Authors: Izabella St. James
I could not decide on a name for her. It was hard to come up with something that was cute enough and yet reflected her strong pug personality. It was my mom who suggested the perfect name: Balbina. In Poland there is a story about a little goose named Balbina who is an adventurous, independent little girl. It was perfect.
I hated to leave her alone. Whenever I went out for an extended period of time, particularly when I went to work for the day, she would sit by the door and howl. Yes, she would howl like a little smooshed-faced wolf. I decided that I had to get her a sibling. I recalled seeing a man walking his two pugs at Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica: one was fawn and the other black. They were named Salt and Pepper, and I thought that was adorable. It was the first time I ever saw a black pug; the second time was when I was in Malibu and saw a man with a black pug—it turned out to be Dick Clark. He and his wife could not believe their pug was younger than Balbina because it was twice as big. I decided that what Balbina needed was a black baby brother. I contacted several breeders. (When one of them found out I lived at the Mansion, she was so excited to tell me that she and her husband were swingers too! I thought that it was so funny that people think the Mansion is still swinging like it was in the ‘70s. We didn’t actually swing. If I am not mistaken, swinging implies a change of partners; there was no change of partners at the Mansion, it was just one man and his seven Girlfriends. I finally found a breeder in Missouri who had three baby boy pugs. She e-mailed me the photos and I chose the one for me, and Hef gladly paid for little Bogart.
When Bogart arrived, I took Balbina to LAX with me to introduce them on neutral territory. When we got to my room at the Mansion and Balbina realized Bogart was staying with us, she hid under the bed and could not be lured out. I expected instantaneous love between them. I called Justin crying, “She hates him. Did I make a mistake?” He told me to relax and give them a couple of days to get to know each other. When Bogart playfully grabbed Balbina’s tail the next day, she realized that he was more than just a pest who played with
her
toys and shared the attention of
her
mommy. She realized that she had a play partner. From then on it was, and still is, puppy love for those two. Of all of the things I got out of the Mansion, the things that changed my life the most are my dogs. The unconditional love they bestow upon me each day, the way they make me laugh every day, is priceless. And I will be eternally grateful to Hef for having brought them into my life.
The most famous pet Hef ever bought anyone must be Pinky, the capuchin monkey (like Ross had on
Friends
) he bought Tammy, which was featured in the
MTV Cribs
episode. Tammy had found a website about capuchins and showed it to him. After careful planning, Hef bought her the monkey for about $7,000; he was able to purchase the monkey because he has a zoo license. When the monkey arrived, it seemed to be much younger than it was supposed to be and we felt bad for the little baby. Tammy had to feed it formula and change its diapers—after putting a hole in the back of the newborn-size diapers for the tail to come through. Tammy, who loved pink, named her Pinky. Problems arose when she got older and we suspected that she might be a he (we could not tell for sure.) Pinky was sweet, she made cute little noises and gave kisses, but she also got into everything and was known to pee or poop on you on occasion. Still, I was lucky enough to monkey-sit a few times, and I will always remember those moments fondly. After the
MTV Cribs
episode aired, Pinky became more famous than us girls and people constantly asked about her. Many times after Tammy left the Mansion, people would still come up to me and ask, “Are you the monkey girl?” It made me smile.
In sum, we were living the good life. We had a boyfriend who took care of us and even gave us spending money. Not bad for lying by the most beautiful pool all day drinking daiquiris, shopping on Rodeo Drive, and partying all night at the most exclusive places in Hollywood.
9: Hef.
A Portrait of the Playboy as an Old Man
“ Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
—Jack Kerouac
I
n his twenties Hugh Hefner worked for
Esquire
magazine as promotion copywriter for $60 a week. When
Esquire
moved its offices to New York City, Hef asked for a $5-a-week raise, and he was denied. He quit. In 1952, with $600 in his pocket and $8,000 borrowed from family and friends, Hugh Marston Hefner started his own magazine. Hef could not afford to pay women for centerfold photos and did not know women who would willingly take off their clothes for him at that point. Instead, he bought pictures from a local calendar company, and his choice made all the difference. The first issue of
Playboy
featured nude photographs of soon-to-be-very-famous Marilyn Monroe. She had posed for the pictures a few years earlier when she needed money. The first issue of the magazine sold 50,000 copies, and the rest is history. Some years later
Esquire
came and offered him the job back and the raise, but he was busy ruling an empire. An oversized $5 bill with Hef’s face on it hangs in the game room as an eternal reminder of the humble dream that became a fantastic reality. An empire built on dreams.
It is obvious that the magazine is Hef’s true love and passion. Day in and day out, I heard him shuffle down the hall to the offices next to my bedroom to do his work. At his age, he could easily stop working and enjoy his life. But I don’t think he considers what he does work; the magazine is his life.The magazine allowed him to blossom not only intellectually but also sexually. He grew up in a strict, Puritan Chicago family. His father was an accountant, his mother a Methodist disciplinarian. He has said there was never any show of affection in his house. Hef was an average-looking guy, who was rejected by his first love, and eventually married the girl next door, to whom he lost his virginity. According to his own admission, Hef created a new persona for himself. This new guy was Hef, the Playboy, the suave magazine founder whom girls loved and was a sexually free being. His entire identity is related to the magazine. It had brought him not only his riches but also an active personal life. Back in Chicago, and more recently in Los Angles, most of the women who were being photographed for the centerfold also stayed at the Mansion. Hef has said that during some years he was involved with as many as eleven out of twelve Playmates being featured any given year. Hef was used to dating more than one woman at a time, and that explains why there were six or seven of us when I lived at the Mansion. It was something he was accustomed to.
Hef would constantly relate everything to
Playboy
. As in the movie
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
where the father believed that every word originates from the Greek language; Hefbelieves that everything is somehow connected to
Playboy
. And yes many times, the stories made me proud. Sometimes he was just over the top, but it was amusing and I understood his pride. Without
Playboy
he would still be the awkward-looking guy with dreams of romance. When you look closely, Hef is something of an anomaly in his glamorous surroundings.
At the most basic level, Hef is a creature of habit. He is the most regimented person I have ever met. His life revolves around a strict schedule, one that has not changed for decades. He wakes up every day between 10 and 11 a.m. He eats an English muffin with butter and strawberry jam, reads the newspaper, puts on his black silk pajamas, and makes his way down the hall to the office where he works until about 5 p.m., when he eats his daily (instant) Lipton’s chicken noodle soup and crackers. He is still the editor-inchief of
Playboy
magazine, while his daughter from his first marriage, Christie, is the CEO of Playboy Enterprises, of which the magazine is a small part. To create the magazine, Hef literally pastes up articles by hand, goes through photos with a magnifying glass, picks the Playmates himself—he even selects the jokes. And most afternoons, you’ll find him in the den off the main foyer, where some starry-eyed journalist practically wetting himself to be inside the Mansion listens as Hef holds forth on the First Amendment, the events of the day, and his place in history. As discussed earlier, the evenings are equally structured; each night has its designation.
Hef is a true original, one of a kind. I loved the fact that he walks to the beat of his own drum. He sleeps in until he wakes up naturally; there are no alarm clocks, so the day starts when he is ready. His office is down the hall, where it is convenient for him. He wears pajamas all the time; black silk pajamas for work, and various colors during the evening. His favorite are the purple ones because they match his smoking jacket. He sleeps in baby-blue flannel pajamas; there are also identical ones in pink for us girls to sleep in. When he goes out, he wears the black Armani suit and custom-made shirts in all different colors with white collars and cuffs. He also has his one casual outfit; a pair of jeans, a red casual shirt, and a grey tweed-ish jacket. That was the one outfit he always wore on our casual outings, if we went to dinner at a casual place or when he went to the dentist. I wanted to buy him a new pair of jeans, a new “casual” shirt, and a more stylish jacket, but anytime we tried to give him something new and improved, he just thanked us and continued with his old ways.
Hef eats all of his meals in bed; breakfast, his later afternoon soup, and then dinner, which he eats late at night, usually as he prepares to watch a movie in bed. On buffet dinner nights, he sits at the table and drinks his classic Jack and Pepsi, while everyone eats. He never seemed interested in what was being served at the buffet—he has a list of a few things he likes and sticks to those tried and true favorites. The kitchen has specific instructions on how to make his food, and there is another set of instructions on how to serve it to him—each food item has a specific place on the tray. The butlers have a book downstairs so that they can always follow the specific directions, because Hef does not like things to be different. His favorites are lamb chops, fried chicken, and the occasional cheeseburgers and fries. His dinner always comes with applesauce and a glass of cold milk, and sometimes with potato chips. Hef also enjoys a Häagen-Dazs strawberry ice cream cone for dessert, which he got me hooked on as well. What was really peculiar about Hef is that when we went out for dinner, he would not eat the restaurant food. Our kitchen prepared his regular lamb chop dinner, along with the applesauce and peas, and would have it delivered to the restaurant before we arrived for our dinner. And when the restaurant kitchen was taking a long time with his dinner he would always get anxious and annoyed—after all, it was already prepared. So even though he took us out for sushi and all sorts of other things, he never tried any of it; occasionally he nibbled on something he recognized, but he always ate his own food made just the way he liked it. The one thing we got him to try was
edamame
(soy beans); at first he was skeptical, but then he liked them so much he began to order them, and still does, all the time.
Christmas and Thanksgiving were the only two occasions each year when Hef ate dinner at the dining room table with everyone else. He sits at the head as always, and the Girlfriends follow on each side. Also seated at the table is his younger brother Keith with a date, and his daughter Christie and son David with their significant others. The other usual suspects are seated elsewhere. Christmas at the Mansion was fun and festive. It was not a religiously significant experience; it was a secular Christmas. On Christmas Eve we had a buffet dinner and a movie. On Christmas Day we also had a buffet dinner followed by a movie. The buffet dinner includes turkey and ham, always amazingly prepared. Because we watched a movie after dinner, it was basically like any other Sunday but fancier. After Christmas dinner everyone gathered in the living room/theater for a group photo, which we usually had to do twice because the group was so large. We opened our presents on Christmas Eve after the movie. We’d all run to Hef’s room and start off with the stockings. Then we moved onto the huge bags under the mantle with our names on them; one bag for every girl. Thanksgiving was fairly similar, a formal buffet dinner and a movie. I would have dinner with Justin and his family during the day, and then return to have dinner at the Mansion.
As for alcohol, Hef is loyal to his pal Jack Daniels and Pepsi. Occasionally he had a Mai Tai, umbrella and all. Once in a while we got him to do a shot with us, usually something sweet like a Red-Headed Slut. He always drinks in moderation throughout the week, but there were times that Hef got drunk on the nights we went out. Emma would turn to me and say, “Dude, your boyfriend is wasted, you better keep him in line,” and then we would look at him lovingly and laugh. We could always tell when he had a buzz because his shirt would be open down to the middle of his chest, and he would be busting a move on the dance floor. He was always so giddy and chatty with us; it was cute and I liked it when he got drunk and silly. Hef definitely had his endearing moments; he was charming and witty. I loved it when I recognized him in one of those good moods. He would make these adorable dolphin sounds. I have a few pictures of when he is at his most silly and human, and when I look at them I remember those moments fondly.