Hefner

Hugh Hefner is 84, but he isn't about to go quietly into the night. Faced with a tepid stock price and growing pressure from Wall Street, Hefner startled the media world Monday by announcing a bid to reassert control over Playboy Enterprises Inc., the struggling adult publishing empire he founded in Chicago more than five decades ago. The proposed deal to buy all outstanding shares Hefner does not own would be financed by a Michigan-based private...

Before I explain how I happened to be in Hugh Hefner's bedroom last week, let me start at the beginning. I bumped into L.A. City Councilman Tom LaBonge at the supermarket recently and asked if he'd had any clue that Hefner was going to save the day a couple of weeks ago by donating the last $900,000 needed to purchase the peak surrounding the Hollywood sign and keep it from being plundered by developers. LaBonge said no, but he hated to think what would have happened without Hefner's generosity.

When Playboy founder Hugh Hefner heard that the campaign to buy the open space west of the Hollywood sign was short about $1 million, he knew he had to step in once again to protect the famous Los Angeles landmark. "Turned out the kid was back in the water again," he said in a telephone interview. So he anted up $900,000, which helped the campaign cross the finish line. On Monday, the Trust for Public Land announced that, thanks to Hefner's gift and an additional $500,000 from the Tiffany & Co. Foundation and Aileen Getty, it finally had the $12.5 million needed to buy Cahuenga Peak from Fox River Financial Resources Inc. The 138-acre property, which offers a spectacular 360-degree panorama of the Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley, now will become part of Griffith Park.

Hugh Hefner has a confession. "I think I opened the first Playboy Club because of 'Casablanca.' I wanted to have a place where people came to hang out as they did at Rick's," admits the pajama-clad founder of the Playboy empire. The Oscar-winning 1942 "Casablanca," starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman as the reunited lovers Rick and Ilsa, is the favorite film of Hefner, a serious movie buff. "It has everything -- not only Bogie's charismatic character, but lost love, redemption, patriotism, humor -- it had a great musical score.

The bunny is staying solo for now. Iconix Brand Management has ended talks to acquire Playboy Enterprises Inc., according to three people familiar with the situation. The adult-content producer and magazine publisher has been in talks with two potential buyers for the last year. In recent months, Iconix, which owns and licenses well-known brands such as London Fog, Starter and Joe Boxer, had emerged as the lead bidder in a deal that was expected to be worth more than $300 million.

Hugh Hefner didn't get a lot of hugs as a kid. He grew up in a repressed Midwestern Puritan home, and his parents were strict. He couldn't ask them about the things he saw at his favorite movie theater in Chicago -- like the confusing censorship codes, or why an adult married couple in a film had to sleep in separate twin beds. So he began questioning these ideas on his own -- through comic books. During his junior year in high school, Hefner began his own comic autobiography, documenting the events of his life through drawings.

Hugh Hefner and his wife, Kimberley , have sold their personal residence, just a hop away from the Playboy Mansion next door in Holmby Hills, for $18 million. The buyer is Daren Metropoulos, a 25-year-old entrepreneur who will be moving from Beverly Hills. The son of equity investor C. Dean Metropoulos, he originally intended to purchase the estate for the value of its 2.3 acres but now plans to keep the 7,300-square-foot English Manor-style house. The two-story home, built in 1929, has five bedrooms and seven bathrooms and sits behind gates on a flat site that backs up to the Los Angeles Country Club.

I've been in this room in the Playboy Mansion before. As I recall, the painting on the wall was a topless portrait of his wife, Kimberley, mother of his two teenage sons, from whom he is now separated. Now it's just Hefner, painted in Tudor robes, in the style of Holbein. In person, he wears his singular uniform of pajamas and slippers. The girls cavorting outside have changed, but he has not.

OK, no more proverbial pressing your nose up against the gates hoping to catch a glimpse of what goes on at the Playboy mansion. Now you can live right next door and spy from the comforts of your own home. Hugh Hefner and wife Kimberley have listed their personal residence, next to the Playboy mansion in Holmby Hills, for sale at $27,995,000. It's a Mini-Me to the adjacent party palace, a sister house if you will.

"You've caught me with my pants on," Hugh Hefner said with a sad smirk. There are days (or entire decades) when Hefner greets the midday sun in silk pajamas and a robe, but on this particular December afternoon, well, the playboy just wasn't in the mood.