Read Hef's Little Black Book Online
Authors: Hugh M. Hefner
Hef's Little Black Book (6 page)
Nobody will ever dance like him. Voted the best jitter-bugger in his high school class, he would remain all about slippery shuffles and twists, elbows pumping fast or slow, depending on the tune. His rhythm would always be correct, just unusual. There is video evidence aplenty—from such sixties television novelties as
Playboy’s Penthouse
and
Playboy After Dark
on through a spry handful of late seventies network specials, where a nation learned that disco music had somehow overtaken it. Like no one else, he could become the most interesting Caucasian disco inferno on any floor.
W
hen Dancing with Her and She Insists on Leading, Understand Just This
It all depends on where she wants to lead you…
As a boy, he had everybody come over: “Mine was the home where all the children came to play.” This, too, never changed. He was born to host, never to guest. At other homes, he would be uneasy. At his own, he would exist only to welcome. His instinct was to create a nucleus of friends, of merry happenstance. Thus, the Parties. Oh, the Parties. He would perfect the art of throwing them. Over years, he would spend whatever it took just to throw them just right. As he favored sleepwear for himself, many of these parties would require just the same—lingerie especially—on New Year’s Eve, and at his April ninth birthday bash, and again at the most notorious annual bacchanal occurring anywhere on the planet, the one called a Midsummer Night’s Dream, which remains the lawn party of all lawn parties, as he created quite a Californian lawn for himself, and for such debauchery. It is an uninhibited lingerie-and-pajamas-only affair that is arguably the most coveted invitation in Los Angeles. “There is a pleasure to being one of the hosts that is difficult to appreciate,” he would say. “Unless you’re in a position where you can do it. I don’t really know why it’s true, but I get a great deal of extra pleasure out of sharing all of this with friends. I don’t see how one
would
enjoy it if one weren’t able to share it with friends.”
W
elcome to a Mansion Party
STAFF MEMO, HEFSTYLE
(I)
THE RIGHT KIND OF ENVIRONMENT
MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
Roman and Greek Mythology Theme Pajama Party
SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 2002
Baskets of Lifestyles condoms out in bathhouse and on shelf in grotto at all of Hef ’s major events.
Decorations:
A Midsummer Night’s Roman and Greek Mythology Theme with Satyrs and Pans, statues, murals, flowers, twinkle lights, gold, fuchsia and red fabrics, neon palm trees, gold sequined lamé linens.
Dance Area:
24-by-28-foot lit computerized dance floor; 34 low 48-inch-round tables, with colorful pillows, gold sequined lamé linens, and low centerpieces
Stage:
8 feet by 36 feet east of dance floor
Grotto:
Lots of lit candles, baby oil, towels and robes—butlers to police towels and robes and check on abundance of candles and baby oil.
(2)
GOOD FOOD AND DRINK
Kitchen:
Please make Jell-O shots for painted nude ladies to pass
Hors D’oeuvres:
8:00 P.M.–12:30 A.M.
Buffets:
9:00
P.M.–MIDNIGHT
Pool terrace
Dessert:
10:00
P.M.
–3:00
A.M.
Northwest corner upper pool terrace. /1:00
A.M.
–3:00
A.M.
Dining room open for coffee, cookies and cake.
(3) PLENTY OF TOILET FACILITIES
Bathrooms:
Outside doors of bathhouse’s bathrooms locked open. Six Porta-Potties south of pool entrance.
(4) two women FOR EVERY MAN
Entertainment:
Nude painted dancers on platforms Nude painted ladies passing Jell-O shots Playmates/guests will also be painted.
(5) ET CETERA
Maintenance: (a) Hef wishes gate between mansion and Kimberley properties locked for all his private parties. (b) Hef has requested live ferns in grotto. (c) Toys in library and in the game house need to be put up. Remove Salvador Dalí painting in great hall and lock it away.
Animal Department: Greenhouse aviary open to tour until 10:00
P.M
. Staff person to stand by animal cages and all cages locked.
Note from 1999: Only one neighbor complaint called in at 1:20
A.M.
about noise from guests behind the game house. Security confirmed that one girl had just been there and was loud, close to yelling.
a
Successful Party Requires Female Overpopulation
The key to a party is the right kind of environment, good food and drink, plenty of toilet facilities, and first and foremost, the crowd. The worst parties are those that have too many men hoping to get lucky. The best parties, for both sexes, have the ratio of about two to one—women to men.
Truly, he would probably prefer a seven-to-one ratio. The ramifications of the GI Bill taught him as much. Upon release from the army, on campus at the University of Illinois, he saw ratios of seven guys to one girl: “At the time, I thought, if I can control the situation in the future, I will reverse those numbers. I did my best.”
The first parties were haphazard affairs. He had bought himself the Mansion in Chicago, and it was unfurnished and missing the touches of happy madness that distinguished it in the future. It was basically a big empty house. But he had started taping the black-and-white syndicated television show called
Playboy’s Penthouse
(viewers rode a
faux elevator up to doors that opened into Hefworld, 1959; grab a martini glass and start wandering—Ella Fitzgerald and Lenny Bruce and Nat “King” Cole will be here in a minute!), and there needed to be an after-party, a release. So ten minutes away was this home, and that is where it all began. “Those parties would start post-midnight and go to dawn,” he recalls. And whatever faux party had just been taped, so as to excite the national libido, was then surpassed by an actuality in a big old empty house (Ella and Lenny and Nat will be here soon).
Once the Mansion had become legendary, and everyone from Sinatra to Streisand, from Ali to DiMaggio, from Johnny Carson to Dean Martin, began passing through the portals, there came the most notorious three-day debauch in domicile’s history: The Rolling Stones came to stay during the Chicago leg of their 1972 world tour—the high point, they claimed, of that odyssey. They had, in fact, requested to come live with Hef. The week was one in which anything could—and did—happen, including an impromptu concert in the ballroom by Stevie Wonder, who had been touring as the Stones’ opening act. Before it was over, after they had frolicked their way through the Bunny dormitories and shared their host’s Roman bath with a bevy of Bunnies, it occurred to many that they might have actually overstayed their welcome, as the resulting staff memo would indicate.
What Happens When a Party Goes Wrong
THE ROLLING STONES VISIT THE MANSION
6/28/72 memo from Mary O’Connor to Richard Rosenzweig
Re: Damage toll of the Rolling Stones
For your information, the following is a list of damage that resulted from the visit of the Rolling Stones:
- Red and Blue Room fixture was damaged and both glass bulb protectors had to be replaced.
- The white rug in this bathroom was burnt and needed to be replaced.
- The toilet seat was also burnt and had to be replaced.
- Two bath mats and four towels were also burnt.
- Drapes in the Red Room were pulled down on one side and the traverse rod had to be replaced.
- Red Room chair and couch are stained, possibly to the point of needing reupholstering.
- Red Room bedspread is badly stained. We are hoping it will come out in cleaning.
- Blue Room bedspread was not only stained, but also full of cigarette burns.
- Four sheets and two pillowcases were taken from the beds in the Blue Room.
- Brown Room and Gold Room velvet bedspreads were all very badly stained. We do not know yet whether the cleaners were able to do anything about this.
In addition to this, miscellaneous articles including razor blades were allowed to go down the drain in the Gold Room sink, rendering that room unusable for several days, and caused us to go into the wall to clear the pipes.
He picked his preferred poison as a boy and never abandoned it. He is a Pepsi man. Actually, he is a Pepsi Generation unto himself. Famously, through the sixties, he was photographed swigging from Pepsi bottles; butlers in his homes were always instructed to provide a new bottle if they saw one half empty. Or if he was seen without a Pepsi in his hand, they were to immediately fill that hand with a
Pepsi bottle. He would drain three dozen bottles a day, caffeinating himself royally. In 1962, it was reported that his annual Pepsi consumption equaled that of a small African country. There was a time when Coca-Cola was all but banned from his premises, but his soft-drink bias softened eventually, since his brother, Keith, was not a Pepsi man. (As far as he remembers, Hef chose Pepsi over Coke although it was “twice as much for a nickel too,” when he was young.) But at parties, then and now, if he holds a glass that would seem to contain Pepsi on the rocks, the drink almost certainly also contains Jack Daniel’s—“My Pal Jack,” he calls it. And at such parties, if he is seen without a full glass in his hand, butlers will place a new full glass in his hand. It is what they do.
Drink Like Hef
A COCKTAIL ANATOMY—“MY PAL JACK”
As explained by Mansion mixologist William Lipsher, aka Willie the Bartender
Just as he’s done with his closest friends, Hef has stuck by (and also with) Jack Daniel’s and cola for a long, long time. He is never overindulgent; one or two drinks a night will suffice.
His drink is always served in what the butlers call an HMH glass (a 10-ounce clear, dimpled tumbler). Several HMH glasses are always kept in a cupboard in the pantry. Everyone else’s drinks are served in sturdier, longer-lasting glassware.
When parties are poolside, everyone’s beverages are served in plastic (for safety). Everyone’s but Hef’s, of course. It’s his house. He can take his HMH glass wherever he wants.
When he approaches the bar for his drink, I’ll fill the HMH glass with ice (I always make sure the little cubes are jingling loose; icebergs are not cool); then, using a shot glass, I’ll pour on exactly one ounce of Jack. That’s the official amount he wants per drink. I’ll top it off with Pepsi and, using a retro-style Playboy bunny stir stick, proudly mix the contents with a flourish and a smile.
As a beginning bartender I learned to leave a quarter inch of space at the top of each drink. Looks great. Less spilling. Early on in my Playboy days, though, that quarter inch was too much space for my boss’s tastes. He requested more Pepsi. Who was I to argue? So while everyone else’s drink still gets that quarter inch of graphically aesthetic space, I’ll top off Hef ’s that extra eighth inch, because that’s the way he wants it.
I complete the routine by placing a napkin on the bar before him, setting his drink on it, and wishing him “Cheers.”
