America's Playboy Marks Magazine's 50th

Nov. 26 -- He built his Playboy empire on the bodies of flawless females, but 50 years later the single most important woman in the life and work of Hugh Hefner is not a pin-up, but a savvy businesswoman. It's his daughter, Christie Hefner.

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It is one of the most unusual father-daughter teams in the business world. One year older than the magazine, Christie Hefner is now CEO of the business. She is married, works during daylight hours and has no children.

She says she feels no conflict between running the Playboy empire and her personal life. "I like dressing sexy, and I like having a good time. But at the end of the day, my role at this company is CEO."

Hef, as he calls himself, is a night owl, separated from his second wife — 38 years younger than him — with whom he has two young sons. He now lives with six women he calls his girlfriends. "Lots of people date lots of girls," he told ABCNEWS. "You know, one girl on Tuesday and another girl on Wednesday; I date them all at the same time."

Pushing Sexuality Into the Mainstream

Once, that kind of statement might have drawn hisses of outrage. But today Hef is an icon and the magazine is considered mainstream. So who's changed, America or the Playboy?

Hint: At 77, Hef is still wearing his trademark pajamas — in the middle of the afternoon — and he's still devoted to what he describes as the inspiration for Playboy — "the play and pleasure of life."

That ideal was largely unheard of when Hefner launched the magazine in 1953. Back then, America liked Ike, and witch-hunted communists. Social tolerance was short and skirt hems long. "Sex" was a forbidden word in polite public conversation.

Along came Hef, stapling a nude pin-up of Marilyn Monroe into the center of his magazine. American men bought it — in droves. Especially the idea that nice girls liked sex. It was a radical notion.

Conservative groups quickly attacked the upstart magazine, and turned out to be its best publicity. By the end of the 1950s, Playboy was selling a million copies an issue. And Hef was transforming himself from a workaholic to the poster child for the fantasy he'd concocted. He also divorced his wife and left her with two young children: Christie and her brother, David.