Hef, Unabridged

MR. PLAYBOY

Hugh Hefner and the American Dream

By Steven Watts

Wiley. 529 pp. $29.95

"Mr. Playboy" is an encyclopedic, reverent, earnest, incredibly boring biography of Hugh Hefner, the man who invented Playboy magazine and, with the help of his daughter Christie, kept it and its empire alive for more than 50 years.

This book probably should have been reviewed by a 20-year-old man, but the author got stuck with me. As an older woman, I think I need to state my own biases: I'm not a person who thinks porn is boring (I wrote a book on it). I have nothing against womanizers (my old Texan dad would have given Hefner a run for his money). I considered Betty Friedan a good friend, but I thought Andrea Dworkin was a full-on nut. I was never inside Playboy Mansion West but did once visit what was called the "poor man's Playboy Mansion," then owned by financier and criminal Bernie Cornfeld. The bottom floor was filled with men playing backgammon. The furnishings were opulent but vulgar. I went upstairs, and just under the roof were maybe a dozen attic rooms, each furnished with a mattress and a bureau. It was midafternoon and about 110 degrees. Every room held a sweating young woman in a shorty nightgown, one of them with a baby, none of them talking, just waiting for the night to cool off or for one of the men to finish his game and come upstairs for sex.

It wasn't pleasant or glamorous. But America is a free country. Each of these women had made choices; they could have lived another way. Polygamy is the daydream of a lot of men, and maybe some women. Anyway, judge not that ye be not judged.

So when I say this biography is boring, I'm leaving sex out of the equation. It's just dull. Maybe that's because if there's one thing some men love more than unlimited sex, it's unlimited pontification. In earlier days Hefner burdened 25 issues of Playboy with 200,000 words of "The Playboy Philosophy" and hounded his overworked staff with innumerable, verbose memos. He gave countless interviews to anyone who would ask; he opined and opined and opined.

Steven Watts, who wrote this book, must have read every memo, every article, every interview, gone over every business deal, interviewed everyone in Hefner's life who would sit still, read every clipping and then made a manful attempt to frame Hefner as one of the great cultural icons of the 20th century. He ties Playboy methodically and laboriously to each decade as a bellwether of the Larger Culture. Which means more and more layers of opining.

Under all that is an interesting story. Hefner grew up in what he remembers as a religious, emotionally repressed home. He was a shy boy, but he had a wonderful time in high school. As was the custom in the late '40s, after he went into the service and then to college, he married someone he didn't like very much and had two children. Was that going to be it? he wondered. Was he doomed to repeat the life of his parents and then die, without having had any fun? He wanted to play! He wanted more women than just that one wife. And he wanted to be a hipster; he wanted his whole life to be cool.

Then he had a truly brilliant idea. After a few dead-end jobs, in 1953 he put out an issue of a magazine slated to be called Stag Party, but more aptly named Playboy. It would have pictures of (almost) naked ladies, but they wouldn't be skanky refugees from wretched skin flicks; they'd be smiling and glossy and pretty and sun-drenched. You could indulge in solitary pleasure with them without getting all prurient about it.

An equally important feature of the magazine was another attractive fantasy: Droves of American men had served in the war, come home, gotten married, had those kids and been pushed by the government to buy, buy, buy. But what if, instead of a freezer for the garage, you could buy a sports car, the best scotch, a hi-fi system that filled up a wall, a round bed with satin sheets that revolved with the push of a button? You could be just as American -- patriotic, even -- but you could dump the wife and kids and tract house and have all the sex you wanted. You'd be part of the "Upbeat Generation." You'd work hard and play hard. You'd have fun.

That fantasy has beguiled young American men for more than half a century. Religious fundamentalists hated it (because where would they be without sex-as-sin?). And feminists weren't crazy about being put on a par with a sports car or a bottle of scotch. But Hefner was actually terribly traditional in his views about sex. He would not tolerate infidelity in his girlfriends, and in the '50s the magazine ran an earnest article about the moral virtue of the missionary position; it reminded women, the piece said, that men should always be on top.

Hefner is in his 80s now, and (after a second 10-year marriage, and with the aid of Viagra) still refers to himself as a "babe magnet." Some of the material here is interesting, fascinating, even. Too bad it's fatally bogged down with lofty thoughts and abstract nouns. It would be better for everyone to stick to the magazine.

Sunday in Book World

· James Bamford's "The Shadow Factory."

· Michael Connelly's "The Brass Verdict."

· Carlos Fuentes's "Happy Families."

· Roy Blount Jr.'s "Alphabet Juice."

· And an extremely abridged history of the Bush years.