born April 9, 1926, Chicago, Ill., U.S.
U.S. magazine publisher and entrepreneur.
After serving in the U.S. Army (1944–46), he attended the University of Illinois, graduating in 1949. In 1953 he founded Playboy , a magazine for men. Playboy 's intellectually respectable articles and its forthright philosophy of hedonism made it a seminal influence on the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s. Hefner later expanded his enterprise into nightclubs and other entertainment media.