He is a down-home, likeable and, in a sense, very ordinary person. In a different era, “playboys” were international jet-setters. They dated screen stars, played polo, drove race cars, skied, sailed yachts and were a regular feature at the parties of the rich and famous.

Hef likes to stay home. He has always liked to stay home. True, once he became rich, he made sure his homes were magnificent. The one in Los Angeles is a Gothic-Tudor castle on 6 acres. He donated the original Playboy Mansion on Chicago’s near north side to the Art Institute for a dormitory when he abandoned the Midwest for the West Coast. But once inside his home, wherever it is, he doesn’t really like to go out much.