• Faith: Agnostic
• Career: Public Figure
• Birthday:  April 09, 1926
• Date of Death:  September 27, 2017

Hugh Hefner was an American publisher and businessman best known as the founder of Playboy magazine. Born Hugh Marston Hefner on April 9, 1926, in Chicago, Illinois, he built Playboy from a new men’s magazine into an international media and entertainment brand. His public image, including his trademark smoking jacket and life at the Playboy Mansion, became nearly as recognizable as the magazine itself.

Hefner was the oldest of two sons born to Glenn Hefner, an accountant, and Grace Hefner, a teacher. He described his family as “conservative, Midwestern, Methodist,” and his mother reportedly hoped he would become a missionary. Hefner later characterized his upbringing as strict and “Puritanical,” with relatively little outward affection in the home.

After graduating from Steinmetz High School in Chicago, Hefner served in the U.S. Army from 1944 to 1946, working as a writer for a military newspaper. He later attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1949 with minors in creative writing and art. He also briefly studied sociology at Northwestern University.

Hefner worked in publishing and advertising after college, including as a copywriter for Esquire. He left the magazine in 1952 after reportedly being denied a $5 raise. The following year, he raised approximately $8,000 from investors and borrowed $600 against his furniture to start his own magazine.

The first issue of Playboy appeared in December 1953 and featured nude calendar photographs of Marilyn Monroe that had been taken years earlier. The issue sold more than 50,000 copies. Playboy quickly grew beyond its provocative photography, publishing fiction, journalism and lengthy interviews with prominent writers, entertainers, politicians and cultural figures.

Hefner expanded the brand into Playboy Clubs, television programs and other businesses. He also used the magazine to promote his views on sexual freedom, censorship and civil liberties. His lifestyle and business philosophy made him a prominent but controversial figure in American culture. Supporters viewed him as an advocate for free expression and sexual liberation, while critics argued that Playboy contributed to the objectification and exploitation of women.

Hefner was married three times. He married Mildred Williams in 1949, and they had two children, Christie and David, before divorcing in 1959. He married Kimberley Conrad in 1989, and the couple had two sons, Marston and Cooper. They separated in 1998 and divorced in 2010. Hefner married Crystal Harris in 2012 and remained married to her until his death. He was also publicly linked to numerous women over the course of his life.

In his later years, Hefner continued to live at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles and appeared in popular culture, including the reality television series The Girls Next Door. He died at the mansion on September 27, 2017, at age 91. His death certificate listed cardiac arrest and respiratory failure, with an E. coli infection and sepsis among the contributing conditions. Hefner was buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park in a crypt next to Marilyn Monroe.

Hugh Hefner’s Religious Beliefs

Although Hefner grew up in a Methodist household, he did not maintain his family’s traditional Christian beliefs as an adult. He became critical of organized religion and described religion in a 2000 Playboy interview as a human-created way of explaining what people do not understand.

Christian author and apologist Lee Strobel later interviewed Hefner about faith at the Playboy Mansion. Strobel described Hefner as holding a “very minimalistic, deistic view of God.” According to Strobel, Hefner acknowledged a “minimal belief in God” but rejected the traditional Christian understanding of God, which Hefner considered “a little too childlike.”

Hefner also told Strobel that he did not believe Jesus was uniquely the Son of God. However, Strobel recalled that Hefner showed particular interest when their conversation turned to evidence surrounding Jesus’ resurrection and recognized that, if the resurrection were true, it would have significant implications.

Hefner was generally characterized as agnostic rather than an adherent of an organized religion. While he retained a limited concept of God or a creator, his public statements indicated that he remained skeptical of Christianity and institutional religion throughout much of his adult life.