Un return as unexpected as it is surprising. Playboy, the famous charming magazine created by Hugh Hefner in 1953 and disappeared from American newsstands since 2020, is once again being talked about in France, with a quarterly edition in which we can see the Secretary of State in charge of the social economy and solidarity Marlène Schiappa lightly undressed. But it took time for World to acknowledge the journal’s existence. This appeared for the first time in the columns of the evening newspaper on December 4, 1962. A fortuitous appearance, we can see, since, interviewing the choreographer Roland Petit on the occasion of a new show at the Palais de Chaillot , cultural journalist Nicole Zand asks him about his future projects. ” I would like to do Playboy in movie, answers the famous choreographer. Not where there would be cream pies with fat ladies on them, not Yvon card photography, like in Black Tights [film de Terence Young de 1961]… Something neat, with at the same time this improvised side that Jean-Luc Godard has now imposed on cinema… ”
Playboy returns to the columns of the World December 14, 1966, again casually, to refer to an interview with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, in which he revealed the secret negotiations during the 1962 missile crisis. just one “review” without specifying the specificities of this publication, a combination of journalism and charming photos that has long made it a unique newspaper. The famous ” Playboy interview” unfolding up to twenty pages has become a unique space of communication appreciated by the stars of cinema and the leaders of this world that The world difficult to define.
On June 29, 1974, the daily tackles – finally – the magazine head-on. The title of the article written by Alain-Marie Carron, “Play boy at the age of man”, with the title split in two, hollowly underlines the malaise of the World with this post. But the report, in the headquarters, in Chicago, of this magazine which has become an empire, points out with rigor the scope of the phenomenon. “The first issue of Playboy was conceived in Hugh Hefner’s apartment, with a friend or two, writes the journalist. It had no address, since there was no office, no date either. Its authors hoped, in the event that they were unable to produce a second issue, that the first could remain on newsstands indefinitely and thus contribute to paying off their debts. Hefner had invested his entire fortune, $600, and $10,000 in investments made by adventurous spirits. Today, the offices of Playboy Enterprises Inc. occupy, in the chic district of Chicago, thirteen floors of a building which belongs to the company, above a Playboy-Club and a 320-room Playboy hotel. , at $40 a night on average. The company owns other luxury hotels in New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Jamaica, overseas clubs, movie theaters, a film production company, a record company, a edition, a huge jet plane painted black, dubbed “Big Bunny”. »
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