The Editor-in-Chief and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy, Hugh M. Hefner, is a man who has profoundly influenced society in the last 50 years, during which his publication has been the world's best-selling men's lifestyle magazine. 

Hefner was born in Chicago on April 9, 1926, the elder son of conservative Protestant parents, Glenn and Grace Hefner, and a direct descendent of distinguished Massachusetts Puritan patriarchs William Bradford and John Winthrop.  He attended Sayre Elementary School and Steinmetz High on the West Side of Chicago, where he was no more than an average student, despite a genius IQ (152), distinguishing himself instead with his extracurricular activities: founding a school paper, writing, cartooning and serving as president of the student council where he championed student causes.

The first issue of Playboy magazine, which featured the now-famous calendar photo of Marilyn Monroe, was produced on a kitchen table in his South Side apartment.  On the newsstands in December 1953, it carried no cover date because Hefner was not sure when or if he would be able to produce another.  But the first issue sold more than 50,000 copies, enough to pay for the paper and printing costs and to finance another issue.

Thereafter, Hefner never doubted that the magazine would be a success.  He plowed profits back into the publication and hired a young, enthusiastic editorial, art, promotion and advertising staff to assist him.  Playboy grew at a phenomenal rate.  By the end of the decade, the magazine was selling more than a million copies a month and to celebrate, Hefner held the first Playboy Jazz Festival at the Chicago Stadium.  It was called, at the time, the greatest single weekend in the history of jazz.

At the start of the new decade, Hefner began to live out the "Good Life" depicted in the pages of his publication.  He hosted a popular syndicated television show called Playboy's Penthouse, purchased the Playboy Mansion at 1340 North State Parkway, and opened the first Playboy Club on the Near North Side of Chicago on February 29, 1960.

Throughout the Sixties, Hefner and Playboy became what Chicago columnist Bob Greene has called "a force of nature."  Hefner wrote an extended series of editorials titled The Playboy Philosophy, championing the rights of the individual and challenging our heritage of Puritan repression.  The magazine became the largest-selling, most influential men's magazine in the world.

By 1971, when Playboy Enterprises went public, the magazine was selling seven million copies a month, there were 23 Playboy Clubs, resorts, hotels and casinos with more than 900,000 members worldwide.  The Company's assets included book publishing, merchandising, a modeling agency, a limousine service, a record label and a TV and motion picture company.  It was truly an empire ruled by one man.  (via Playboy Enterprises)