Fifty-five years ago, a 27-year old man named Hugh Hefner decided he would create a magazine for men, an endeavor which was his lifelong dream. With the simple desire to entertain and distract the modern man, Hefner found himself doing so much more, creating probably the most successful men’s magazine in history. Frankly, who hasn’t heard of that good ‘ol rabbit’s head?
PLAYBOY’s groundbreaking combination of lifestyle and editorial content has featured contributions from some of the most important names of the journalistic, business and entertainment worlds, including Marshall McLuhan, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, Alex Haley, Martin Luther King, Jr. (his last published work before his death), Gloria Steinem, Shel Silverstein, Lenny Bruce, David Halberstam, Nat Hentoff, P.G. Wodehouse, Vladimir Nabokov, James Baldwin, Kenneth Tynan, Herbert Gold, T.C. Boyle, Ken Purdy, W. Somerset Maugham, Vladimir Nabokov and Gore Vidal, as well as local writers and Palanca Award winners, Butch Dalisay, Krip Yuson, Mike Marasigan and Susan S. Lara.
Literary icons who have had their works published in the pages of PLAYBOY, many exclusively, include Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Clancy, Margaret Atwood, Michael Crichton and John Updike.