BARBARA_HAIGH BOYD_HILTON CAPRICE COMM GLORIA_ALLRED GWEN_RULE HUGH_HEFNER JAKI_NETT JILL_FILIPOVIC JOHN_HESTON JUDITH_HUTH KEITH_STROUP MAN MARI_MARTIN RUSSELL_MILLER SAM_FOX STEFAN_TETENBAUM STELLA_TETENBAUM SUSIE_KRABACHER VICTOR_LOWNES CAPRICE To do a cover of Playboy was huge. STELLA TETENBAUM Hugh Hefner was the Bible for most men at that time. It was kind of the James Bondslash-Playboy-slash-connoisseur. It was this whole image that he was selling. COMM For sixty years, Hugh Hefner was the pied piper of soft porn, selling a dream of fame, glamour, and sex, with a magazine empire that he created. RUSSELL MILLER He wanted to see himself as a giant figure on the American stage. COMM A string of Playboy clubs for members only promised a taste of Hefner�s high life, served by unique, untouchable bunny girls. MAN Okay, low carry. Faster, faster, faster. High carry. JAKI NETT When I put on the costume, it was showtime. GWEN RULE Oh ,my God, it was the best job I�ve ever had. BARBARA HAIGH Anybody who tried to get fresh, touch your tail: No, no, no. You don�t do that. COMM Playboy was a cultural gamechanger, the original lads� mag. And Hefner promised the world to the women he called playmates, who stripped naked for its pages, inviting them to his fabled LA mansion, a Shangri-la of decadence, a playground for VIPs. STEFAN TETENBAUM It was young, beautiful women from all over the world. SUSIE KRABACHER It seemed so beautiful and so glamorous and so wonderful. Every girl that went in there probably felt the same excitement. STELLA TETENBAUM It was just otherworldly. It took your breath away. You couldn�t help but wanna stay. COMM A playboy to his last gasp, when Hefner dies in 2017, this man who had three wives and countless lovers, pays a small fortune for a burial crypt next to a woman he never met: his ultimate fantasy. SAM FOX I�ve been to Marilyn Monroe�s grave. I don�t think Marilyn�s spirit would be very happy laying next to Hugh Hefner. No, I don�t. STELLA TETENBAUM He had an obsession with her. That look, that is the look that he went for in women. COMM His empire enraged and enchanted in equal measure. And at the centre, Hefner lived the life of a bachelor. Revered by some, reviled by others. STELLA TETENBAUM On the outside, it was just fantastically beautiful, but underneath it was really ugly. SUSIE KRABACHER I don�t think anybody was safe there. All these men were all circling them like sharks. SAM FOX There were some sordid stories going around at that time. COMM Since Hefner�s death, a code of silence has lifted, revealing the secrets of the Playboy Mansion. SUSIE KRABACHER He did things to women without their permission. We�d hear these horrible screams. RUSSELL MILLER Once they�d been used, then they were out. SAM FOX He�s dead, and now we hear these horrifying stories. COMM This is the story of the rise and fall of Hugh Hefner�s Playboy. As Marilyn Monroe hits the big time in 1953 with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Hugh Hefner is an unknown wannabe, desperate to escape a hum-drum life in his native Chicago. RUSSELL MILLER He�d had an utterly conventional life. I mean, a conventional upbringing. Married young, had a baby, ordinary job. I think he felt very trapped by his domestic circumstances. I remember he said once: What about living?� What he wanted above all was to be a publisher, and a magazine publisher. I don�t think he had any intention of producing what Playboy eventually become, but the significant fact of getting the nude photographs of Marilyn Monroe, that sent him on that path COMM Nude photos of Marilyn Monroe have been in circulation under the radar for years, posed for when she was starting out. The young Hugh Hefner is the chancer who will take them to the masses. RUSSELL MILLER He was able to buy the rights to the nude shots of Marilyn Monroe, because no respectable magazine would ever consider publishing a nude photograph. Nude photographs in those days were reserved for, you know, calendars on garage walls and places like that. SAM FOX Those pictures that she did those nudes, because she couldn�t eat he bought those pictures from that photographer, and then put them in Playboy. So, she didn�t get paid. It looked like she�d done it for Playboy. There was no one there protecting her. STELLA TETENBAUM She had absolutely no say in it. Marilyn never met him. He had no relationship with her. COMM Launched from his kitchen table in Chicago, he doesn�t put his own name on this first edition, in case it fails. He convinces newsstands to stock it, and publishes, just as Marilyn is going meteoric. SUSIE KRABACHER I think that she was probably appalled that he used images of her, that he didn�t have her permission to use. He did things to women without their permission. COMM She later reveals she had to buy a copy herself, to see how Hefner had used her pictures. She�s a prototype of so many playmates to come young women escaping broken homes and small towns across America, looking to be someone. The first edition sold out; the age of Playboy had begun. Fast forward to the 1970s Playboy Magazine is now an institution, and Hefner is a millionaire many times over. KEITH STROUP He started that magazine from scratch, and very quickly built it into an empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars. COMM By then, he had left his wife and reinvented himself as a pyjama clad bachelor, with mansions in both Chicago and Los Angeles. KEITH STROUP I spent a lot of time between, say, 71 and 74, in the Chicago mansion. You were in a fantasy land. It just wasn�t the real world. He would drink Pepsi cola, and he would smoke joints. COMM And this was just the beginning. He opened his luxurious new homes to specially selected women. KEITH STROUP Thirty or forty playmates, living up in the top floor of the building. A lot of celebrities hanging around. It was all based on the assumption that women are playthings and nothing more. Their value was based on how pretty they were, how sexy they were, how willing they were to sleep with Hef�s friends and celebrities. COMM He was an emperor of soft porn, building a mythic empire, with mansions on the ground and a castle in the air. RUSSELL MILLER Hefner was shuttling between the Los Angeles mansion and the Chicago mansion in his own private jet, the Big Bunny, and that was madly extravagant. I mean, madness. It was allegedly a corporate plane, but of the hundred and nineteen flights it took, Hefner was not on three of them. So, it was actually Hefner�s personal extravagance. COMM By the mid-70s, Playboy�s circulation was 5.6 million. The magazine selling a lifestyle that Hefner embodied: a philosophy that sex for pleasure alone was good. HUGH HEFNER A quite unexpected result of the tremendous success that we had was, that I was then able to begin living the life myself that the magazine was talking about. KEITH STROUP There were tens of millions of men in particular, who That was their fantasy, to think that they would ever have a chance to spend a night at the Playboy Mansion. COMM And for the readers, he created a string of Playboy clubs, where, for the price of a membership, they could be served by women who were a different fantasy entirely: the bunny girl waitresses who served drinks in clubs multiplying all over the world. JAKI NETT I worked at the LA club from 1967 to 1979. Putting on your make-up, putting on your costume, brushing your tail. And you had to get them nice and soft, and you spray them with hairspray. And then you would go down to the club and the ambience, the lighting, the music, it was just magical. And then you would serve: Good evening, I�m Bunny Jaki. I�ll be taking your order. Playboy Bunnies, we were waitresses in high-heeled shoes and tight corsets. We had sore arms and your feet hurt. So, you�d take club soda, pour it in your shoes, and you�d walk around with slushy feet but your feet feels cool. JAKI NETT There was all of this social upheaval: there was the black movement, there was the woman�s movement. The women were protesting us: �You�re being used. No, I�m not. I choose to be here. I'm a waitress. I have that power, to be able to present yourself in a way, to be able to earn your own money and for that time it was very good money. I was able to have that independence, that I didn�t have to depend upon sugar daddies or anything like that. No, and that was offered. You had people offer, you know: I�ll buy you this, I�ll buy you a car.I can buy my own car. STELLA TETENBAUM They wanted to be somebody, and I think that was part of the allure for bunnies at the club. They had a job with benefits. And for a woman at that time and that point in history, you really only had three fields. You were either a secretary, a teacher, or a nurse that was the professions. JAKI NETT They wanted to touch the tail. Don�t touch the tail. You know, you don�t touch any part of me. You don�t touch. COMM As fast as the Playboy clubs were making money, Hugh Hefner was spending it. RUSSELL MILLER The executives travelled first class. They ordered lobster, whenever they wanted it just crazy expenditure. And the cost of running the two mansions, mad extravagance. STEFAN TETENBAUM We were all living off of Hefner. As you went through the kitchen when you left, we all would take items out: jars of caviar, lobster tails, bottles of wine even his pyjamas. If anything happened to his silk pyjamas, he would throw �em in the trash. And so, we would fish em out of the trash, take em home, have them dry-cleaned, and wear them. COMM The Playboy founder was burning through his fortune. Luckily for him, there was a club that would become a goldmine but it�s not in the USA, it�s in swinging London. In 1966, Hugh Hefner exports the bunny girl to the UK. He�s broken free from his Methodist background, to become a major player in the 60s sexual revolution. RUSSELL MILLER Hefner and his brother, his younger brother, were brought up in a strict religious household and given very little freedom at all. COMM But by the 60s, they were both off the leash. Hefner decreed that the British bunnies be trained according to his twenty-six-page manual of rules. His brother, Keith, dreamt up the strict training regimes, right down to how to carry a tray. MAN Okay. Faster, faster, faster! High carry. Buh! Reverse! COMM The London club was to be managed by Hefner�s swashbuckling sidekick and trusted lieutenant from Chicago, Victor Lownes. RUSSELL MILLER Victor and Hefner were long-time friends from way back. You know, they were both men about town in Chicago. Victor really was the man about town. He was the guy that was always going to parties, always had girls on the run. BARBARA HAIGH He had the money, he had the looks. He was confident; he could charm the leaves off the trees. RUSSELL MILLER Although Hefner would never have admitted it, Victor really was the playboy. COMM Lownes was Hefner�s wingman through the early days, helping him dream up the Playboy philosophy, and his number-one fan. VICTOR LOWNES He�s brilliant, a genius. HUGH HEFNER Genius is kind of a funny word. I suppose, I suppose by definition I consider myself one. COMM Hefner�s audition methods for bunnies were embraced in the UK, with the same high standards. A gruelling process. BARBARA HAIGH I was working for a man, and he was a bit of an entrepreneur in Liverpool, and he was the one that saw this advert for bunnies. And they were offering a �40 finder�s fee if they lasted four months, I think it was because they used to go through a lot of them, trust me. You know, if you didn�t pass your training, which was extremely rigorous, or if you didn�t quite have the bunny image MARI MARTIN It was the 60s and 70s, you know? It was all happening, you know? Swinging London, we were all part of it. BARBARA HAIGH I saw somebody walking through the door, that was just a shadow with light shining behind them, and I thought: Who�s that? I recognise that walk.� It was Robert Mitchum. I think the best couple was Keith Moon and Ringo Starr coming to the discotheque.Cause the two of them were, like, you know, drumming all the time. The table was bouncing. You�d put a drink on it, and you had to snatch it up. It was just about to disappear into somebody�s lap. COMM The bunnies must never look less than perfect. Held over the women was the threat of being axed, known in the club as the bunny purge. BARBARA HAIGH Did have that from time to time. Don�t let people overexaggerate. You know, it sounds like a bloodbath it wasn�t. You know, if somebody had got a bit too fat, you�d get suspended until you lost the weight. And if you didn�t lose the weight: Sorry, you know, we haven�t got a job for you anymore.Usually, when we went into work, we were already made up, but the whole bunny room was made up like a makeup studio. Huge mirrors everywhere, with, you know, the lights all around. And once you�d got your makeup on, and your tights on, and your collar and cuffs I�ll show you those in a minute. As you can see, the bones at the front and this was the secret ingredient, if you like where they cut the waist, it was laced. So, you could splay it or tighten it, so that you weren�t showing anything that shouldn�t be showing. BARBARA HAIGH We�ve got the cuffs. And when you put them on, you had to make sure that the bunnies were facing each other or kissing, as they said. Yes, it�s Barbara. That�s my tail, so it�s got my name written on it. Because obviously, they had to go into the laundry. We had a bunch of seamstresses that looked after us, like mothers. They were wonderful people. They�d make your costumes for you. And these are the ears. The headband which was sort of stretchy, so it didn�t dig into your head each girl sort of chose her own style of how to wear the wears, or how to bend them, because they�re wired around the edges. So, you can bend them straight up, or curl them over or something, like that. And then the headband would literally go on where your own ears are, like-a-so. Good evening. I�m your bunny, Barbara. COMM For some, it�s the bunny costume that is Hugh Hefner�s most contentious creation, but the bunny was about to play a key role in shoring up an empire under pressure. RUSSELL MILLER At a time when the Playboy organisation itself in the United States was facing major difficulties the circulation of the magazine was falling, the competition was increasing it was Victor who realised that the Playboy club also needed to be a casino in order to make real money. COMM In 1975, feeling the pinch, Hefner sells off his big bunny jet and moves full-time to live in his mansion in Los Angeles. Left to his own devices, Victor Lownes turbo-charges London, cashing in on a new age of oil millionaires in the mid-1970s. RUSSELL MILLER The money that was coming in, being generated by the casinos in London, it was supporting the entire company. The whole company was being supported by the income from gaming in London. COMM The focus was firmly on gaming and recruiting glamorous bunny croupiers. MARI MARTIN I was working as a secretary, or PA, at that time, as was my friend, and she went for an interview and she got in. And then she took me along, and she got twenty-five pounds for introducing me, which in 74 or whatever was an awful lot of money. GWEN RULE I was working for Barclays Bank. Two girls came over from the bunny club and said: Our general manager�s been over here, and he really thinks that you�d make a great bunny. And I said: Oh, really? Okay. Of course, I went and told my mum. Oh, she went absolutely berserk. Oh, she really didn�t like the idea. Because, you know, they didn�t wear any clothes according to my mum. MARI MARTIN They gave me a maths test, and I did quite well. And they said, you know: Do you want to be a croupier? And of course, I said: What is a croupier?� You know, so Because I hadn�t got a clue. And they explained, and I thought: Mm, I might like that. GWEN RULE Oh, my God, it was the best job I�ve ever had. In all the years of working, it was fun. It really was fun. I used to rock up, with no make-up on, look like death warmed up. And then by the time you�ve, sort of, done a quick turn in the bunny room, put your costume on, put your lipstick on, and make-up, and go to the bunny room and see bunny mum, before you went on the floor, you had to show her your nails and turn around, and she�d make sure your bunny tail was in place. MARI MARTIN The camaraderie between all the girls .I mean, I remember when I first got in, and I thought: Oh, God, you know, all the girls will be a bit frightening or something� � and it was quite the reverse, really. They were really . We were all friends. GWEN RULE As far as I was concerned, I didn�t have any to-do with any of the girls and I worked there for over five years. It just felt like a really, really lovely, warm family environment. RUSSELL MILLER The bunny croupiers were a big attraction. Extraordinary sums were spent. I mean, millions and millions of pounds were lost, and very occasionally won. BARBARA HAIGH One night, this gentleman was winning a lot of money. You know, like half a million quid or something like that. I had to give the dealer a break. So, I took over from her, and I think by the time she came back from her break, I�d taken every single penny off him, plus another half million. MARI MARTIN Remember, this was in the 70s. It was in the days of the oil millionaires, you know? I remember one man actually saying to me, because he seemed to be on a losing streak, he was earning more every minute than he could possibly lose. Which seemed amazing, you know? His oil well was obviously gushing. COMM By 1978, Playboy London was the largest casino in Europe, bankrolling Hefner�s playtime. But no one got to gamble unless their permits were in order, no matter how big the VIP. GWEN RULE Muhammad Ali. Oh, God, when he walked through the door . Oh, my God. Sadly, you know, he couldn�t come into the club, because he hadn�t signed the forty-eight-hour rule. You had to sign a piece of paper to say that you were giving notice to actually go and gamble, and then you had to check that time when they came back forty-eight hours later. And you could lose the casino licence if that wasn�t adhered to. COMM So, the legendary champ was turned away. GWEN RULE But you know, that wasn�t really none of my concern at that time. I was just so pleased to see him. MARI MARTIN I think people thought you were glamorous. You know, I think people thought, Oh, she�s a bunny,you know, type thing. So, you felt a little bit special. BARBARA HAIGH It was very empowering. I was earning more than my father. He was a Chief Superintendent in the police force. COMM Bunnies and customers were both bound by a strict Playboy code when it came to relationships. BARBARA HAIGH Anybody tried to get fresh: �Do that again and I will have your membership cancelled, sir. MARI MARTIN There were rules. You couldn�t be touched by any of the customers. BARBARA HAIGH If anybody tried to push their luck, they found out the hard way and were escorted off the premises. Card destroyed, end of. COMM A world away in Los Angeles, there�s a different way of life entirely for the playmates who pose naked in the magazine and spend time at Hugh Hefner�s personal home. By the late-1970s, the Playboy Mansion is becoming the stuff of legend in Tinseltown. It�s party magnet, by strict invitation only. STELLA TETENBAUM When I went to the mansion the first time, it was just beautiful. You know, they had a private zoo, and the grounds were just immaculately kept, and it was gorgeous. HUGH HEFNER Maybe on another planet. It�s a little bit of a Shangri-la for us. JOHN HESTON I was there from 1975 to 2005. Early on, it was like the Wild West there. The sources of the animals, in many cases, were dubious. He wants a llama; he wants a swan in the swimming pool. He wants parrots that are, you know, bright and beautiful and big, and say cute things. He deals with images, and the zoo reinforces the exotic nature of the Playboy Mansion. This is what you can do if you�re rich and successful. STELLA TETENBAUM Everybody knew about the mansion. It was, like, the biggest curiosity in Los Angeles at that time. It was all set up to seduce men and women, and it took your breath away to be there. You know, there were so many people that would try to get in the mansion. There was guards all around. People would jump over the wall. JOHN HESTON Because that�s all Mr Hefner sold, was images. The magazine is images. Everything is image. In fact, Mr Hefner once said: If we don�t have a photograph of it, it didn�t happen and that�s the way he looked at things. And he had photographers everywhere. COMM While it looked as though Hefner was running a freedom-loving home, it was also a mansion of rules and shrouded in secrecy. STEFAN TETENBAUM We knew there were cameras everywhere, and listening devices, microphones everywhere. Off of Hefner�s bedroom was a panel of television screens, small ones, that monitored the entire mansion. I worked for Hugh Hefner at the Holmby Hills mansion for four years. Hefner was very demanding and exacting. You had to keep quiet; you had to sign papers that you weren�t gonna come out and say anything. So, I had to study this manual and how to take care of Hefner. What he ate, how to fix his bedroom. COMM By now, Playboy was twenty-five years old, and debate on whether Hefner was a sexual liberator or an exploiter continued. He was condemned for publishing naked shots of a ten-year-old Brooke Shields pictures too graphic to show and a finder�s fee for anyone who successfully talentspotted potential playmates ensured a steady supply of young women flown in from all over America. STEFAN TETENBAUM I was really surprised at how many fathers would send these amateurish nude photos of their daughters. A lot of boyfriends, stepfathers sent them in. Hefner would go through them, pick out the girls that he thought would be good for the magazine, and they would be met at LAX with a limousine to take them up to the mansion. STELLA TETENBAUM Young girls that come into that scene, they�re, you know, average eighteen years old. They have the stars in their eyes, but I don�t think that they really put much thought into what would happen once they got there. COMM It was part of the deal that women who posed for the magazine stay at the mansion, now in full sexual swing. RUSSELL MILLER Nudity was encouraged, you know, in the woo grotto, so-called woo grotto, and in the swimming pool and all around the grounds. You know, girls, particularly girls, were encouraged to walk around naked. Group sex was, you know It just happened as routine. Hefner told me, quite straightforwardly, that he was not sexually attracted to women who have an intellectual capacity, or indeed were willing to argue about anything with him. He just wasn�t interested. He only liked very young, nubile, innocent girls. You know, often they would�ve been virgins before they arrived in Playboy. COMM When Russell Miller went to the Playboy Mansion to profile the publisher, Hefner explained why he favoured sleeping with women who were usually no older than twenty-one. RUSSELL MILLER He said this: I simply find younger women more attractive physically than women of my own age. There�s also something nice about an affair that�s the first serious relationship in a girl�s life.That was so typical of Hefner. What about the rest of the life? You know, just It�s so utterly selfish. COMM Women were often drawn in by a promise of future stardom, and in 1979 came the playmate most likely to succeed in that. Dorothy Stratten had star quality, and was persuaded to pose naked for Playboy by her abusive boyfriend, Paul Snider. RUSSELL MILLER Dorothy Stratten was the only playmate of all of them all that actually did seem like she might become a movie star. Hefner really was smitten by Dorothy Stratten. She was playmate of the year that year. STELLA TETENBAUM She wasn�t Hefner�s girlfriend she didn�t wanna be his girlfriend. She didn�t really enjoy any of what went on in the mansion, but she played the game. RUSSELL MILLER And indeed, Dorothy Stratten did get a part in a movie she was the first one. And the movie was being directed by Peter Bogdanovich, who was very smitten by Dorothy. STELLA TETENBAUM They all wanted a piece of her. It was like a love triangle, with three guys vying for her, and she was a victim. COMM Dorothy Stratten made a bid for freedom, from both Playboy and her controlling partner, Paul Snider. But he turned to murder. RUSSELL MILLER She told Snider that she wanted to end the relationship, and she was in love with Bogdanovich and was gonna go off with Bogdanovich. And Snider took out a gun and killed her, and then killed himself. COMM The director Peter Bogdanovich would later claim that Hugh Hefner had forced himself on Dorothy Stratten when she first became a playmate, which the Playboy publisher always denied. The magazine survived the murder, and it moved on. The fledgling playmates kept on coming. Some were vulnerable runaways, and Hefner offered his mansion as a haven. STEFAN TETENBAUM So many came from broken families and had been abused by their fathers and stepfathers and uncles. COMM One such young woman was Susie Krabacher, who, along with her younger brother, had spent time in foster care. On the run from her abusive childhood, she went to LA, where she�d do a nude centrefold in Playboy when she�d just turned eighteen. SUSIE KRABACHER My grandfather on my father�s side was a paedophile. I was eight when he was caught. He had been doing it since I was four, and I was miserable and afraid all the time. So, I ran away and I got a job. And when this opportunity came along, I left everything and moved to LA. I was living at the Playboy Mansion. They want you to feel like you�re the star, you�re very special. It was after the shoot that things started going awry and very, very downhill. I didn�t like going to the parties first of all. I just didn�t, I just didn�t feel comfortable. STEFAN TETENBAUM All these men, they were all circling them like sharks, and they could see these girls were out of their element. SUSIE KRABACHER Hefner found me outside, near the grotto, and he said: Susie, I hear that you�re afraid of me. And I�m like: No, no, no, I�m not afraid of you. I�m just You know, I�m a little bit shy.He�s like Look� and he took my hand. He�s like: You know you�re safe here. Nothing will happen to you here.Then he let go of my hand and kissed me on the top of the forehead, like a grandfather would, and walked away. And I just remember thinking: Oh, thank God.I guess that's the way it began with most of the girls: feeling, you know, like he was more of a grandfather-type man. Very safe, cared about our wellbeing. But let me tell you, that was not in any way, shape, or form the truth. I trusted him; he tricked me. He raped me. COMM Susie says, one night, another woman at the mansion suggested she go and talk to Hefner about work. SUSIE KRABACHER For some reason, it was really important to her that I go to Hef�s bedroom, right then, right there. I feel like it might have been a set-up. He opened the door and he said Susie! He was so happy to see me. He said: �Oh, Susie, you�re shaking, you�re shakin.I said: I know, I�m just nervous. He said: �Here, take this. It�ll make you feel better.I hadn�t heard of quaaludes, which is apparently what he used a lot with girls, and I don�t know how long I was unconscious. When I came to, the sun was coming up and I saw Hefner his gaping mouth and his slanted eyes. He just . It was like the whole thing again with my grandfather. And the betrayal of Hefner doing this to me brought back everything, everything. And I didn�t know what to do, I didn�t know who to tell. It didn�t occur to me to call the police. COMM Susie says she confided what had happened to a Playboy employee, but was told not to worry and to go back to work. SUSIE KRABACHER You�re okay. Don�t worry, sweetie, he won�t even remember it.And I�m like: Well, I�m not worried, I�m terrified. I was just raped. COMM The Playboy employee concerned denied Susie alerted them to any attack. STELLA TETENBAUM It was all under wraps, nobody would talk about it. This was the mindset. He owned those girls in his mind. SUSIE KRABACHER I just went back to work, stayed away from him. I had to finish my work and I had to get paid. I needed to move out of that place. COMM Susie was encouraged to speak out once more after hearing that Hugh Hefner�s former girlfriend Sondra Theodore was breaking her silence. SUSIE KRABACHER : One by one, they started coming forward and . I felt really alone when I told. And now they�re telling, uh-uh, I�m gonna be there. I�m gonna be there to back this up. COM A playmate in 1977, Sondra Theodore�s testimony was so significant, she was given an entire episode in a major documentary expose in America. She claimed Hefner used a skeleton key to open a locked bedroom door and sexually assault a young woman, expressing anguish and remorse that she was too terrified to intervene. SUSIE KRABACHER When I heard that Sondra Theodore had come out about it, I could not let her be alone, because I knew that people would look at her and say: �You lived there for four years, or five years, and you stayed.� Well, she was in love with the man. So, there are some kinds of abuses that are psychological as well as physical, and I can�t I can see why some victims stay in the situation. COMM Above all, by the late 70s, the mansion was a honeypot for the Hollywood crowd he so loved. Entertainer Bill Cosby was a regular. STELLA TETENBAUM Hefner was extremely starstruck. He was so, so in love with Hollywood and stars and celebrities. RUSSELL MILLER VIPs controlled everything. They were completely untouchable. Whatever they wanted to do, they could do particularly with the girls. You know, that was what was so upsetting, really, in terms of decency, decent behaviour, and equality. STEFAN TETENBAUM You could come to Hefner�s place, you could do drugs, and you could have sex, and you didn�t have to pay for it. COMM There were few boundaries, and it�s claimed some partygoers came to indulge their worst instincts. STELLA TETENBAUM Not everyone was violent, but there were certain men very famous men that were really very violent. And that was a lot of pressure for these girls. RUSSELL MILLER Seven of the girls that I talked to were obliged to put up with anal sex, which a lot of them didn�t like. A lot of them felt debased by it in a way. And one said to me, rather movingly, she said: I just felt that I wasn�t good enough to be. to have proper sex with him.� And this was in public, you know? This was in the so-called woo grotto. STEFAN TETENBAUM I just couldn�t imagine that men could be aroused while they were being so violent. Any man in power at that time had the reins, and you couldn�t cross em. COMM As the Playboy Mansion grew in mythology, the magazine�s bunny logo became a universal brand one of Hugh Hefner�s most powerful creations. The outfit worn by those who worked in the Playboy clubs added to the power of the bunny. In and out of Playboy, a new enduring symbol for seduction. Hefner first came up with the simple logo for his magazine to represent the powerful but playful instincts of man. HUGH HEFNER That choice was based on the fact that the rabbit had a certain sort of sexy reputation. COMM And then he created its female counterpart: women in bunny gear. What�s endured to this day is the camaraderie between the bunnies, with reunions still held all over the world. Jaki Nett worked at the Playboy club in LA for twelve years. Now seventy-eight, she�s a renowned yoga teacher. She still has her bunny girl posture and her sense of belonging to the bunny family. JAKI NETT We go to reunions. There�s this tightness it�s a sisterhood, we protect each other. We can talk about things that no-one else can talk about. Anybody can put on a bunny costume. But if you haven�t lived to be a bunny, if you haven�t gone through the training, if you haven�t gone through the hurting feet Playboy gave me confidence. So, it was a very strong bonding. COMM Bunnies were there to serve, but not be seduced. Club members were famously told to look, but not to touch. But now come revelations that, for some, the bunny outfit made them a target. Jaki reveals that in the early 70s, she had a terrible experience with a club member. JAKI NETT There was a famous rock band and I don�t use names that was giving a party. And this man, he was a regular of the Playboy club. And he invited my roommate, and my roommate said: Come and go with me. And I said: Okay.And I went, and I was drugged and I was multiply raped. I felt my body go, and I couldn�t find my roommate. And I saw him, and I felt that security: At least I know his face. And that�s the face, the first face . I remember being on the bathroom floor, and I saw his face and I would pass out. And I would wake up and see someone else�s face, and I would pass out. And I remember getting up and staggering out, and my body was on fire. JAKI NETT And I remember seeing this swimming pool. And I stripped and dove into the swimming pool, and I was swimming underwater. I remember saying: I could easily just drown here. I can just drown and a hand pulled me out. The next time I went to work, I told everybody who this person was, and I found out that that was his MO. He would make friends with the younger bunnies and invite them out, and they were afraid to say anything. Well, I wasn�t. And when he came in, someone told me he was there. And I got this tulip glass, and I was gonna kill him. I didn�t care how long I would be in jail, I was gonna kill him. And I came charging through, looking for him, through the different rooms. JAKI NETT And one of the room directors caught me in mid-air, cause I was coming at him, and he�s doing a bear hug. And I�m screaming, and he�s saying: No, it wasn�t me. It wasn�t me. I know who it was, I can say.I said: It was you.And they dragged him out. They took his membership out, away, and he could not come back in the club. The important thing for this was that Playboy believed me. I was asked, why didn�t I report it? It was the early 70s, I was a black Playboy bunny. This was a white man in a suit. Who were they gonna believe? Who was going to get the worst stint? Me. I didn�t wanna go through that. JAKI NETT It�s no different now, because the police, or the questions, will make you feel that you should have shame and there should not be any shame. The shame should be that this person thinks they have the right to violate my body. This was not going to define my life. This happened, but it wasn�t going to define my life. COMM And so, despite this, Jaki stayed with the Playboy club all through the 70s as a bunny trainer, before leaving to get married. JAKI NETT To this day, when I teach, I�m on stage. So, that energy of presenting myself is very there. I teach you how to be in your body. COMM As the 70s ended, there were dozens of bunny clubs across the world, part of Hugh Hefner�s empire, and he had the dream of going even further in his crusade to spice up the everyday lives of men. RUSSELL MILLER There was a point when everything was going well for Playboy, when there was A sort of Playboy realm was envisaged, where the Playboy reader, he would spend his nights in a Playboy club, he�d stay in Playboy hotels. Playboy would cater to his every single need, and that was a sort of fantastical vision that I think some Playboy executives dreamt of. COMM But as the 70s turned into the 80s, Hefner�s clubs fell out of fashion. RUSSELL MILLER They were losing money. The hotels were losing money, the clubs were losing money, the film division was losing money, the video division losing money, the publishing division was losing money. COMM But the London casino was still making money, and still run by Victor Lownes. GWEN RULE We were such a separate entity. I just knew Playboy London. I didn�t know anything about the American clubs, we just didn�t have that connection. It was very much about Playboy London. So, I never met anybody from America. Um, I never went there to see any of the clubs, or the mansion. So, just It wasn�t really part of my life. COMM But distance had weakened the bond between Hefner and this former favoured ally. And in 1981, in a move that rocked Playboy to its core, Victor Lownes was given notice. BARBARA HAIGH I was working in the disco, and somebody said: Have you heard the news? I said What news? He said: They�ve fired Victor.� What? And I said: Well, they can�t fire you. He said: They just have. RUSSELL MILLER Hef decided that Victor was more trouble than he was worth and fired him, which actually brought the Playboy empire down to its knees. COMM: The London Playboy casino ended up losing its licence and, in 1982, it closed. Other clubs would soon follow, no longer the draw they once had been. By the mid-80s, every single club had closed across the world. As Hefner approached sixty, his party crown had slipped. RUSSELL MILLER Hefner at that time was essentially a recluse. I mean, he never left the house. He was living in the Los Angeles mansion and never left it. His lifestyle was very far from what you would imagine. Two nights a week he played Monopoly on a specially designed Monopoly board, moving little figurines of themselves, and I was very struck by the fact that girls were allowed to watch the game or indeed, if they were particularly favoured, move a piece but were never allowed to play. COMM In 1985, Hugh Hefner dialled the party down. He suffered a stroke, and fear was in the air. STELLA TETENBAUM The mansion basically shut down for a good ten years, because everyone was worried about AIDS. COMM Hefner will seek safety and shelter in convention with a second marriage. In 1989, he weds a former Playmate of the Year, Kimberley Conrad, and begins to reinvent the Playboy Mansion as a family home, with Kimberley and their two sons. The grotto goes quiet. JOHN HESTON Things were pretty hectic in the 70s. And I would say in the 80s, okay, things started slowing down, until . When you�re dealing with the 90s, it was just quiet. If you were looking for excitement, you would say it�s boring. There was not a bunch of collateral things going on around you and so forth, like there was back in the 70s. COMM By now, Playboy has many competitors, and circulation�s down from a high point of seven million to three million a month. It�s been up to its old tricks, publishing new shots of rising star Madonna without her consent, taken when the singer was just starting out and struggling to make it. But the newly-married Hefner is now taking more of a backseat. His daughter, Christie Hefner, is handed the reins of the empire in 1988, and made chairman. And it is she who ushers in a new age of high-profile celebrity cover models. CAPRICE To do a cover of Playboy was huge. There were so many A-listers. You know, Sharon Stone did it, Naomi Campbell did it, Drew Barrymore did it. Dolly Parton did a cover. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. So, to be asked to do the cover of Playboy was huge. SAM FOX I�d done it, because it was always a dream. But it had to be, you know, under There had to be rules. CAPRICE There was a huge difference between playmates and the celebrity editorials. The celebrities, we got to pick whichever photographer we wanted, we got to pick how we wanted to pose. We got full copy approval, full picture approval, and we had a big, fat fricking massive paycheque. COMM In the 80s, many playmates would appear in Playboy once they turned eighteen. But the celebrity cover models were often older, only posing when they�d already made it, but didn�t necessarily need it. SAM FOX I was thirty when I did it. So, it was in 1996. I�d been offered Playboy many times before that, when I was a glamour model, but it .I dunno. I didn�t really wanna do it then, because I don�t think I would�ve got .had the authority that I had at thirty to say: I want to take my.I wanna choose the photographer, I want copy approval on all the pictures, and I wanna bring my mum. CAPRICE When I was eighteen, no, doing Playboy would�ve been wrong for me. It would�ve been wrong for me, entirely. SAM FOX The reason I took my mum was, because there was one particular Playboy There was a few of Pamela Anderson. They were gorgeous, but there was one bum shot, and the tripod was very low, and there was too much to be seen. And I didn�t wanna show too much. And so, by having my mum there. She would always look in the lens to see what the picture was like and what was, kind of, coming through from that picture. There�s definitely lines that if you cross it, it can become tacky, and it�s a fine line. You have to be very, very careful, because it�s forever. You know, it�s forever, isn�t it? CAPRICE You know, doing the photoshoot, I was actually really uncomfortable. I felt quite vulnerable, and I didn�t I just . I mean, I�m being honest, some people will say: Oh, it�s. You know, I feel liberated. That�s bullshit. I didn�t feel liberated. I did feel uncomfortable, but the shots I was quite proud of. I thought they were beautifully done. SAM FOX A lot of photographers, they wanna further their career, like the girl does during the shoot further their career. The key is yes, definitely to take someone with you that you trust implicitly, because . Well, there�s no-one better than taking your mum. Unfortunately, there�s obviously young girls out there who haven�t got a mum, but take someone with you who can tell you the honest truth, and make �em look down that lens: Let me just see what this looks like. CAPRICE So, this is a business, okay? Yes, the fame was amazing, but I was more led by the business aspect. It�s a funny thing for me to say, �Don�t let people just take pictures if you�re not in control of it,� when most of the money that I made in the early days was from people taking pictures of me but I was in full control. And by the way, I was one of the first people that owned my own pictures. I owned everything. You�ve got to control your destiny, you�ve got to control . This is your body, this is your image. And if you don�t control it, it�ll be very short-lived and it�ll make you feel bad. COMM Meanwhile, back at the mansion, Hugh Hefner had spent the 90s as a married man. But in 98, a game-changer arrives for men of a certain age. America�s drug regulator, the FDA, approves a new miracle pill for general distribution. Hugh Hefner embraces it with gusto. After a decade of marriage, his wife Kimberley and their two sons move into a mansion next door, and Hefner declares he�s a bachelor once more. His age of Viagra has begun, and the parties at the mansion are back on. CAPRICE Oh, honey, I went to a few of those parties at Playboy. I know exactly what went on. Holy smokes. HUGH HEFNER I came out of a marriage in 1998, and discovered that a whole new generation had grown up and was waiting for me to play. SAM FOX There were some sordid stories going around at that time. I didn�t want any rumours coming out that I went to the mansion and all this kind of stuff, because I�d heard things. CAPRICE And it was like this thing: Whatever happens at the Playboy Mansion stays at the Playboy Mansion. HUGH HEFNER This is a good time to be alive. I�m looking forward to the new millennium with great satisfaction. SAM FOX He invited me to the mansion, but I didn�t feel the need to go to the mansion. I didn�t feel the need to meet Hugh Hefner. COMM: It�s now fifty years since his debut, in what was then ground-breaking TV, appearing as the sexually liberated and sophisticated gent and the host of Playboy After Dark. In 2005, as internet porn steals the last of Playboy�s real thunder, Hugh Hefner finds a powerful new platform to express his brand of sexual freedom: reality television. Pushing eighty, with girlfriends Holly Madison and co on his arm, his new show is a powerful way to recruit young women to his gothic playground. SAM FOX I remember, there was a reality show where he had three women living with him, and I was like: My God. You know, it�s just not my scene. Do you know what I mean? COMM Right from the opening titles, the thirty-room manor house is used to lure in the viewers with a promise of access-all-areas. BOYD HILTON What�s interesting, that the Girls Next Door came along, you know, in the mid-2000s. It�s like a prototype for a certain kind of celebrity reality TV show that we then saw, Keeping Up with the Kardashians. It seemed to trade particularly on the fact that Hugh Hefner at this point decided that the thing to do was to have multiple girlfriends at the same time. COMM The series quickly established Holly Madison as Hefner�s main co-star, and that his girlfriends had a pecking order. BOYD HILTON And I think that was the real hook for the Girls Next Door. It�s like: �Oh, yeah, that�s weird and intriguing and wrong. But it�s a fascinating basis for a TV show, to have, you know, his girlfriends his crop of girlfriends together in a reality show. COMM In the first episode comes a startling revelation that one of Hefner�s girlfriends had been a fan of Playboy since preschool. BOYD HILTON The other really weird thing about watching, I think . The kind of weird hook to watch the Girls Next Door .Of course, at this point Hefner�s eighty, but he�s having these relationships with these girls that are in their early-twenties. I�m trying to find a different word from the word creepy, but there is no other word for it. It does come across as spectacularly creepy. The whole story of Playboy is one where, similarly like as a kind of patterner of glamour, but the reality was absolutely grim. COMM The Girls Next Door aired in a hundred and fifty countries worldwide, and ran for six seasons. But in 2011, at the age of eighty-five, Hugh Hefner starts to sell off his empire, Playboy Enterprises, lock, stock and barrel. While he no longer owns the magazine, he�s allowed to stay on living at the Playboy Mansion as a tenant, until his death in 2017, at the age of ninety-one. His obituaries reflect his complicated legacy. STELLA TETENBAUM The cars, the plane, the clubs, the casinos. You know, it was this whole image that he was selling. And of course he had to have these beautiful women, you know, because they were gonna sell this for him. They were all part of the machine. COMM Some describe him as a pioneer of publishing, a sexual liberator, a great lover of women. Time Magazine carries an opinion piece that claims otherwise, by cultural writer Jill Filipovic. JILL FILIPOVIC Hugh Hefner was a brilliant businessman and a rank misogynist. Hugh Hefner made a career out of exploiting women, and then calling it liberation. I don�t think he quite saw women as full human beings. COMM He died just before the Me Too movement ignited a sea change of holding powerful men to account. SAM FOX You know, he�s dead, and now we hear these horrifying stories. COMM One of Playboy�s VIP regulars did face a reckoning. In 2022, a civil trial jury determined that Bill Coby abused a minor at Hefner�s Playboy Mansion, at a party in 1975. GLORIA ALLRED Today, our client, Judy Huth, won real change, and she proved with the jury�s verdict that Mr Cosby did sexually assault her when she was a minor, and that he should be held, and was held, accountable for what he did to her. JUDITH HUTH It justIt�s been torture, it has, just to be ripped apart. You know, thrown under the bus, backed over. And this, to me, is such a big victory. It really is. STELLA TETENBAUM People did not believe any of this forty years ago. They would not believe it � a lot of them don�t believe it now. Bill Cosby was America�s dad. He was a big comedian, he was Hefner�s best friend. The woman was not believed. COMM The Playboy founder never faced any criminal charges for his alleged behaviour, but more than a dozen former playmates came forward to claim they suffered abuse within the empire. SUSIE KRABACHER I know that it happened to a lot of girls. Because since the A&E special here in the United States, I�ve gotten to know some of the victims, and their story is so similar to mine. COMM The fight for Hefner�s reputation has led hundreds of ex-employees, girlfriends, bunnies, and playmates including his second wife, Kimberley to sign a public letter defending him, describing him as kind and upstanding. A petition was organised by his son, Cooper, who said all allegations against his late father were just salacious stories. JILL FILIPOVIC I would imagine that, like in all these other cases where you have high-profile men accused of very bad behaviour, you�re gonna have some women who weren�t mistreated. But one thing that we know is that men who exploit women, treat them badly, don�t necessarily mistreat every single woman they ever meet in their entire lives. You�re gonna have some women who weren�t mistreated, and there�s certainly going to be women who come forward and say: �Hugh Hefner was great and everything was consensual, and I don�t feel exploited.� But those who didn�t are also telling us something really valuable, really important, and that deserves not just a listen, but a folding-in to Hefner�s legacy. SUSIE KRABACHER It�s just nobody listened before. So, for those who say: Well, you got to have all the fun. And then when that went away, you decided to get attention for yourself.� This is not the kind of attention any woman wants. COMM The Hefner family�s last connections with Playboy Magazine ended in 2018, and the empire is now mainly online. Its new owner, a tech investment fund, has issued a statement in the face of all recent allegations, saying: �We trust and validate women and their stories, and we strongly support the individuals who have come forward.� Adding that: �Today�s Playboy is not Hugh Hefner�s Playboy.� But years after his death, a huge question remains for the many playmates who stayed at the mansion: What happened to the library of secret filming and photos they believe Hefner took of them? SUSIE KRABACHER I was told, literally on camera, that my rape was filmed. And I do not know where that film is. I don�t know. COMM Hefner left a widow his third wife, Crystal a playmate, who was sixty years his junior. But in death, he was laid to rest in a plot next to his first Playboy fantasy, Marilyn Monroe, whose nudes shots featured in the magazine�s first edition in 1953, without her consent, and who Hefner never met. SAM FOX I don�t think Marilyn�s spirit would be very happy laying next to Hugh Hefner. No, I don�t. I really don�t RUSSELL MILLER He wanted to see himself as an innovator, as a sexual liberator, as a reformer, as a major figure. And of course, in the end, he never was. SUSIE KRABACHER I have a wonderful life. It happened to me I just want to say that it happened. I have forgiven him and you have to forgive, or else you . They, they get to keep a part of you. STEFAN TETENBAUM Why didn�t you help these girls?� A lot of people say: Why didn�t you help them? And I told them: �You don�t know how powerful he was forty years ago.� He was so powerful, he thought of himself as a Saudi prince. They were his harem; they were his concubines. He was the last emperor of Holmby Hills.