American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story (2017–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - Members Only: The Playboy Club - full transcript

I am today announcing my candidacy

for the Presidency of the United States.

The year was 1960.

America was locked in a cold war.

In North Carolina,

four African-American
students staged a sit-in

at a "whites only" lunch counter.

And the FDA had just approved

a new form of birth control...

... that would soon be
known simply as "the pill."

It seemed like the dawn of a new era.



And for me, life was
definitely changing.

I was newly divorced...

with a brand-new mansion in Chicago.

And for the first time,

I was publicly embracing
the Playboy lifestyle.

With all the distraction at my new home,

I was starting to
fall behind on my work.

So I brought on a personal assistant.

Her name was Bobbie Arnstein.

Rise and shine.

I let you sleep till 3:00.

You need a taxi, honey?
I'll call you one.

Come on.

You got an editorial meeting in an hour.



Spec and Russell are waiting.

Wake me in 45.

Bobbie Arnstein started as a secretary

for the company right
out of high school.

She was incredibly bright.

She had a marvelous sense of humor.

Hefner looked to her for personal advice

and even business advice at some time.

And she did not hesitate to give it.

Do yourself a favor and take a shower.

You need one.

She had a sensitivity and a humor

and an intellect that I
have never found probably

in any other woman in my life.

She was a pal.

She was a confidant.

And she was, yeah, my right hand... arm.

Bobbie was an instant
fit in the Playboy family,

handling my life and responsibilities

within the magazine with ease.

People were not used
to really bright women.

It was okay for a
woman to try to succeed.

It wasn't okay for a woman
to be faster than you are,

smarter than you are, and Bobbie was.

With Bobbie managing my life,

I rarely had to leave the mansion.

I brought the staff in for meetings,

and the line between work
and play began to blur.

- Ray.
- Hef.

Good to see you, my friend. How are you?

Very well.

The parties were growing.

And between the dance floor...

... the pool, the
cocktails, and the women,

the mansion quickly
became the place to be.

On any given night, the
guest list included stars

like Tony Curtis,

Frank Sinatra,

Woody Allen,

Joe DiMaggio,

Phyllis Diller,

and Sammy Davis Jr.

Everything I had heard
about the place was true,

it was exotic.

Many young women excite
anyone's amorous propensities.

People were lining
up outside the mansion

just hoping to get a glimpse inside.

With everyone wanting in,

I realized there might be a way

to let the public experience my world.

And in that moment, I came up with

what would become our most
ambitious undertaking yet.

In the spring of 1960,

I started dating a girl
named Cynthia Maddox.

Hi, I'm Cynthia Maddox and
I work for the magazine.

Cynthia and I met at
the Playboy offices.

She'd recently been promoted
to assistant cartoon editor

after working her way
up from receptionist.

Hi, Cynthia.

Cynthia was brought
in by Bobbie Arnstein.

They were friends in high school.

She was bright and
charming and beautiful

and demonstrated editorial intelligence.

- It's ready.
- Oh, excellent.

- And this is ready, too.
- Yes.

With her new position,

Cynthia and I began
spending more time together.

Cynthia Maddox was a great girl.

You know, very outgoing.

And she became Hef's girlfriend,

uh, live-in girlfriend.

And she traveled a lot with him.

She would be seen in public

with Hef at all major events.

It was my first real
relationship since my divorce.

But as happy as I was with Cynthia,

I wasn't quite ready to give
up the bachelor lifestyle.

I vowed after my divorce...

never to marry again.

Hef was always very
upfront with his girlfriends

that he was not interested in a
monogamous relationship at all,

even though they were living together.

No matter how involved I became

in a primary romantic relationship,

there were still other
secondary affairs.

I guess I wanted, as a young man

to have somehow the best of both worlds.

We're probably gonna
have a couple of hundred

people here, uh, throughout the night.

It's, uh, a party of this
kind usually begins for us

around 1:00 and, uh, and goes till dawn.

The truth was, I was
having the time of my life.

Our mansion parties
had become legendary.

Now, I wanted to give my readers

a chance to experience them firsthand.

And I'd finally come
up with a way to do it.

The inspiration came from a feature

we'd run years earlier.

A November 1956 article

profiling a new, private
nightspot in Chicago,

the Gaslight Club.

Modeled after a
turn-of-the-century speakeasy,

with its exclusive membership policy

and scantily clad waitresses,

it quickly caught the
attention of our readers.

It was a private club, and
the girls were uniformed

in a sort of 18th-century outfit.

And we had over 1,200
letters from readers

asking how they could
join the Gaslight Club.

I knew we could do the
concept of the Gaslight Club,

but make it bigger,
better, and more accessible.

And that's when I decided
to open the Playboy Club.

The pages of the magazine come to life.

Victor Lownes and I
immediately got to work,

formulating a plan.

The Bunny logo... right there.

Connecting to Playboy,

coming to a Playboy party

was the ultimate goal of so many people.

And the clubs were
meant to bring to life

the lifestyle of the magazine.

There's a market for this.

The vision that my dad had
for the clubs were to act

as a sort of opportunity
for readers of the magazine

or watchers of the show to
be able to go and live out

whatever they were reading or watching.

If we were going to do this right,

we knew we needed a partner.

How are you?

Back then, our favorite club in Chicago

was the Walton Walk,

owned by Arnold Morton.

Arnie! Good to see you.

- Victor, always a pleasure.
- Arnie...

I had a friend, Arnie Morton.

And we knew that he knew something about

the business end of it,
'cause we knew nothing

about running a restaurant or nightclub.

Can I get you guys a round of drinks?

Arnie Morton was well-known

as a restaurateur even in those days.

Of course, he became
gigantic as the years went on

with his own Morton's operations
in half the cities in America.

Hope to see you again.

Good to see you, John.

I knew the only way

to bring our vision to life

was to make Arnie part of the team.

Well, first of all, we need a location.

We teamed up, we each
took a piece of it.

Hefner had a piece, the
magazine had a piece.

Arnie had a piece and I had a piece.

There were four owners.

I know of a premises that
isn't being used down there

at the moment and I think I
can make a couple of calls.

Our first order of business was
to secure the perfect location.

Gentlemen...

To the Playboy Club.

The Playboy Club.

And Arnie said there was only
one place our club could be.

Chicago's Gold Coast district.

Once known for its mob-controlled
speakeasies and casinos,

it was now home to the hottest clubs

and restaurants Chicago had to offer.

Nightclubs were a new, a new glamour,

uh, for manhood.

Everybody had their nightclub.

There were local nightclubs.

There were black nightclubs.

There were Jewish nightclubs,

Italian night... in the neighborhood.

But the big hit was to come downtown.

And Arnie knew of a place
that was available...

116 East Walton.

The former home of the Cameo Club.

Five stories high and right
in the heart of the action.

We planned to transform the Cameo Club

into a fantasy bachelor pad

with rooms designed to
look like a living room

and a library,

as well as a disco and a theater.

With construction under way,

we began focusing on the
club's most important feature.

So, Hef, we need to deal with
the issue of the waitresses.

Right, right, the, uh, the Playmates.

What's your preference?

Hefner wanted to call
the waitresses Playmates.

And he wanted to dress
them in shorty nightgowns.

And somehow that was gonna be very sexy.

But, uh, we kept seeing
that there were gonna be

a lot of problems in
overexposure, et cetera,

if we dress the girls in nightgowns.

I would like to suggest going
in a different direction.

Rather than the Playmate,

what do you think about Bunnies?

- Bunnies?
- Mmm.

We tried to persuade him
to use the Playboy rabbit,

which was always a male rabbit
in a little dinner jacket.

But we tried to persuade
him that this could be

applied to the girls, and he was sold.

Victor spent weeks
working on the costume.

And after many iterations,

he finally revealed the prototype

on our television show
Playboy's Penthouse

using the perfect model, my
girlfriend, Cynthia Maddox.

Hey, Hef...

Hef, uh, I hate to interrupt you

with business at this time of night.

But I've got something
I want you to see.

The, uh, little Bunny outfit

for the girls at the Playboy Club.

- This is the outfit.
- Yeah.

That's what we cooked up.

Well, I like that very much, uh...

Including the, the outfit, too.

Oh, yeah, it'll work out.

Uh...

Do you think our members will like that?

I think the members will like that.

Maybe I ought to explain
that, uh, Playboy is,

is, uh, going in the Key Club business.

Starting as of the 1st of the year,

there will be keys very much like this

in the hands of members
throughout the country.

Our viewers gave the
costume rave reviews.

But I still felt something was missing.

The Bunny costume wasn't quite

the way Hefner envisioned it.

So he added some important
elements to the costume.

We don't want this to be too drastic.

If we cut this collar, just a clean cut.

And the cuffs as well.

Hefner can be difficult
because he's a perfectionist.

Whether it's on the page
or whether it is a costume.

I'd like to introduce
you to Cynthia Maddox,

your first Playboy Bunny.

Hefner was really instrumental

in the changes in the Bunny costume.

I just raised the cut
to accentuate her legs.

Lowered it a little on the bust.

He was the one who insisted on the cuffs

with the Playboy
cufflink and the bow tie.

Would you mind doing
a spin for us, Cynthia?

I think the costumes are adorable.

Fixed the tail. Sits nicely there.

There's just something, the dichotomy

of an innocent Bunny, and
then it's, you know, sexy,

but it's still, again,
I think very classy.

Hefner has a tremendous visual eye.

And as a result of that,

our costume is in the
Smithsonian Institute

and is the first costume that
ever received a copyright.

Perfect.

Now came the hard part.

Finding 30 girls who could
fill that costume like Cynthia.

So we put ads about
our upcoming auditions

in newspapers around the country.

I was in college, part-time job.

Worked at a pharmacy.

And the pharmacist got
something in the mail

that said that they
were having a Bunny hunt.

It said you'd make a good salary

and you'd have fun.

And you got to wear this Bunny outfit.

And it was the 1960s where
it was perfectly acceptable

to tell these girls to bring
a bathing suit to audition in.

Nowadays, they'd be up
on all kinds of charges.

But back then, it was
perfectly acceptable.

Maybe I could go and be a receptionist

or work in a department
store and move my way up.

But this was an opportunity for me

to make a very good living.

So I went.

The day of the first Bunny auditions

was one of the coldest
days I can remember.

We weren't even sure if
anyone was going to show up.

So, do we know what kind of questions

we're gonna be asking these girls?

Well, I think, uh, keep it simple, um...

Arnie's started on a few here.

I put Bobbie in charge
of running the auditions.

Finally.

You try wrangling 400 girls
without running behind.

400?

You ready?

Absolutely.

Quite ready.

- Hello.
- Hello.

Uh, please take your mark.

Thanks, Hayley, and where are you from?

Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Hello.

Women came from all
across the country...

- Where are you from?
- Seattle, Washington.

- Massachusetts.
- Milwaukee.

... and from every walk of life...

I'm a teller at First Chicago.

I'm a nurse.

Real estate agent.

I'm a sophomore from DePaul.

Great school.

... looking for excitement, adventure,

and a taste of the Playboy lifestyle.

It was about youth.

The advert said, "Be a Playboy Bunny."

And you had to be between
18 and 22 years of age.

And so, naturally, it
was about young people,

the spirit and whatever went with that.

All right, thank you very much.

All right, good-bye.

Okay, so... that's it,
that's the last one.

- That's it?
- Yeah.

What do you do?

I'm an assistant to you assholes.

Uh, uh, ma'am, uh,
where's your swimsuit?

Go fuck yourselves, okay?

You're hired!

Ahh...

- Carol.
- No.

No, not Carol. Carol's in my top five.

We spent hours deliberating
over the candidates.

Of course, the Bunnies had
to be skilled waitresses,

but they also had to be much more.

They were performers, bringing to life

the pages of the magazine.

How's it going?

- Hm...
- Not well.

We only have 17.

How about using some Playmates?

No.

Why not?

They're not gonna wanna
serve drinks for eight hours.

I was just talking to Joyce,

and she said she
thought about auditioning

- but she was sick.
- Joyce Nizzari?

Joyce would look amazing
in one of those outfits.

Uh-huh.

Do you think any of the
other girls might consider it?

I'll make some calls.

Okay.

Thanks, Bobbie.

Anytime!

Bobbie was able to get five
of our Playmates to sign on,

including Joyce Nizzari,

December 1958's Playmate of the Month.

To our loyal readers,

our Playmates were as
famous as any celebrity.

And the chance to meet them
would be a dream come true.

When the club opened in
Chicago, it was a knockout.

We opened the door, and the door Bunny

was one of the original Playmates.

That's the stuff of a fantasy land.

Finally, we had our Bunnies.

Let's give it a try,
go along this way, okay?

Way we go, low, carry
at the moment, low carry.

But if these Bunnies were
going to represent our clubs,

we needed to make sure
nothing was left to chance.

So I asked my brother
Keith to join the team.

Faster, faster, faster, high carry.

Reverse!

Keith had studied at
the Lee Strasberg studio,

trying to make it as an actor.

But when his career failed to take off,

he jumped at the opportunity to help.

I'd had a background in teaching.

I had a background in show business,

and I tried to bring
both of those things

to bear in the clubs.

So the first people that
I trained were the Bunnies.

Good evening, I'm your Bunny, Izzy.

You notice that she smiles,

gives eye contact with all four of us.

We imagine that there's
another gentleman sitting there.

Along with Victor Lownes,

Keith created what
would come to be known

as the Bunny Manual.

This is a Bunny Manual

that we give to all the
girls when they start working.

That gives you all the
rules and regulations

that pertain to being a
Bunny in the Playboy Club.

You will find that we
are very, very strict.

In order to maintain the
right image for the club,

we needed our Bunnies to
follow very specific rules.

We wanted them to be glamorous,
but also highly professional.

Bunnies were only allowed
to use their first names.

They could not be seen
drinking any beverage

or wearing any jewelry
during their shift.

And each Bunny had to make sure
her grooming was impeccable.

They knew the ingredients
of 125 different drinks

and always had their service trays

arranged in a precise order.

Our Bunnies went through
rigorous training,

led by the Bunny Mothers

who made sure each Bunny met
the manual's requirements.

Honey, why do you have
this costume on today, dear?

My other costume's in the cleaners.

Mm-hmm, you'll have to go downstairs

and find something else.

Your shoes are soiled, too.

I'd like to have you change clothes.

Your ears are always bent a
little too much, Terri, why?

I didn't know any
particular way to fix them.

We had training about four hours a day

for six weeks.

You started off with the tray.

You spread your fingertips and
therefore you have full balance.

Okay, now who's gonna try
a real high carry, okay?

Whoop, there we go, no!

It was intense.

Do you notice that she is doing

what we call a Bunny dip?

To enforce the polished
image of our Bunnies,

there were specific movements
each girl had to execute

with the utmost precision
while serving our patrons.

There was the Bunny stance,
how a Bunny should stand.

Look, leg should be against that table.

Straight, all right?

The Bunny perch, how a Bunny should sit.

Now dip.

And most famously, the Bunny dip.

There you notice that
she's bending at the waist.

That's incorrect.

Another way that it could be incorrect

is if she were to go down
in a sitting position.

Look, when you're doing your dip, bend.

This side should never be broken.

Let's see the Bunny dip done just so.

That's absolutely correct.

With the Bunnies in training,

the rest of the staff
was working overtime

to get the club open
by the end of February.

While Arnie was
supervising renovations...

Victor was working
hard to sell memberships

to the most affluent

and most important
men around the country.

The buzz around the club
had been building for months,

but for all the people
excited about our opening

there were just as many
who hoped we would fail.

Everything about the extravagant
Playboy empire accents youth,

glamour, money, and pleasure.

Is Hugh Hefner's empire a
20th-century Garden of Eden,

or it is a modern-day
Sodom and Gomorrah?

Many still saw Playboy as
just another smutty magazine,

and our famous parties
as just another example

of the kind of debauchery

people could expect at our clubs.

Hef always had the eyes
of the Catholic Church

and the city government

looking for any excuse
to close them down.

Because every city thought it
would destroy the neighborhood.

But I was determined
to prove them wrong.

When opening night finally arrived,

all of our hard work
was put to the test.

The club looked great.

The Bunnies looked even better.

And we were ready to share
our vision with the world.

All right, ladies, let's hit the floor.

Open the doors.

The opening of the Chicago club

was something truly exceptional.

There was a line around the block.

You had to be a key holder
in order to get into the club.

As you entered the
club, there was a board

with the name plates
of all the club members

so that when they checked
in, their name went up.

And you could see who was
in the club that night.

Every detail of the club had
been carefully thought out

with something exciting
and new in every room.

Across from the lobby

was our full-service bar and pool room

where you could go one-on-one
with our Bumper Pool Bunny.

The bar was called the Playmate Bar.

And we had transparencies of
all the Playmates on display.

Upstairs in the "living
room" was the piano bar

where we served up
our world-class buffet,

all set to live music.

And on the top floor, we
called that "the library,"

our marquee performance venue.

Now you can walk into this experience.

And for most people, it was a fantasy.

You know, you weren't gonna get
this at your neighborhood diner.

You weren't gonna get that anyplace

but at the Playboy Club.

But the stars of the
evening were the Bunnies.

We had desk Bunnies to
greet guests at the door

as well as coat check Bunnies...

cigarette Bunnies...

roaming camera Bunnies

to capture every special evening...

gift shop Bunnies selling
Playboy merchandise...

and our floor Bunnies serving up drinks

from the Playmate Bar.

- Victor.
- Hef.

Good to see you.

Welcome to the Playboy
Club. Look around.

Hello, gentlemen.

When Cynthia and I showed up,

the party was in full swing.

With every detail in place

and the Bunnies looking fantastic...

... all that was left
to do was enjoy the show.

Just seven years after launching Playboy

from my kitchen table,

there I was, hosting what felt like

the biggest party on the planet.

The opening in Chicago was one
of the best moments of my life.

Thank you, thank you, thank you much.

The American male has found
a new place of relaxation.

It's the Key Club.

The most famous example of
such a type club is The Playboy.

Over the next few weeks,

the crowds only grew.

And the Bunnies weren't
the only attraction.

Uh, ladies and gentlemen,

I'm really pleased to
introduce our next act.

So, please give a warm
Playboy Club welcome

to an incredible talent
from just up the road

in Detroit, Michigan,
Miss Aretha Franklin.

You'll do great.

With our TV show,

we'd fought against segregation

inviting the best American entertainers

regardless of race.

It was a formula I wanted
to replicate in our clubs.

Hef decides Aretha Franklin is talented

when no one knew who
Aretha Franklin was.

Today, she'll say that the
first time she performed

for a white audience
and didn't have to enter

through the kitchen was a Playboy Club.

And that was just how Hef thought.

I don't care what the
rest of the world thinks.

I think this is good
and therefore it's worthy

of exploring and exposing
our audience to, that was it.

Along with Aretha Franklin,

our club featured many
musicians on the rise,

like Ray Charles...

Sam Cooke...

and Bette Midler.

The best of entertainment,

black and white, went
to the Playboy Club.

And it really became a social landmark.

It was a place to be seen.

Our Penthouse stage
featured top comedians

like Milton Berle,

edgy up-and-comers
like Steve Martin,

George Carlin,

and an unknown young
comedian named Dick Gregory,

who we discovered at one of
the city's black nightclubs.

'Cause everybody I meet in the nightclub

after they get drunk, they
all tell me the same thing.

Greg, some of my best
friends are colored.

And Mike, you know and I know

there's not that many
of us to go around.

At that time, black comics
had not been permitted

to stand flat-footed in a
white nightclub and talk.

Hefner brought me in from there

to Time magazine, to the Jack Paar Show.

When you look and see the
role that black comics played

and the influence that
the Richard Pryors have had

on white comics, all that
started because of Hefner.

Thirty years from this year,
a Negro can become president.

So treat me right, I'll get in
there and raise taxes on you.

With the entertainment,

Bunnies and ambiance,

we were finally giving our readers

the full Playboy experience.

The food was good and
the drink was stiff.

And the entertainment was nice.

That's what made
people keep coming back.

And the Bunnies were part of the show.

The Bunnies were an undeniable hit.

And though we knew they
would earn big money in tips,

our customers' generosity

exceeded our wildest expectations.

Many of the customers
are aware that the girls

are oft times making
more money than they are.

That's interesting, more
money than the fellas

who can afford the $50 for the key?

Oh, yes.

Even Mike Wallace had to admit

that the opportunity we
were giving our Bunnies

was something special.

What we did was we stuffed our costumes,

and at the end of the
night when you unzipped it

and you dropped it to the
floor, all the money was there

so you wouldn't lose it or forget it.

Do, uh, the girls date club members?

Definitely not, you cannot
date members of the club.

Our Bunnies were our
most valued employees,

and we made protecting
them a top priority.

From the beginning, the personnel head

of every Playboy Club was a woman.

That was the Bunny Mother.

And there was a very, very
strong and strict culture

around protecting and
respecting the women.

So, at a time in which it
was very common for women

to get hit on because they were
waitresses or working in a bar

or for that matter working in an office,

let's think of Mad Men,

this was an environment
in which women felt safe.

Any hint of impropriety
between members and Bunnies

would give ammunition to our critics.

So I made sure that the no-dating rule

was strictly enforced.

At least, for most of my guests.

We did make exceptions
for a select group,

a few friends and trusted VIPs.

Well, what can I say?

Sometimes being the owner has its perks.

Can you shut the door, Vic?

By the end of the club's first year,

we had over 100,000 key holders.

And we were pulling in

the modern equivalent of $33 million,

doing higher volume in food and drink

than any other night spot in the city.

And there was something
about a Playboy Club

that put it in a class by itself.

The Bunnies were the stars of the club.

And we treated them that way.

And they loved it.

And many of them were
Bunnies for many, many years.

It was just a special place.

The instant success of our
club made our next move obvious.

We needed to go national.

And there was no
better place to start...

... than New York.