Pajama Party

Hugh Hefner bounces into the movie room at his 31-room Holmby Hills mansion dressed in his usual custom silk pajamas, smoking jacket and velvet slippers. Here I am in my off-the-rack Kmart ($19.99 from mom) jammies. It is my journalistic attempt to get on Hef’s wavelength. He thinks it’s pretty cool and sends for chocolate chip cookies and diet Pepsi--not something you would expect from the poster boy for Playboy magazine.

But then Hef at 72, recently separated from his second wife, is a curious contradiction, perhaps the result of years of reinventing himself. The most telling? His repressive Midwestern childhood, which, he says, led to the creation of Playboy.

Twenty-six years later, Hef wants the world to know he is back on the party circuit with playmates Mandy, Brande and Sandy. They are, after all, in his new book, “Inside the Playboy Mansion,” by Gretchen Edgren (General Publishing Group, 1999). (He will sign books from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at Brentano’s Bookstore in Century City.)

A conversation about his book leads to a wide-ranging exchange about his parents, his legacy to America’s sexual revolution and his use of Viagra.

“My reemergence symbolizes the party is back,” he says.

Indeed, the knocker on his front door proclaims: “If You Don’t Swing, Don’t Ring.”

Q: How did this start for you, dressing in pajamas?

A: It began in the early days of the magazine in Chicago. I was working around the clock. When the staff arrived in the morning, I would still be in my pajamas. In the ‘70s, it had become something acceptable enough so I could get away with it. I just continued to wear them on most casual occasions here. You don’t have to make any serious decisions in terms of what you’re going to wear other than what color pajamas to wear.

Q: Why did you decide to do this book right now?

A: Because for many years there has been a mystique connected to my life and to the world inside the Playboy mansion, everything from the centerfolds to the celebrities to my own personal life.

Q: Who parties at the mansion these days?

A: A lot of young people who grew up feeling as if they had missed the party. One of the big surprises for me, having been married for the better part of 10 years and off the party scene, was that I was not prepared for the response of the last two months. A lot of people were waiting for me to come out and play. . . . Cameron Diaz, Leonardo di Caprio, George Clooney, Jim Carrey. The list goes on and on.

Q: Is there some kind of connection to your childhood, emotionally, within these mansion walls?

A: Most of what I do is related to my childhood. I was raised in a very typical Midwestern American Methodist Puritan home, but it was also the home in which the other kids came to play. So to some extent the mansion is an adult version of that.

Q: What was your home life like?

A: I was raised in a repressive home where there was little emotion shown, no outward displays of love. No kissing on the cheek. My brother and I felt very much that we were loved, but simply, my parents were unable to show their love. My father is a direct descendant of William Bradford, one of the original Puritans on the Mayflower. I think those roots run deep not only in my life but are a part of the American experience.

Q: Puritanism and Playboyism--I can’t think of two more extremes.

A: The one thing that’s fascinating to me is the conflict between Puritan repression and the quest for personal freedom. It is part of that history in our society that makes it difficult for men and women--men especially--to show affection. I think fathers and sons often have that problem.

Q: Later, what did your parents think about your business, your life’s choices?

A: One of the sad things about my life is that my parents were never fully able to appreciate what I’ve managed to accomplish. I think they were proud of me as a person. My father came to work for me. My mother invested $1,000 in Playboy, not because she believed in the magazine but because she believed in her son. That money made them millionaires. But I don’t think that they ever fully appreciated the positive impact that Playboy and my life have had on society.

Q: What life lessons did your parents teach you?

A: Tolerance, idealism, honesty and lack of bigotry. They were crippled in only one way: the Puritan way they were raised.

Q: But you’ve made talking about sex at the dinner table acceptable. What are your thoughts on that?

A: It’s what I take the most pride in. I would like to be remembered as someone who has had a significant impact in changing sexual values, in changing the repressive attitudes toward sexuality.

Q: What do you remember most about your first high school crush?

A: The fact that I reinvented myself in order to get noticed. I started dressing cool with yellow cords and saddle shoes. I learned to jitterbug and started referring to myself as Hef.

Q: Have you reinvented yourself since then?

A: I did exactly the same thing in 1960 when I became Mr. Playboy and started living the life espoused by the magazine. I entered show business, bought the first Playboy mansion in Chicago and opened the first Playboy Club, all within six months. I became the person I wanted to be. I started wearing the smoking jacket and using the pipe as a prop. I was driving around in a 300 SL Mercedes-Benz.

Q: Do you think popular culture about sex has in some way cheapened it? Do you ever feel guilty or have second thoughts about how you may have contributed to that?

A: No, I don’t. Why should sex be the one subject you cannot discuss, you can’t know about, you can’t share? I think people should approach sex as they approach every other part of life: with respect for the responsibilities that go with it. One of the great problems we have had in our sexual lives in the past is that we’ve defined morality and immorality in a different way than we’ve defined it in other areas of human activity. What is immoral is exploiting people or hurting people. We should use the same definitions for our sexual behavior as we do for everything else.

Q: Do you think the tryst between President Clinton and Monica is about sex or about lying?

A: It’s about sex. The lying in our society is what we all do. If you want to have sex in the Oval Office, that’s your business. It certainly is nobody else’s business except the people involved, including the family. The truth of the matter is that in our society sex is the one subject that everybody lies about.

Q: Do you use Viagra?

A: Yes--without question it’s more than an impotence pill. It eliminates the gap between the expectation and the reality of sex. It’s a great recreational drug.

Q: Have you had plastic surgery?

A: I just had a little tuck on my neck about three months ago.

Q: Let’s talk about the changing tenor of the mansion. Now that Kimberley and the kids are living next door, is the mansion returning to its earlier partydom years?

A: Oh, yes. With a vengeance. The sign on the driveway says it all. When I was married, we put a sign up that said “Caution, Children at Play.” Now the sign has been changed to “Caution, Playmates at Play.” But I’m still in love with the girl next door, the girl next door being Kimberley. And I see her and the children most every day.

Q: Do you have a private life?

A: Yes, but most of my life is an open book with illustrations. That’s my personal choice. But I do think that a person should have a private life if they want it.

Q: I heard that these days you’re a babe magnet.

A: Yes, somebody else made that comment. At my age, I thought that was pretty neat. It’s true.

Q: You don’t get tired of being a babe magnet?

A: No, I certainly don’t. I think when people talk about objectifying women and creating sex objects, the major sex object created by Playboy was, by and large, me. Don’t we all want to be attractive to the opposite sex? The notion that you are a sex object doesn’t mean that’s all you are. It helps to define the fact that you are attractive, and I think that’s something that can be hoped for.

Q: I saw you recently at the Golden Globe parties, and men and women were clamoring to shake your hand and get your photograph. It was as if the party started when you walked in.

A: A lot of that is simply about the mystique. Celebrity is its own form of sexuality. And the celebrity I have is directly related to sexual attractiveness.

Q: Share with me something that people don’t know about you.

A: That I’m a romantic at heart.

Q: How easy is it growing old gracefully in your role as Hugh Hefner, the ultimate playboy?

A: I’ve had a lot of years of experience. I’m a dreamer, a crusader who wanted to change the world. There are so many things in life that force you into a box and force you to conform to values that are handed down by others. When you are very young, both society and family define you. There should be a time when you begin to define yourself for yourself.

Q: Are you still a dreamer?

A: Oh, yes, very much. I’ve never lost touch with the boy who dreamed the dreams. Even today I feel directly connected to that boy. I love the boy that I was. He is still alive in me.