A happy birthday shout to Hugh Hefner...
80 years young!
Playboy creator Hugh M. Hefner is in the middle of an interview about his 80th birthday when a TV cameraman asks him to move a statue of former playmate Barbie Benton from the shelf behind him.
The statue's nude breasts were in the shot and that might not pass muster with TV decency standards.
“As much as things change, they stay the same,” Hefner remarks, disappointment in his voice. “There is still controversy about, maybe even more than before, not just nudity — a nude statue.”
That is Hefner's point — that Playboy with its mission of sexual liberation is as relevant as ever in these days of federal government crackdowns on television content that some consider indecent.
“Attitudes toward nudity and Playboy have changed, in many ways, very little,” says the man who gave the world the Playboy centerfold. “In some ways it is even more political than it was in the '50s and '60s.”
The invitation to Hefner's 80th birthday party Sunday unfolds to show three photos of him: one as a toddler, one holding his new magazine in 1953, and one showing a smiling young Hefner with wavy black hair and his iconic pipe.
The hair is thinner now and grey, almost white in places. His hearing is gone in one ear and he has the slightest bit of trouble getting up from his library couch after the interview. He quit smoking after a stroke in 1985.
But otherwise, the man dressed in black silk pajamas and a scarlet silk jacket with black lapels shows few other signs that he is becoming an octogenarian.
“Maybe to some extent 80 is the new 40,” he says, smiling. “I truly believe that age — if you're healthy — age is just a number. On many levels I feel younger today than I did 10, 15 years ago.”
Hef has a lot to make him feel young. He lives with three young, blonde girlfriends in his ornate mansion in Holmby Hills. Their life is being documented in a hit reality TV show on the E! channel, The Girls Next Door....
Hugh Hefner reflects on life at 80 - AP via Mercury News
i would like to go and check-out the playboy-man... okay, now truth i would like to be a playboy bunny for one week-end... i do have two kidds, and i,am 42years of age... but in good shape no breast strecth marks or belly... pretty good for having a-9 and 8-pound baby,s... but wait my baby,s are now teen,s ... i would like to due some-thing for my self and have a little fun....
Posted by: robin louise bradley | July 11, 2006 at 09:54 PM