In the ‘70s, the feminist movement entered a new era, and the sexual revolution for women was becoming more mainstream.
Los Angeles-based nightclub owner Douglas Lambert noticed that Hugh Hefner’s Playboy had commercialized the market for nude photospreads. Lambert wanted to create a publication that could rival Playboy, but his wife had a different idea: create a magazine featuring nude men.
Who started Playgirl?
Lambert wasn’t sold on the idea at first, but after evaluating the changing landscape and the sexual revolution, he would write promo copy for what would become Playgirl magazine.
Related Articles
Media
Playgirl Is Back and Very Different From Its LastIssue
Culture News
Playgirl Magazine: Now andThen
Lambert teamed up with William Miles Jr., a seasoned ad executive, took $20,000 for an investment, and opened an office in Century City in L.A.
You May Also Like
Playgirl: The Magazine for Women (Volume 1 No. 1) was issued in June 1973.
Who was the first Playgirl centerfold?
The first issue featured a nude man credited as Eldon posing with a woman credited as Lorelei embracing him from behind. Shadows helped blur out the more graphic portions of the image.
The magazine became an instant success. Within four days, it sold out 600,000 copies. The ‘70s was the heyday for Playgirl, and on average each issue sold 1.5 million copies.
What is Playgirl?
Playgirl was more than just a printed version of an all-nude male revue. The magazine also explored general interest, lifestyle and entertainment news.
As Playgirl grew in fame, celebrities began taking notice. The magazine would eventually garner Hollywood talent to grace its pages.
What celebrities were in Playgirl?
From the ‘80s through the 2000s, the magazine managed to nab notable cover stars and models for its nude centerfolds, including Christopher Atkins, Tom Selleck, Peter Steele, Shawn Michaels, Lorenzo Lamas, David Duchovny, Brad Pitt, Keith Urban and Levi Johnston.
The demand for nude male celebrity centerfolds began before Playgirl. In 1972, acclaimed actor Burt Reynolds agreed to pose nude for Cosmopolitan magazine under its founder and then editor in chief Helen Gurley Brown. The centerfold was credited with sparking a revolution in women’s magazines, as it was considered one of the first times mainstream media acknowledged women’s sexual desires.
Reynolds would be the inspiration for decades of men to come at Playgirl. Atkins, who was already famous for being nude in the 1980 film “Blue Lagoon,” was featured in 1982’s Best of Playgirl magazine.
1980s heartthrob Lamas would go on to pose for the magazine in 1996, appearing shirtless on the magazine’s cover. Although he did not formally pose for Playgirl, in 1997, the magazine featured Pitt on a cover. The actor wound up suing Playgirl, alleging a trespassing paparazzi illegally snapped the photos while he was on vacation with then-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow.
One of the most high-profile nude photo spreads Playgirl did in the late 2000s was Johnston’s. At the time, Johnston had a level of fame as the boyfriend of Bristol Palin, the daughter of 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Given Palin’s still high profile at the time, the photo shoot made headlines across America and particularly stirred up Palin’s more loyal followers and conservative base for being provocative. Johnston’s cover also marked Playgirl’s return to print issues after a year of creating content that lived online only.
Many actors who appeared nude in movies in the ‘80s and ‘90s often found themselves in the magazine in a section called celebrity nudes. Playgirl also once featured a “Real Men” section to feature amateur models.
Which company owns Playgirl?
Throughout the years, Playgirl’s ownership changed hands multiple times. In 1986, the magazine filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Drake Publishers Inc. subsequently acquired the magazine. It was owned by Drake’s until 1993 when Drake merged into Crescent Publishing Group Inc.
In 2000, Crescent faced one of the biggest scandals in Federal Trade Commission history, when the agency charged the owners and operators of www.playgirl.com, www.highsociety.com and scores of other adult websites with illegally billing thousands of consumers for services that were advertised as “free,” and for billing other consumers who never visited the websites at all. The FTC and the New York Attorney General filed suit in U.S. District Court seeking to halt the illegal billing practices and asked the court to freeze Crescent’s assets, pending trial, to provide for consumer redress. Following the scandal, Crescent changed its name to Blue Horizon Media Inc.
Blue Horizon owned Playgirl for another 10 years until it sold the rights to the title to Magna Publishing Group Inc. In 2015 the publication folded, marking the end of an era. Its last print issue featured “The Boys of Ft. Lauderdale” and the campus hunks spread. In 2020, Jack Lindley Kuhns and editor-in-chief Skye Parrott relaunched Playgirl.
Like its predecessor, the first print issue, featuring a very pregnant Chloë Sevigny in the nude with the cover line “We’ll take it from here” quickly sold out.
Kuhns is the great-grandson of Eugene Meyer, who bought the Washington Post in 1933 and whose family owned it until it was sold to Jeff Bezos in 2013. Playgirl is the first time Kuhns has dabbled in the media world.
Is Playgirl magazine still in publication?
Playgirl launched a new website, Playgirlplus.com, in May 2022. The site features exclusive celebrity interviews, centerfolds and erotic fiction. The site highlights Playgirl’s 50-year history, including access to the archives. A one-month subscription to Playgirlplus.com costs $12.95 while one year is $99.95.
Where can you buy old Playgirl magazines?
For fans of throwback Playgirl magazines, physical copies are available for resale on Amazon and eBay.
This year, Playgirl celebrates its 50th anniversary, expected to be marked by retrospectives, merchandise and limited print editions. The Peter Steele issue, which is considered one of the more rare issues to find, is listed on eBay for $25,000 at the highest price.
PHOTOS: See archival images of Playgirl through the years.
