Description

Arguably the most successful magazine editor of all time, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner was the first publisher to create not only a magazine but a lifestyle brand. During the cultural and sexual revolution of the 1960s – possibly the heyday of the magazine – Hefner embodied the lifestyle his magazine proposed at his Chicago, and later Los Angeles, mansions. The magazine fused nude female pictorials with writing from literary heavyweights like the author Vladimir Nabokov, who previewed his 1969 book Ada in the magazine and featured interviews with political figures; Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Miles Davis and George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, all appeared uncensored in Playboy Interviews.

In 1966, Magnum’s Burt Glinn was sent on a commission by American publication The Saturday Evening Post to photograph a typical evening at Hugh Hefner’s Chicago mansion.

I think that what you've got to do is discover the essential truth of the situation, and have a point of view about it.

Burt Glinn
© Burt Glinn | Magnum Photos

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Burt Glinn served in the United States Army between 1943 and 1946, before studying literature at Harvard University, where he edited and photographed for the Harvard Crimson college newspaper. From 1949 to 1950, Glinn worked for LIFE magazine before becoming a freelancer. He became an associate member of Magnum in 1951, along with Eve Arnold and Dennis Stock – the first Americans to join the young photo agency – and a full member in 1954.

Glinn made his mark with spectacular color series on the South Seas, Japan, Russia, Mexico and California. His reportages have appeared in Esquire, Geo, Travel and Leisure, Fortune, Life and Paris-Match. He has covered such monumental news events as the Sinai War, the US Marine invasion of Lebanon, and Fidel Castro’s takeover of Cuba.

© Burt Glinn | Magnum Photos

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