Hef's Little Black Book (8 page)

All else in his life would be gravy, if only the metaphorical kind, but still: It should be noted, by the way, that two chickens must die in order for him to be served his requisite three drumsticks per meal. He always thought well of Colonel Sanders’s Kentucky Fried Chicken, with its secret herbs and spices, but even he could not wrest away that recipe. And so, when he and Barbi and contingent flew around Europe—and he refused to eat fancy food, and all else were thrilled with fancy food—his valet quietly infiltrated the haute kitchen of Maxim’s in Paris, in order to instruct its chef on the art of preparing southern fried chicken, à la Hefner. (“I am pretty horny for some fried chicken,” he had by then been muttering for weeks.) That night, it was unveiled to him under a silver chafing dish, along with mashed potatoes, gravy, and peas. After he consumed it, washing it down with a goblet of cold milk, the chef approached to inquire how he had liked the meal. “I’ve had better,” said the American Playboy. The chef could only shrug and return to the kitchen, bemused and dejected at once. “I was sure,” one witness recalled, “that he was going in there to blow his brains out.”

Never had he actually disliked the out-of-doors. He moved west, after all, to prove as much. In fact, he would immediately become the most ardent guide for tours of the property—proudly, gleefully, goofily even—leading visitors across rolling lawns, up hill and down glade, into the tropical aquatic aviary (rare fish! rare birds! unpleasant reptiles!), into the steamy Grotto (“if only those rocks could talk…”), off to the squirrel monkey cages, where he’d pass green grapes through the screens into tiny simian paws. Such tours, too, would inevitably halt beyond the wishing well and the pet cemetery, linger in a lush shady copse which is the site of the great Game House, the place where he has engaged in combat more ferocious than in any executive boardroom. Here, over pool and foosball tables, in front of pinball machines (wired for free play) and electronic contrap
tions that screech and pulsate, he has unleashed his inner guerrilla, his secret kamikaze. If he is famously the most primal of men in his bedroom, he is even more so inside this place. Here he has fulminated, simmered, combusted, kvelled, spun, keened, twisted, hollered, wailed, swaggered, bounced, fumed, waltzed, mourned, revivified, leapt, muttered, sang, bragged, jitterbugged, fell apart, and pounded fists of anguish or pumped fists of triumph. Upon victory, he is never subtle; it is no coincidence that a replica of his star from the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame was embedded in the concrete path that leads directly into his Game House.

G
ame Playing Gives You Something Else to Think About

W
hen You’ve Got the Hand, Protect It

And so the greatest Playboy of them all played Games in a manner few other mortals dared to attempt or cared to imagine. It was part of showing them the way, of demonstrating that the simplest, most innocent pleasures could be indulged with a great hedonist’s abandon. Even if it happened during card nights of bridge and gin and (strip?) poker, or on the slick surface of Risk and Monopoly boards, or if it required well-thumbed Scrabble and backgammon tiles—he would and did find a way to do it larger, and with epic endurance. His credo from the get-go: “Americans knew very well how to earn money, but didn’t know very well how to enjoy it.”
So he decided that he would embody the fever pitch of how money and the silliest little games, the board ones, could be enjoyed. And like no pinball wizard before him, he put the joy in joystick. “This Is Real Life,” he once exclaimed during an intense session captured by a documentary crew. “The rest is a game.” Like no man who had ever scored with more women, he would have plaques affixed above every throbbing, humming, thumping electronic game to identify the highest scorers so far. (Inevitably, that was usually him.) Still, ever the fair-minded Midwestern boy, whenever he broke new records while playing alone (practice, practice!), he would always summon a member of his security staff to witness what he had accomplished before the new number was memorialized on a plaque. Which it would be, most immediately. For he had what, goddammit, gone and scored again? And he was playing what, fair? He said so. Midwestern integrity.

Playmates Sondra Theodore and Monique St. Pierre watching the Playboy wizard in action.

H
ow to Win It All at Monopoly

Monopoly, like Hef, was created during the Depression to give Americans big dreams to ponder, dreams that weren’t yet exactly within one’s grasp—kind of like the Life Philosophy that imbued him. Naturally, he played this game with insight. He also played it maniacally—the forty-hour marathons (Pepsi, Dexie, Pepsi, Dexie, Pepsi, Dexie, you get the picture) that would later be replaced only by forty-hour backgammon marathons.

Monopoly, though: cartoon capitalism and dice and play money, with play money whose bills bore his likeness where Mr. Monopoly’s face used to be, with pictures of both Mansions emblazoned on the back, eventually with even an Atlantic City Playboy Casino Hotel figurine to place on the Boardwalk (like in life, in that very moment)—a personal personalized game for the Luckiest Monopolist of One Culture’s Craziest Yearnings. This was the official game of the Chicago Mansion, circa early seventies, with blonde, buxom Special Lady on the side, Karen Christy, presiding. She surprised him with game tokens molded and hand-painted to rep
resent the core players—as seen here, from left—longtime friend John Dante, secretary Bobbie Arnstein, Karen herself, Hef himself, poet/artist/contributor in residence Shel Silverstein, and fledging
Chicago Tribune
film critic Gene Siskel, whom Hef persuaded during one such faux real estate contest into becoming a film critic rather than just one more beat reporter; they shared a love of film, it turned out—who knew?

He moved the game west eventually—it was the one game that allowed him pause for conversation, which he enjoyed—and after Karen had gone, and Barbi, too, new likenesses were molded for Californians in the mix, including
one for new Special Lady Sondra Theodore, who saw her man differently during these matches: “He was great with games and fun with games. That’s when his personality really came out. The tension of real life flew out of him. He relaxed. Those were the times I found that I wanted to reach out and hug him, because he’s just so wonderful and witty and funny and loving—and it all came out when you sat down and played a game with Hef.”