Hugh Hefner Will Tell All in a New ‘American Playboy’ Miniseries
See Hef as you’ve never seen him before.
Playboy founder and beloved bon vivant Hugh Hefner is ready to tell his life story.
Deadline reports that Heffner, who turned 90 this year, is currently shopping a planned miniseries called American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story to various networks.
According to Deadline’s reporting, the series will likely show a side of Hef that even his most devoted acolytes have rarely seen before:
American Playboy will has full access to Hefner’s video and photographic archives, which chronicle the daily life of the mercurial Editor In Chief from 1953 to today. In addition, the production will be able to use the Playboy library, which includes more than 60 years of issues of the magazine as well as previously unpublished material.
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“When I started Playboy magazine in 1953, I couldn’t imagine the incredible journey that was to follow and that Playboy would have such a significant voice in the discussion of our ever-changing culture,” said Playboy Founder, Hugh Hefner. “I’m pleased that this docu-series will help serve as a reminder of where we’ve been and how we’ve evolved as a society, but more importantly my hope is that it will inspire others to pursue their dreams.”
Surely those archives are a goldmine, but there’s a bit of a catch: The miniseries is being co-produced by Stephen David Entertainment and Alta Loma Entertainment, which Playboy owns. This makes sense, of course — anyone who’s ever seen The Girls Next Door knows that a man who enforces curfews for adults is going to have a say in how his personal story is presented — but it casts a bit of doubt that we’ll get the ‘real’ inside story of Hef’s iconic rise as America’s most beloved tomcat.
The miniseries will come to life just ahead of a major change for Playboy: As of March, the magazine will no longer feature fully nude photos. Perhaps Hefner sees this as the end of a previously lucrative era: He’s also put the Playboy Mansion on the market, for $200 million, even though Hefner will come with the furnishings. With the Playboy brand moving into licensing and away from its earlier swanky reputation, it’s likely that Heffner sees American Playboy as his last chance to solidify his legacy before the era of Playboy officially comes to an end.
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