The checks written by an aging rich man, though, are gestures, not commitments. Better proof of his celluloid fixation is the crypt he has purchased; when Hefner gives up the ghost, his well-used body will spend eternity in L.A.'s Westwood Memorial Park, next to Marilyn Monroe, a woman he never met, except in the dim light of the movie palace.
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Childhood influence
Hugh Marston Hefner, born in Chicago on April 9, 1926, grew up on the far west side of town, where the prairie was still part of the horizon. He was a ringleader for the local kids, creating and presiding over elaborate games and drawing an autobiographical comic book called "School Daze" that starred his friends as the supporting cast. He looks back on it as his first success in publishing. At age 16 he also drafted his pals to make a horror movie. His defining ritual as a youngster was taking the streetcar on Grand Avenue ("And," he says, "it was grand") to the movies. Some days he sat through a double feature in the afternoon and then another in the evening. Afterward he would carefully record every movie title in his diary.
"The movies, other than family, were the major influence of my childhood," Hefner said. "I was in a very typical Midwestern, Methodist home with a lot of repression and not much demonstrative expression of emotion. My escape was the darkened theater."
When it comes to relationships, some men spend their life looking for their mother; Hefner has been searching for leading ladies -- sometimes two or more at a time, like those double-feature days.
"And I think my fascination with blonds is directly connected to the impact that the platinum blonds had in the movies of the 1930s," he said in a clinical tone. "Jean Harlow, Alice Faye, all of those Busby Berkeley showgirls. You can't go wrong. Well, you probably could, but what fun."
For decades, movie screenings have been a tradition at the Playboy mansion. Hefner used to screen two new films every week but, in the 1990s, he surrendered to the fact that the contemporary cinema output just doesn't yield 104 good movies a year. Now, Friday nights are for new films ("Frost/Nixon" and "Gran Torino" were recent selections) while Sunday nights are for the classics (he screened "Mrs. Miniver" and "I Was a Male War Bride" last month). Hefner devotes "an afternoon I really can't afford" each week to preparing notes for his introductions of the vintage fare.
