because I knew hundreds of men

would be opening that magazine
and seeing me like that,

but I wasn't really
showing much of anything.

[camera shutter clicking]

[Hefner] With that issue,
our subscription manager

became the magazine's
most popular Playmate yet.

Letters poured in from
across the country,

and I realized the girl next door...

... was a hit.

[Art Paul] That looks
great. Here. You know what?

Just come forward a little bit.

The idea that then evolved was to use,

when we talk about the girl next door,

in other words, to use an office girl

or somebody going to college

or someone working as a clerk in a shop.

[Hefner] And what we didn't know

was that it was gonna
cause such a sensation.

And it caused a sensation.

[Buhrmester] She's not unapproachable.

Hef wanted to capture
the girl-next-door essence

of a flirtiness but
also an approachability.

[Hefner] We had gone from the
most famous woman on the planet

to the girls right there in front of us,

and I knew, from that moment on,

we were never going back.

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