Bunny - The Real Story Of Playboy

Bunny – The Real Story of Playboy (1985) by Russell Miller

There are publishing empires built on literature, journalism and sober public service, and then there was Playboy, which somehow managed to combine serious interviews, fiction, consumer aspiration, sexual revolution and an extraordinary quantity of strategically positioned furniture into one of the most recognisable brands of the twentieth century.

Russell Miller’s Bunny – The Real Story of Playboy takes a decidedly less airbrushed look at the rise of Hugh Hefner’s empire, tracing the people, money, ambitions and peculiar corporate culture behind the famous rabbit-head logo. Published by Corgi in 1985, this is not a glossy celebration of the magazine so much as an investigation into how Playboy became an enormous cultural and commercial phenomenon.

At the centre, inevitably, is Hugh Hefner: publisher, self-created icon and man who managed to turn wearing pyjamas during office hours into something resembling a business philosophy. From the launch of Playboy in 1953, Hefner built a brand that sold not merely a magazine but an entire idea of modern male sophistication—jazz, cocktails, hi-fi equipment, modern furniture, expensive watches and, somewhere in the vicinity, women who had apparently mislaid several items of clothing.

Miller looks beyond the mythology to the machinery underneath. Playboy grew into far more than a magazine, expanding into clubs, hotels, casinos, television, merchandising and a carefully engineered lifestyle brand. The famous Playboy Clubs, staffed by Bunnies in elaborate costumes and governed by rules which could probably have qualified as a minor branch of civil administration, became symbols of an era fascinated by glamour, permissiveness and conspicuous consumption.

But the story was never quite as carefree as the publicity suggested. Behind the parties, mansions and celebrity photographs were corporate struggles, personal tensions, financial risks and changing public attitudes. By the 1970s and 1980s, the cultural landscape that had helped make Playboy revolutionary was changing, competition was growing, and the empire had to confront the awkward possibility that yesterday’s daring modernity might eventually become tomorrow’s slightly embarrassing period décor.

Miller is particularly interested in the gap between the public image and the private organisation. Playboy sold freedom, pleasure and sophistication, but running a global commercial empire apparently still required accountants, lawyers, managers, contracts and meetings—proof that even the sexual revolution eventually ends up needing somebody from Finance.

The book also captures something of the wider social history surrounding Playboy. The magazine became entangled with debates about censorship, feminism, sexual freedom, consumerism and changing attitudes towards relationships and morality. Admirers saw liberation and sophistication; critics saw exploitation and commodification. Quite often, both sides were looking at exactly the same centrefold.

Whatever one thinks of Hefner or the magazine, Playboy’s cultural influence is difficult to deny. It published major writers, conducted lengthy interviews with politicians, artists and intellectuals, helped shape popular attitudes to sexuality, and created one of the most successful brand identities of the post-war period. It also demonstrated that a man could spend decades insisting people bought the magazine for the articles and somehow keep a straight face.

Russell Miller approaches the subject as a journalist rather than a court historian, making this particularly appealing to readers interested in the business and personalities behind the legend rather than simply another nostalgic tour of the Playboy Mansion. The result is part biography, part corporate history and part examination of an extraordinary slice of twentieth-century popular culture.

This copy is in Good condition, with the expected signs of age and previous reading associated with a paperback published in 1985. It remains a solid, presentable copy and, unlike certain other Playboy-related publications, can be left openly on the coffee table without requiring an elaborate explanation when visitors arrive.

A fascinating account for readers interested in Hugh Hefner, Playboy, media history, publishing, twentieth-century social change or the remarkable ability of a small cartoon rabbit to become an international commercial symbol.

Sold by Crappy Old Books, where the articles are genuinely what we are interested in.

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