1950s Hugh Hefner graduated from the
University of Illinois in 1949 with a psychology degree. He subsequently worked for
Esquire magazine in Chicago writing promotional
copy; for Publisher's Development Corporation in sales and marketing; and for ''Children's Activities
magazine as circulation promotions manager. He formed HMH Publishing Corporation, and recruited his friend Eldon Sellers to find investors. However, the publisher of Stag'', an unrelated
men's adventure magazine, informed Hefner that his publication would file suit to protect its trademark if Hefner launched his magazine with the name
Stag Party. Hefner, his wife Millie, and Sellers met to seek a new name, considering "Top Hat", "Gentleman", "Sir'", "Satyr", "Pan", and "Bachelor" before Sellers suggested "Playboy". Published in December 1953, the first issue was undated, as Hefner was unsure there would be a second. He produced it in his
Hyde Park kitchen. The first centerfold was
Marilyn Monroe, although the photograph used had initially been taken for a calendar rather than for
Playboy. Hefner chose what he deemed the "sexiest" image, a previously unused
nude study of Monroe stretched with an upraised arm on a red velvet background with closed eyes and mouth open. Heavy promotion for the magazine, which centered on Monroe's nudity on the already-famous calendar, made
Playboy a success, with the first issue selling out within weeks. The cover price was 50¢ and known circulation was 53,991. In 2002, copies of the first issue in mint or near-mint condition sold for over US$5,000 (). In 1954,
Playboy serialized the classic
Ray Bradbury sci fi novel
Fahrenheit 451 (1953), which has been published the previous year to little fanfare, in the March, April, and May 1954 issues, significantly boosting the work's popularity. An
urban legend started about Hefner and the
Playmate of the Month because of markings on the front covers of the magazine. From 1955 to 1979 (except for a six-month gap in 1976), the "P" in
Playboy had stars printed in or around the letter.
Urban legend stated that this was either a rating that Hefner gave to the Playmate according to how attractive she was, the number of times that Hefner had slept with her, or how good she was in bed. In truth, stars, between zero and 12, indicated the domestic or international advertising region for that printing.
1960s–1990s , Nat Lehrman, Richard M. Koff, Murray Fisher, Arthur Kretchmer; front: Sheldon Wax, Auguste Comte Spectorsky, Jack Kessie. In the 1960s, the magazine added "The Playboy Philosophy" column. Early topics included gay rights,
Playboy was an early proponent of cannabis reform and provided founding support to the
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in 1970. From 1966 to 1976,
Robie Macauley was the fiction editor at
Playboy. During this period the magazine published fiction by
Saul Bellow,
Seán Ó Faoláin,
John Updike,
James Dickey,
John Cheever,
Doris Lessing,
Joyce Carol Oates,
Vladimir Nabokov,
Michael Crichton,
John le Carré,
Irwin Shaw,
Jean Shepherd,
Arthur Koestler,
Isaac Bashevis Singer,
Bernard Malamud,
John Irving,
Anne Sexton,
Nadine Gordimer,
Kurt Vonnegut and
J. P. Donleavy, as well as poetry by
Yevgeny Yevtushenko. In 1968, at the feminist
Miss America protest, symbolically feminine products were thrown into a "Freedom Trash Can". These included copies of
Playboy and
Cosmopolitan magazines. One of the key pamphlets produced by the protesters was "No More Miss America!", by
Robin Morgan, which listed ten characteristics of the Miss America pageant that the authors believed degraded women; it compared the pageant to
Playboys centerfold as sisters under the skin, describing this as "The Unbeatable
Madonna–Whore Combination". After reaching its peak in the 1970s,
Playboy saw a decline in circulation and cultural relevance due to competition in the field it founded—first from
Penthouse, then from
Oui (which was published as a spin-off of
Playboy) and
Gallery in the 1970s; later from pornographic
videos; and more recently from
lad mags such as
Maxim,
FHM, and
Stuff. In response,
Playboy attempted to re-assert its hold on the 18–35-year-old male demographic through slight changes to the content and focusing on issues and personalities more appropriate to its audience—such as hip-hop artists being featured in the "
Playboy Interview". In February 1974,
Ratna Assan became the first women of Indonesian descent to be featured, shortly after a positively received role in the film
Papillon (1973).
Christie Hefner, daughter of founder Hugh Hefner, was employed by the company that published
Playboy magazine beginning in 1975. In 1988, she became the company's chief executive officer. In December 2008, Ms. Heffner announced that she would resign from the company effective in January 2009. She explained that the election of
Barack Obama as the next President had inspired her to devote more time to charitable work and that the decision to resign was her own. "Just as this country is embracing change in the form of new leadership, I have decided that now is the time to make changes in my own life as well", she said. Ms. Hefner was succeeded by company director and media veteran
Jerome H. Kern as interim CEO, who was in turn succeeded by publisher
Scott Flanders.
2000–2024: Continue decline, death of Hugh Hefner, and cessation of publication The magazine celebrated its 50th anniversary with the January 2004 issue. Celebrations were held at
Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, and Moscow during the year to commemorate this event.
Playboy also launched limited-edition products designed by fashion houses such as
Versace,
Vivienne Westwood and
Sean John. As a homage to the magazine's 50th anniversary,
MAC Cosmetics released two limited-edition products: lipstick and glitter cream. The printed magazine ran several annual features and ratings. One of the most popular was its annual ranking of the top "party schools" among all U.S. universities and colleges. In 2009, the magazine used five criteria—bikini, brains, campus, sex, and sports—to develop its list. The top-ranked party school by
Playboy for 2009 was the
University of Miami. In June 2009, the magazine reduced its publication schedule to 11 yearly issues, with a combined July/August issue. On August 11, 2009, London's
Daily Telegraph newspaper reported that Hugh Hefner had sold his English manor house (next door to the
Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles) for $18 m ($10 m less than the reported asking price) to another American, Daren Metropoulos, the President and co-owner of
Pabst Blue Ribbon, and that due to significant losses in the company's value (down from $1 billion in 2000 to $84 million in 2009), the Playboy publishing empire was for sale for $300 million. In December 2009, the publication schedule was reduced to 10 issues per year, with a combined January/February issue. On July 12, 2010, Playboy Enterprises Inc. announced Hefner's $5.50 per share offer ($122.5 million based on shares outstanding on April 30 and the closing price on July 9) to buy the portion of the company he did not already own and take the company private with the help of Rizvi Traverse Management LLC. The company derived much of its income from licensing rather than from the magazine. On July 15,
Penthouse owner FriendFinder Networks Inc. offered $210 million (the company is valued at $185 million). However, Hefner, who already owned 70 percent of voting stock, did not want to sell. In January 2011, the publisher of
Playboy magazine agreed to an offer by Hefner to take the company private for $6.15 per share, an 18 percent premium over the price of the last previous day of trading. The buyout was completed in March 2011. In October 2015,
Playboy announced the magazine would no longer feature full-frontal nudity beginning with the March 2016 issue. Company CEO
Scott Flanders acknowledged the magazine's inability to compete with freely available
internet pornography and nudity; according to him, "You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it's just passé at this juncture". Hefner agreed with the decision. The redesigned
Playboy, however, would still feature a
Playmate of the Month and pictures of women. Still, they would be rated as not appropriate for children under 13. Josh Horwitz of
Quartz argued that the motivation for the decision to remove nudity from the magazine was to give
Playboy Licensing a less inappropriate image in India and China, where the brand is a popular item on apparel and thus generates significant revenue. Other changes to the magazine included ending the popular jokes section and the various cartoons that appeared throughout the magazine. The redesign eliminated the use of jump copy (articles continuing on non-consecutive pages), eliminating most of the space for cartoons. Hefner, himself a former cartoonist, reportedly resisted dropping the cartoons more than the nudity, but ultimately obliged.
Playboys plans were to market itself as a competitor to
Vanity Fair, as opposed to more traditional competitors
GQ and
Maxim.
Playboy announced in February 2017, however, that the dropping of nudity had been a mistake. Furthermore, for its March/April issue, it reestablished some of its franchises, including the Playboy Philosophy and Party Jokes, but dropped the subtitle "Entertainment for Men", inasmuch as gender roles have evolved. The company's chief creative officer made the announcement on
Twitter with the
hashtag #NakedIsNormal. In early 2018, and according to Jim Puzzanghera of the
Los Angeles Times,
Playboy was reportedly "considering killing the print magazine", as the publication "has lost as much as $7 million annually in recent years". However, in the July/August 2018 issue a reader asked if the print magazine would discontinue, and
Playboy responded that it was not going anywhere. Following Hefner's death and his family's financial stake in the company, the magazine changed direction. In 2019,
Playboy was relaunched as a quarterly publication without advertisements. Topics covered included an interview with
Tarana Burke, a profile of
Pete Buttigieg, coverage of
BDSM, and a cover photo representing gender and sexual fluidity. In Autumn 2020, Playboy announced a
reverse merger deal with Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp.—a
special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). In February 2021, the stock of a combined company, PLBY Group, began trading on the
Nasdaq exchange as "PLBY".
2025–present: Revival and Picardi appointment In February 2025, Playboy was relaunched as an annual publication under the leadership of Mike Guy. The magazine switched to a quarterly print schedule with the release of its Winter 2025 issue featuring
Jane Birkin on the cover. Guy exited the magazine at the end of 2025. It was then announced that Playboy headquarters would move from Los Angeles to
Miami Beach by September 2026, along with plans to open a new
Playboy Club in Miami Beach. Following his appointment Picardi stated to
Adweek on joining the magazine "The idea that we need a publication that is able to explain sexuality as a cultural force, especially as our younger folks are facing a sex recession and loneliness epidemic—it felt like the right challenge." The best-selling individual issue was the November 1972 edition, which sold 7,161,561 copies. One-quarter of all American college men were buying or subscribing to the magazine every month. On the cover was model Pam Rawlings, photographed by
Rowland Scherman. Perhaps coincidentally, a cropped image of the issue's centerfold (which featured
Lena Söderberg) became a
de facto standard image for testing image processing algorithms. It is known simply as the "
Lenna" (also "Lena") image in that field. In 1972,
Playboy was the ninth highest circulation magazine in the United States. The 1975 average circulation was 5.6 million; by 1981, it was 5.2 million and by 1982 down to 4.9 million. In 1970,
Playboy became the first gentleman's magazine printed in
braille. It is also one of the few magazines whose
microfilm format was in color, not black and white.
Editors ==Features and format==