Thy Neighbor's Wife (11 page)

He no longer walked the streets at night, remaining within the Playboy building for days and weeks. He kept his clothes there, had food sent in, girls sent in, made love in the office bedroom, and then returned to his desk to read manuscripts, compose captions, write headlines, and examine the color transparencies of a prospective playmate.

A photographer one day took a snapshot of him at his desk
scrutinizing pictures, and Hefner seemed pale and under nourished, his high-cheekboned face was thin, there were circles under his dark eyes, and it appeared that he had been up all night. Though his dark hair was cut short in the style of young executives in the 1950s, his clothes were ill-fitting, and, while in this instance he wore a necktie, his office attire usually consisted of a sports shirt, dark trousers, loafers, and white wool socks. Some staff members assumed that the loafers and socks were his way of prolonging the carefree look of his college days, but the white wool socks were worn because of a foot fungus, a condition acquired in the Army. While the snapshot of Hefner made him a poor representative of a magazine hoping to attract men’s fashion advertising, it nevertheless appeared in
Playboy
’s first anniversary issue of December 1954, an occasion he celebrated by printing 175,000 copies.

The reclusive Hefner was now beginning to reveal himself in his own pages, not only in the snapshots that would be printed, or the opinionated columns that he would write, but later—as the magazine doubled again in circulation and wealth—by inserting evidence of his existence in the backgrounds of nude photographs that were shot exclusively for
Playboy
. In a picture of a young woman taking a shower, Hefner’s shaving brush and comb appeared on the bathroom sink. His tie was hung near the mirror. Although Hefner was now presenting only the illusion of himself as the lover of the women in the pictures, he foresaw the day when, with the increasing power of his magazine, he would truly possess these women sexually and emotionally; he would be realizing his readers’ dreams, as well as his own, by touching, wooing, and finally penetrating the desirable Playmate of the Month.

But first he had to make them more desirable to himself, to create within the centerfold a look and attitude that would appeal to his own special fondness for virgins, an admission that he immediately recognized as a contradiction, for it linked him curiously to those cathedral dwellers across the street who disapproved of him. And yet such contradictions and complex passions were part of him; while he espoused a philosophy of sexual liber
ation, he was also afflicted with a Madonna complex, and in this sense he was typical of many men of his time.

They wanted women who were virginal, devoted, eternally faithful, and yet they went through life wondering about other women, watching them on beaches, in parks, on the streets, mentally molesting them; or peering at them from across courtyards, or in the windows of buildings, framing them in fantasies of eccentric fulfillment. Hefner had grown up in an America that had divided young women into two categories—“good girls” who were not sexual, and “bad girls” who were; and while he lusted for the latter he could not imagine becoming romantically involved with them. But during his campus courtship of Mildred he had been forced to redefine the sexual nature of modern women. He knew that a modest comely co-ed could—as Mildred did—pose in the nude, perform fellatio in a bus, and conduct a secret sexual affair with one man while being engaged to another.

This was the new 1950s woman, wholesome in appearance but sexually unpredictable, and he hoped to reveal her pictorially as Kinsey had done statistically—he wanted
Playboy
to unveil the “good girls” and to dispense if possible with the struggling starlets, professional models, and demimondaines. Despite its success, the Monroe photograph had been viewed by many critics of
Playboy
as a desperate act by a destitute actress; and during the next fifteen issues of
Playboy
, Hefner rarely acknowledged the names of the centerfold models, though he usually knew who they were. One of them was Jayne Mansfield, a voluptuous platinum blonde vying to become the next Monroe. Another was Bettie Page, who wore her dark hair in bangs like Mildred but who was more established in Hefner’s mind from the underground photographs he had once seen and had masturbated to in private.

But now he wanted the type of playmate who could be part of his public life, that he might enjoy socially as well as sexually. The only problem was in finding the average young woman with the right look who would disrobe for
Playboy
. The California outdoor look that Diane Webber possessed in abundance was the best he had found so far, and she would be featured in the May
centerfold together with her name and a brief biographical sketch. But Hefner knew that Diane Webber had already been in other magazines; she was not the camera virgin he was looking for.

Hefner wanted to discover someone new, to convince her to pose after winning her trust, and then, if necessary, to refashion her in a way that would be identified with his taste. Like the Gibson girl of the 1890s, the Ziegfeld girl of the 1920s, the Goldwyn girl of the 1930s, and the Powers model of the 1940s, he now hoped to create the Hefner girl of the 1950s. She would be unpretentious, healthy, and unintimidating, the normal pretty girl that men saw each day in large cities and small towns: the smiling secretary, the airline stewardess, the banker’s daughter, the college cheerleader, the Sweetheart of Sigma Chi, the girl next door—and he wanted to feel that she belonged to him.

After her debut as a
Playboy
nude, he did not want her to pose for other publications. He wanted her to be monogamous with his magazine, for which he would pay handsomely; but in order to guarantee her exclusivity he devised a plan for paying each new playmate in monthly checks sent over a two-year period. During this time she, and others like her, would remain associated with
Playboy
, would perhaps earn extra fees for making public appearances in front of advertisers and subscribers, and would lend credibility to the rapturous life-style that Hefner was trying to establish around himself.

For his first personally chosen playmate, he already had someone in mind. She was one of his new employees. She worked on the second floor, in the circulation department. A twenty-year-old blonde with blue-green eyes and creamy complexion, she was cheerful and alert, and though she dressed modestly, it was obvious to Hefner the first time he saw her that she had a magnificent body. Her name was Charlaine Karalus. She had joined
Playboy
earlier in the month, answering an ad placed by the business manager, Eldon Sellers. Following her interview with Sellers, Hefner introduced himself and quickly communicated his personal interest. He made a dinner date and later drove her to a
restaurant in a bronze-colored Cadillac convertible that he had just purchased for $6,500 in cash.

They enjoyed one another’s company and began dating regularly, and also making love in his office bedroom. Charlaine was eager to help the magazine in every way, and she particularly wanted to please Hugh Hefner, being flattered by his attention, awed by his success, and reluctant to disappoint him when he asked that she be his playmate in the July issue. He in turn promised to personally supervise the photo session, and to permit both Charlaine and her mother to see the pictures before publication. He also gave her mother a job in the business department, and said he would not use Charlaine’s name in the picture caption. He would identify her instead as “Janet Pilgrim,” a subtle thrust at the Pilgrim Fathers who had arrived on the
Mayflower
and brought puritanism to America.

In the introduction to her picture in the July issue, Hefner wrote: “We suppose it’s natural to think of the pulchritudinous Playmates as existing in a world apart. Actually, potential Playmates are all around you: the new secretary at your office, the doe-eyed beauty who sat opposite you at lunch yesterday, the girl who sells you shirts and ties at your favorite store. We found Miss July in our own circulation department, processing subscriptions, renewals and back copy orders. Her name is Janet Pilgrim and she’s as efficient as she is good looking. Janet has never modeled professionally before, but we think she holds her own with the best of the Playmates of the past.”

In the centerfold she was shown seated at a bureau in a bedroom, her negligee open in the front so as to reveal her large pink-nippled breasts. In the background, standing out of focus with his back to the camera, was a man wearing a tuxedo and holding a top hat. He was Hugh Hefner.

Several hundred approving letters greeted the pictorial debut of Janet Pilgrim, and Hefner quickly urged her to pose again for the coming Christmas issue. She was more hesitant this time, not only because her relatives had expressed embarrassment after seeing the magazine but also because she herself had been un
settled by the very personal tone of certain letters sent by strangers. But Hefner’s charm and persuasiveness were formidable, and she was induced to appear once more.

This time Hefner posed her under a Christmas tree, and he embellished her nude figure with gleaming jewelry and highlighted her breasts with a white mink stole that she wore loosely around her shoulders. He also printed several candid black-and-white photographs of her relaxing alone in an apartment, playing Frank Sinatra records, reading
Marjorie Morningstar
, undressing for bed, and Hefner reported in the text that Janet Pilgrim preferred wearing men’s pajamas—but only the tops, having thrown the bottoms away.

After this fact had been published, the magazine began receiving several pajama tops that male readers wished to exchange for her bottoms, and she also was approached with modeling assignments, television offers, and an opportunity to appear in a Broadway show. But she chose to remain with
Playboy
, which in 1957, partly due to her promotional activities, increased its press run from 600,000 copies per month to 900,000.

As part of a
Playboy
sales gimmick, she made a personal telephone call to each man who paid $150 for a lifetime subscription, and she also traveled around the country representing the magazine at business conventions, fairs, sports-car races, and special events on college campuses. She spent a weekend as an honored guest at Dartmouth College, where she participated in a student variety show and autographed her playmate pictures, having a much more pleasant time than she normally did when appearing before groups of older men at business conventions. The latter group assumed, because of her pictures, that she was sexually available, and they followed her through hotel lobbies and corridors propositioning her, or they pressed hard against her body after she had agreed to dance. If she posed for a picture and acceded to a kiss, they sometimes tried to force their tongue into her mouth.

Adding to her displeasure at this time was the knowledge that, while she was traveling for the magazine, Hugh Hefner was in
Chicago attracting new women into his office bedroom. She was infuriated and crushed after learning of this from an office friend; having been reared in an unhappy home of separated parents, and having escaped at eighteen into her own brief hapless marriage, she had mistakenly assumed that her romance with Hefner would provide her for the first time with security and stability. Instead she felt more vulnerable, and so she tried behaving indifferently toward him, and did not answer her telephone at night—only to be disturbed by his loud pounding outside her apartment door until she let him in. He wanted to be certain that she was not with another lover. One afternoon at the East Inn tavern, near the office, where she sat having a drink with a young man, Hefner suddenly appeared, held her arm, and pulled her away. She was, like her new name, a product of his creation, and he assumed the right to repossess her whenever he wished.

Twice she quit the magazine, but each time she was lured back by his persistence. She even posed again for the centerfold, both loving and hating the joy she seemed to give him as he watched her in the studio. He was a selfish, disturbing yet innocent adolescent, a Pepsi-drinking tycoon in white socks who was building an empire out of a baffling sense of reality. While he did not lie to her, he confused her by the way he lived. After telling her that his marriage had ended more than a year ago—and the couple were indeed living apart—she heard that his wife had just produced his second child, a son. In a newspaper column one day Janet read that she had dined with Hefner the night before at a hotel restaurant, but in fact she knew he had been with a blonde who greatly resembled her and who had just appeared on the
Playboy
cover, dressed as a college cheerleader.

Soon after this, Janet Pilgrim, who had been part of Hefner’s erratic world for two years, left it with a resoluteness that she had never before demonstrated. She had met a successful young businessman whose values were more compatible with her own, and, after his divorce, she married him and eventually moved with him to New York, and raised their children in an elegant suburb.

Hefner, who was now thirty-one, continued to pursue one woman after another, nearly all of them associated with the magazine as cover girls or staff members; and these office affairs, far from distracting him from his work, rejuvenated him, bolstered his ego, inspired him to take greater business risks that enlarged his fortune and advanced him as a public figure. Influenced by his promotion director, a debonair twenty-nine-year-old divorcee named Victor Lownes—who had first entered Hefner’s world as a model in a
Playboy
picture layout on young executives—Hefner dressed more carefully and expensively, abandoned his white socks, and bought a white Mercedes-Benz.

Hefner was interviewed by national newsmagazines and appeared on television smoking his pipe and refuting the Puritan notion that great success was fostered by the denial of pleasure. As he traveled across the country, he could see not only that
Playboy
was selling but that it was no longer an under-the-counter item, and that men seemed less awkward as they carried it away from the newsstand—they did not so quickly fold it inward or conceal it within a newspaper; they were possibly comforted by the fact that close to one million people each month were now buying
Playboy
, in addition to several imitating magazines, and that Americans everywhere were becoming increasingly tolerant of, if not preoccupied with, various forms of sexual expression.