40 Years as PLAYBOYS STAFF WRITER: Jim Petersen: The PLAYBOY ADVISOR shares what it was like to work with HUGH HEFNER!

"James R. Petersen is a veteran of forty years at Playboy magazine. Hired to be the Playboy Advisor in 1973, for two decades he answered  - all reasonable questions—from fashion, food and drink, stereo, sports cars to dating dilemmas, taste and etiquette. He was, according to USA Today, “the number One source of sex advice in America.”  That was his day job.   

An award-winning freelancer, he has written about adventure travel, motorcycling, windsurfing, kayaking, and skiing (he co-authored Playboy’s Guide to Ultimate Skiing)."

 Additionally, Petersen  authored  the infamous book "The Century of Sex."   The book took 3 years to write and was a true labor of love for Petersen & Hugh Hefner, whom acted as the chief editor for the book itself.

"The book presents a sweeping history that argues that the "sexual revolution" of the sixties and seventies was part of a larger social evolution. This evolution began generations before the advent of penicillin, Playboy, or the pill -- and produced seismic cultural shifts that have changed the way Americans live forever."

Corinna & I loved having the opportunity to sit down with Petersen and conduct the interview. What we would learn from Petersen and his career at Playboy and most importantly working closely with Hugh M. Hefner was incredibly profound.

Enjoy the show as we travel back in time to the early years of PLAYBOY and it's dynamic and ever evolving  historical moments in time.

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Transcript

CENTURY OF SEX JIM PETERSEN
===

Corinna Harney: [00:00:00] Well, Jim, it is very nice to meet you. Yeah. I'm Corinna. Corinna Harney. Corinna Harney. 

And I'm echo. I have a beef stick in my pocket. I'm going to set that aside. And we were just yeah, we were just kind of going down memory lane about the Chicago offices versus West coast. Cause corinna was shot by Fagley in Chicago and then I was West coast, but all right.

So we have Do you prefer James or Jims? James or Jims. [00:01:00] James or Jim. Most people called me Peterson. I did not until recently. My kids call me dad. Everyone else calls me Peterson. And my memo pad at Playboys always had from Peterson. Okay. I don't know what it is. No one thinks my first name is important. Well, Corinna, I wanted to ask how you How do you pronounce your name?

She said,

that's a joke. It was a joke. Exactly. Okay. So this is, I'm so happy you're on here. We have had an incredible week of guests and you are our last guest and one of the most pro profound. So James Peterson Peterson, we'll call him was 40 years at Playboy from 1973 to 2003, began as an assistant editor and then promoted to senior staff writer by half.

And you started working in the Chicago offices. [00:02:00] One of, I'm, I'm going to just start the show with, with one of the quotes you gave me, cause it's, it's, It's amazing. And I love it. It's a book. The Century of Sex. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to talk about that. So one of the most amazing quotes from yourself was, Playboy made sex a legitimate, a legitimate beat for journalism and journalists such as yourself.

And I really loved that when you told me that. It I was in the cat bird seat. I got to watch the sexual revolution happen. Right. And the other thing I always say to explain that decade is that The sexual revolution happened on the newsstand. Now, I don't imagine either of you even know what a newsstand looks like.

No, we do. She's 50 and I think I'm 48. I'm not sure. I'm not 50 yet. My gosh. I have a whole year. Thank you. Whatever. Close. No, of course we remember the newsstands and I was, I would always run and get my newsstand specials because I [00:03:00] was on so many covers and I loved them and that's a non existent thing these days.

Yeah. The beauty was Hefner's genius was that he gave us permission to cover what was happening to us. Arthur Kretschmer came in and hired a staff of young editors and Playboy became the magazine in which we wrote about ourselves. Right. The artists that we liked in the 50s, he said Playboy was essentially a science fiction magazine with nudes.

And by the time reached its power in the early 70s, late 60s he gave permission for writers to talk about their lives as it was happening to them in the language it was happening. [00:04:00] And I, so we had articles on what it was like to live with someone when the proper term for living with someone was living in sin.

Right, right. Fallen woman. And what kind of relationship happened when you just liked each other? And didn't require rings or weddings or and there was, I was the Playboy advisor. And when they hired me to give advice on fashion, food and drink, stereo, sports cars, dating dilemmas, taste, or etiquette.

Most of the letters we got, and we got a thousand letters a month, were about sex and relationships. And my people always ask what the top five letters were. [00:05:00] And Probably number one was how do I increase the size of my penis? And number two was my girlfriend doesn't reach orgasm. Without carnal knowledge with a black and Decker Sander, what am I doing wrong?

But Men wanted to give their partner pleasure and there were no guidebooks to do that. The sex manuals at the time just said, Oh, do foreplay. And they didn't define what foreplay was. Without defining it, yeah. The joke was well, I took over the advisor. Will you explain a little bit what the advisor is for the people that are watching that probably don't know?

Oh, are we watching or talking? No, we're recording. And, but just so in the future when, when it's put out that people know what the [00:06:00] advisor was. Yes. Okay. Someone once came to have nurse said we should do a parody of and Landers, who was the originals. sob sister, a newspaper columnist who would answer problems from her readers.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Hefner said, wait a second. I like Ann Landers. Let's not do a parody. Let's do an advice column. Let's start a conversation with our readers. And it was one of those things that opened up Playboy. was participatory media was interactive media before the phrase existed.

We had letters to the editor. We had letters to the forum and we had letters to the advisor. Readers sent in party jokes. But they started the people who wrote the playboy advisor column, a thousand letters A month. And you [00:07:00] had 12 people, staff members that would respond to that, right? Yes. We had a reader service department and we would answer every one of those letters that had a self contained stamped envelope.

Wow. And you have to think those people had no one else to turn to for advice. They couldn't ask their parents, they couldn't ask their minister and most of what they were interested in would qualify them for it. psychoanalysis in the prevailing climate sense of the time. Sex was a sin or it was psychotic.

If you were doing anything other than sex in the missionary position within a marriage for procreation. So people wrote to this advisor column and I would read a reader service would and I would go through every letter trying to choose. 10 letters that I hadn't seen before. And then [00:08:00] I would research them and write the answers that went into the magazine.

And people would say, you know, you're 25 years old, what qualifies you to give sex advice? And I said, I went to Boy Scout camp. The Boy Scout motto is be prepared. And so from the time I was 12, I had read everything I could about sex in case it ever happened to me. And I came to Playboy two years after Masters and Johnson published their groundbreaking research and the year that Alex Comfort wrote The Joy of Sex.

So I had medical knowledge. Masters and Johnson were friends of the magazine. I became friends of theirs. And Alex Comfort wrote an unapologetic manual about the joy of sex. Simple. And even [00:09:00] he was under constraint. In 1970, the book was something like 260 pages long. And there were three paragraphs devoted to oral sex.

And he called it something like mouth music. Mouth music. There were 12 pages. There were 12 pages devoted to bondage. Three paragraphs to oral sex. Because you could write about bondage. That was classic English kink. Right. But you couldn't write about oral sex. And my predecessor at the advice column had tried to answer a letter.

What is the caloric content of sperm? Someone wanted to be able to blow someone without blowing their diet. Blow somebody without blowing their diet. That's a book right there. I gotta write that down. Blow somebody without blowing your diet. That's awesome. That sounds like [00:10:00] a nice little tabletop book there.

It turned out. that it was like three to 10 calories. It's mostly water and a few trace element. You realize how hard it is to read the label on those tiny suckers, right? But the company that had published Playboy for two decades refused to put print. that page. No way. They were afraid that they would go to jail.

Wow. And I think I ran the letter at some point in 1973. I said, we can run this advice now. But that, that shows you, we were the first magazine to talk about sex explicitly, not Not to arouse, although we tried to do that sometime but it was real [00:11:00] for information. And obviously you gathered the information from the letters and the questions you received, and you wanted to give people what they were asking for.

I was a beautiful service. If someone had the courage to ask a question, I had the resources to try to answer it. Now you would go and investigate as well. Like that's what you did. So you would go find out like Plato's and tell me, yeah, you had mentioned that. What is, what was Plato's? Okay. This is Arthur Kretschmer was the, Managing editorial executive and he called me in his office one day and said, I want you to take a stroll along the sexual frontier.

Great. Great line. But he was the first person to put those two words together. Right. And so I said, okay. And I would go to New York [00:12:00] City explore S and M clubs. Okay. public orgies. Plato's retreat had been the continental baths where gays would meet to do what gays do. And where Bette Midler perfected her act singing to gays.

And then someone bought the lease and turned it into a a heterosexual orgy club. And people would drive in from Long Island to show what they had learned in Long Island. Oh, the tunnel people. in front of other people. And these were, I went to a bar where it was where the waitresses were bar snacks, and it was a dollar a touch, a dollar a lick, and they would come down and sort of lower themselves in front of you and say, ever want to be a [00:13:00] gynecologist, and offered to pull aside the mystery screen.

It was one of the.

most welcoming bars I have ever been. People made use of the dancers different ways. There was some guy playing tool and he would come back and, and sort of cue the woman and then go back and play pool and clear the table. There was someone who would come in a tall sort of Viking, six foot six, and he would pick the woman up.

With one hand and coffer like a yard of ale and if you did something that allowed the dancer to perform, she would allow you to kiss the space between her breasts. This was, you know, Oh, lovely. I have to ask you. And revolutionary. So Hugh Hefner sent you to these places for research, correct? And I wanted to ask you, backing up here, [00:14:00] do you remember the first time that you met Hef and what that experience was and how you came to be a part of the Playboy family?

I mean, how, how were you hired? How did you even find out? What's that story? I worked at psychology was my first job out of college. And that makes sense. Playboy just exploded through the roof at the beginning of the 70s, and they started poaching writers and editors from other magazines, and a writer at Psychology Today slash Careers Today named Craig Vetter was hired by Playboy to be the first staff writer.

And. He was sent on an assignment the magazine had heard that flights on air Finlandia to Europe were airborne orgies. It was the cheapest ticket and all the hippies would get on this airplane and [00:15:00] fly there, have orgies in midair. So they sent Craig. And Craig got to Europe and said, no orgy, but I'm going to stay here for two or three weeks if you don't mind.

And I heard this story and I said, my God, this is a magazine that has money to explore an idea they've heard about and to take the writer's word. that there was no article. They didn't require that to justify the plane ticket Craig had to write. There I was at 50, 000 feet surrounded by a new bio young hippies with only a bottle of kama sutra oil.

Wow. So I said, I want to write for that magazine. And I showed up the week, the previous playboy advisor became a millionaire guy named Frank Robinson, looked out the window of the office and saw a fire on the 80th floor of the John Hancock building. Wow. And he said, how do you fight [00:16:00] fires in a high rise?

So dear Playboy advisor, how do you fight fires in a high rise? Wow. He researched it, wrote up a treatment for a novel, sent it to his agent. The novel, the agent called back said, Frank, I got you 25, 000 for the hardbound, 450, 000 for the paperback and four hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the movie rights.

You better start writing this thing. And that became the Towering Inferno. And so I walked in and Arthur Kretschmann, the executive editor said, can you give sex advice? And I said, Yep, I lied, but I figured I knew 10 things about sex for sure, right? It turns out that I had read 9 of those 10 things in the Playboy Advisor.

And the 10th one was [00:17:00] completely wrong, but a lot of fun to try. And so I sat down and started reading those letters, and it was probably that I was made for this job. I've been in training for this job all my life. So. In those days, you would go over to the mansion on Sunday night to watch first run movies, watch Hefner play games.

And this is the mansion in Chicago? The mansion in Chicago. Nice. It was that, that, mind you, this is before both of you were born. Right, right. You seem so young. It's mind blowing to me that, anyway, I'm listening, but looking at you and it, we would never know. You never know. You're only old once, but you can be immature forever.

Oh, I love that. I'm going to write that down. That's a good question. But anyway, I met Hefner, and[00:18:00] 

at that time, I Do you remember what it was like? Because what did you think about him? I mean, obviously, you realizing that's the place to be with the freedom to do the editorial Work that you you really longed for because there's we we keep talking about the Objectivity and today you don't get the objectivity.

You don't get Just being able to explore something without a biased opinion. I just don't see good writing. It's persuasive writing It's not hey, this is an observation and this is information. That's right and then also to To come back to the point that we keep talking about when we took the photographers and, you know, different people within the company that Anything done at the magazine, there was no, like, no limit of cost involved.

And so you were able to go and [00:19:00] do these things, like you were talking about, and it was honest and it was, it was authentic. And it wasn't frivolous to Hef because he knew that this was something, it's the sexual revolution. I mean, they were exploring things and it's healthy. I'm a, I always believe in, monogamy.

That's my personal thing, but it's healthy, but it's very healthy. And there are things that enhance a marriage, things that you learn. And that is a beautiful thing. There's, that's wonderful to be able to please your wife or please your husband. And, and those things weren't being explored. So really you're giving pleasure and, and beautiful relationships to people.

I mean, that's a whole other psychological, but, but he was part of that. And. where people didn't know where to go. There were, at that time, two editors in America who embodied their publication. Jan Winter at Rolling Stone and Hugh Hefner at Playboy. That, that makes sense, Rolling Stone. And [00:20:00] so the thing I noticed about Hef was, is it was, My magazine myself.

He started in the kitchen and put every dollar back into the magazine, right? He wanted to make the best magazine. That's right. He could and to be allowed onto that playing field was a privilege. Absolutely. And to be go to work with equally talented people in so many different fields. I used to say see around campus.

That's what it felt like it was learning with the best right there on the cutting edge, right there. And it's, and they're changing the course of America and it was a family and half. And have knew where your strengths were going to be and the positions that he put everybody and, and then to co cohesively work together and to achieve, you know, that dynamic and that [00:21:00] level of perfection is what there's an innovation.

Yeah. But the innovative, you know, scientists, really, you look at. Of our, well, not our time before our time way before. Sadly, I wish there were innovators in this way. There's not. And, and these, it was a moment in time. And that's what's so incredible about it. It was a moment in time. And just with regards to the man, I have probably three separate opinions of Hefner because he was three separate people.

That's interesting. He worked his life so that he wanted to live the rest of his life on the kind of movie set you saw in the 1930s movies, right? That didn't man, my man, Godfrey. He wanted to live in a Busby Berkeley musical on and both mansions look [00:22:00] like the set of above. So he would live on the set because he wanted to live the life he had dreamed of and want to be known for the way it looked.

And it looked fantastic. Yep. And he would have. One or two pictures showing him working on the round bed surround, you know, or a playmate jumping into the underground pool that this was his life. Right. Give him that. Sure. The other Hefner, he never showed you the work. Right. Nobody knew. You know, forget, forget being on the round bed with a few pieces of paper.

It was nonstop. It was. Yeah. It was a living, breathing. 24 hour 360. And it was a very high quality work. And I'll get, get to that at the end. If he gave you an [00:23:00] idea, it was usually worth pursuing. Absolutely. But to the degree of perfection he would look. at a cartoon and it would be a vaudeville cartoon.

There would be a line of dancers and in front of it would be a vaudeville comedian telling it a joke. And you would get a note from Hefner saying the left breast on the 13th dancer looks wrong. Amazing. His detail. And, and Lillian Mueller was a girlfriend who finally did a playmate. She's quietly standing behind a goldfish bowl and it took.

The photographer, something like 700 takes to get. Wow. The picture that that has said, you've got Mm-Hmm. . You've got Lillian, you've got her. Mm-Hmm. . But the goldfish and the goldfish bowl is looking the wrong way. Right. Oh my God. The goldfish are not in the right. But that's what made that [00:24:00] detail magazine.

Yes. That the level of detail was was breathtaking and he would not settle for second best. Or, or good enough. He wanted perfect. Yep. And he by and large achieved that. Those magazines, sometimes if you, raid your grandfather's garage and confine stacks of the magazines from the 70s. They are gorgeous on every page, not just the women, the artwork, everything, the, the, the fonts, the way the paper felt.

I mean, everything was so meticulous, interactive media, all of it. And then it was brilliant. He, it was. Even the way he balanced, it was all balanced in symmetry. I mean, in the girls that he chose, I mean, in the articles that he made, he knew who was going to go where. Longevity. He knew. He had so much in there to think about.

You think about these writers. You think [00:25:00] about all of the editorial end of it and then the artistic end of it. And then the, and he had his finger on the pulse of every single time, finite detail of the magazine. And that's what we're speaking to that people don't necessarily know. They think, Oh, just, Oh, Hugh Hefner, the gigolo with like many girlfriends.

It's like, Oh God, you have no idea who this man was. And then launched careers. What, where would you be without Playboy? What would, would your life been, had been as full, would you, I mean, what, what are your thoughts there? Do you ever think that really was, you know, set the course of a true career? Do you think that way?

Do you? I feel like I'm one of the luckiest people in the world. I knew when to say yes. And then it just happened. opened into what happens next. I was giving an audience of like 25 million people. And I, I have, I thought that the only person [00:26:00] with a better job in America was Steven Spielberg. And I'm sorry, I, I'll settle for being the playboy advisor for 20 or 30 or 40, you know, of being the person responsible for talking about sex for that long.

And the, I said it became a legitimate beat. You had the women's movement, women's rights, you had pornography evolving into what's available on the internet. You had diseases. First it was herpes. Newsweek reported scarlet letter. The way the regular press dealt with any tech sexual was, it was either a scandal or it could kill you.

Right. And Hefner said, de mythologize, get to the story. And so we would talk honestly [00:27:00] about herpes, which was just a trial run for AIDS. And when AIDS came out, most of the mass media just fed the panic, created homophobia, you know, And people like Pat Robertson would say it's God's revenge on homosexuals.

Oh, thanks. And we just said, no, this is what we know about it. It happened. It can when Magic Johnson said that he had acquired the virus. The article that Playboy published saying this is what we learned from this, this is what we know was unmatched anywhere on the newsstand. I think that's the best thing I ever wrote. 

Never mind that the strolls along the sexual frontier when it came down to a medical health issue, we were able to talk about it. In the language you [00:28:00] could listen. And talking to the experts and really getting the facts and the truth. You know, Reagan, President Reagan didn't mention AIDS for like four years.

How many deaths are traceable to that? And so we, we weren't afraid to wade in. That would be the best way to say it. And we waded in on race. We waded in on the Vietnam War. We waded in on And everything that was going on that was, that was controversial at that time. It makes you wonder. I can't help but wonder.

I always think what would have been written, what would have been the story on the pandemic and the issue. And just our current culture right now. I mean, I think it would just be so disheartened and appalled. Print has pretty much disappeared. I will read the Atlantic, [00:29:00] the New Yorker. sometimes Wired and the Smithsonian.

I get my breaking news from the History Channel. But almost no one has the room to do something in depth. The interview was unmatched anywhere in any media. And it was without a doubt. I mean, he would get He would go straight to, and it was, he would spend sometimes days on these, on these interviews, right?

I mean, hours on end. I'd hear it from the horse's mouth, and it was very in depth and candid, and people trusted you, you know, trusted these, the, the Playboy writers. The print, the, the publications. And it was more relaxed, you know, it wasn't, I'm worrying about what I'm going to say. Exactly. I'm going to get cancelled because I say this.

Bullshit. [00:30:00] Yes. You know. Well, you would get the whole person. Oh, yeah. And that you don't get on any media today. No, they paint whatever they want. And people, the writer would spend weeks sometimes until he became part of the family. And that's when you get to the, you know, the Jimmy Carter saying, I lust in your heart.

That was into a response at the end of several days. And Barry Golson was walking out the door and he turns around and says, what about, you know, all people think you're a fundamental Baptist. How do you deal with sex? And he's, and he just I lost in my heart. And that one remark humanized him enough. That he won the election.

People weren't afraid of the Southern Baptist and that kind of incidental influence. Someone has asked me what was it [00:31:00] like? Someone wanted to do a screenplay or a docudrama like Mad Men about Playboy. And I said, go with the personalities. Because the actual place we worked at was, see around campus, you would gather over the coffee table and talk.

And the number of ideas that came out of those conversations filled the magazine. The magazine was the magazine of record of our hallway conversations. Oh, that is fascinating. Wow. That makes sense. And I was taking this somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So we had a guy named Alex Haley who would do interviews and Hefner would send him to interview George Lincoln Rockwell or Miles Davis or, and Alex was just another one of the guys, a very good [00:32:00] interviewer and Murray Fisher worked there. He edited the interviewers. And then he started working. With Alex trying to put Alex's life story into shape and well, okay, we ran two chapters of that book in the magazine it was called, and then a year later you saw it on television as roots, television show changed America.

It was just daily business, right? Yeah, it was the norm. It was the daily norm. It was the norm. Yeah. Oh that's an interesting article, Alex. I didn't know this about, okay, so you're around and then it would go out and just literally change the world. Exactly. What was the third thing that you were going to say that you said half there was three, you know, personalities or three versions of half?

What was the third one?

At some [00:33:00] point okay, 1973 said, I want to do a book, the history of the sexual revolution, but not the one that started with me. Go back 100 years and tell the story. He loved history. I love that. And I said, I demand the right to do this. I want to see how we got this way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that was a three year project.

It started with him sending me a 60 page single space memo about what he thought it should be. And then he asked me for the table of contents. And I said, 1910 1920 1930. I said, I don't know what I'm going to discover. Leave me alone. I'll go discover it. And he edited, he was the first reader on every word I wrote, [00:34:00] and he was.

a very harsh taskmaster. And I would get memos from him. There was a period where I thought if I met him, I would kill him. Because the amount of obsessive abuse he was dumping on me. And then I realized, Oh, wait, This is the voice in his head. This is how he talks to himself. This is why he noticed the 13th breast on the dancer was wrong.

The fish was looking at perfectionist. It was his weakness and greatest strength. He suffered his weakness. Absolutely. But you can't. That's a lot. It made his day to day life. But look how good it made everyone. It took them to the next level because he demanded perfection, which is [00:35:00] impossible. But he wanted you to do the impossible, which was done.

And it was achieved. But as an editor, I wrote something in the, like 1905, there was a physician named Prince Morrow. And Prince Morrow was the first person talking about venereal disease. In, excuse me, in America, and he said, half of all wifes have venereal disease half was reading this and looked up and said, whoever said this.

had an agenda. Yep. Wow. And I said, well, actually this guy went on to found the American Social Health Association, started treating this on a course of things that ended up years later with Planned Parenthood. He started public awareness that it was just a matter [00:36:00] of health. It wasn't a sin. It wasn't, you weren't a fallen woman.

This happened between married couples where nothing was supposed to happen other than procreation. But he said, this guy had an agenda. And That he picked up on that. He was so intelligent and could read things. He was a, and he could time travel critic. It was that was the joy of that book was he said, I want to know, I want you to look at all.

I want you to read what was readable. I want you to watch what was watchable and listen to what was listenable because he thought sex happened in music. Sex certainly. was inspired by movies. And what was allowed to be written was the history of censorship in America. And so I became well read. I have a box of videotapes and movies.

I, I did time travel through the [00:37:00] century and it was, There's no second act to that. No, that's quite a ride. That is, that is fascinating. What a journey quite a ride. And with a man that for, you know, with him and inspiring and leading and guiding, that's amazing. And When we finally met for the launch party for the book, I still didn't know if I was going to kill him or thank him.

And he walked up to me and said, Thank you. You saved my life. Wonderful. And

So we had respect for each other. If he was concerned about a topic, he would call me up and say, what do I think about this? Tell me what I love that. All right. Write it. I'll sign it. So for trusted, what a, what a gift that [00:38:00] he had that trust in you and honor. Yeah, absolutely. If you could say anything to him.

As if you were at his memorial or in memoriam. Or before he passed or you knew you were gonna see him one last time Yes. Knew you were gonna be able to, to say something to him. What would you say, Jim? I would say thank you for the wild ride, for the excellent, for the stage. For the. for the support. He created that universe.

And I've had this conversation with Arthur. It was like being on a championship team. And it absolutely was. And every single one of us that we, you know, the playmates, but every single person that we have interviewed that has come on the show has been as simplistic as that, as just, thank you. for giving me the ride of my life.

Thank you. It'll never happen again. [00:39:00] It was a moment of time that we were so I have, I always get goosebumps. I sit here with goosebumps. We were so fortunate to be a part of, and it's just, yeah, just wow. Does anyone ask you? What it was like. Nobody has. Nobody has. Okay, tell me, because the first 20 years, I got to interview Playmates and write the stories that went along with them.

And it's what was expected of junior editors. Also, I was one of the single editors. So, I have heard from All of the different ways playmates came to the magazine, and everyone is different, and the experience tended to be, an opening. That's finally someone saw them as beautiful to be photographed by a Pompeo Bazaar is just [00:40:00] it doesn't happen.

That would have been a dream. That would have been, I would have, I'm not Richard Fagley. I, I, that's who I got. And I have an affinity obviously forever. And I, Oh, I'm so sad that he's vaguely was brilliant. All of these guys were patient and there's only a handful. I mean, all of you, and this is another testimony to Hugh Hefner.

He, a small handful. It was very exclusive and, and stayed there for you guys. Stay there for. Decades and decades and decades and you don't see that. That doesn't happen. No, the loyalty and, and the same, yes, with these photographers, a handful and they are all brilliant, but he saw that and let them explore what they're, he saw people's strengths and would let them explore that.

But I, but I do want to talk about that, about like our experience and I appreciate you asking that because nobody has. And [00:41:00] I'll go ahead and, and, and yeah, we're gonna do it. But I can say for me it, it was something that fell into my lap. I wasn't looking to do it. I didn't know what Playboy was. I was discovered by Greg Gorman and Greg Gorman tested me and shot me for German Playboy.

Hef saw that and then booked me to be January 1993. I was 18 years old, two months out of high school. I was very young. I was very naive. I wanted to model. I, I, I knew that and I had modeled since I was 13 years old. Didn't think that this would be the way to do so. And absolutely fell in love with photography with All things makeup, skin I'm a licensed California esthetician.

I had a skincare studio for eight years in Newport Beach. That came from, I I taught myself how to build websites. I was the second playmate to figure out the internet was [00:42:00] coming. I created and built websites. I have this incredible background in marketing all stemming from Playboy, all stemming from Playboy.

That opportunity. But. With that said, and then obviously the travel and then the relationships, the family that we acquired from it. I mean, Echo and I met at a Playmate of the Year party and, and he just and Hef just was the most gracious, kindest. He was, he was a protector. He was a mentor. He was our boss and he was like, he was like a father to us and he loved every single one of us.

He knew every single one of our names and he was so gracious and, and welcoming and open and always, yes, you can stay at the mansion. Like I never lived in LA. I always lived in Austin and I was always out in LA working and I would always call Norma. Will you ask if I can stay at the mansion because I'll be working?

She said, sure. And she'll call me back. Yep. Have said no problem. But I didn't really [00:43:00] understand the levity and the gravity of what I was involved in at 18 years old. I certainly didn't even get it until maybe in my thirties. And. Right at 30, I got very, very burnt out with the whole thing with modeling because I had gone on and created a website that I did for seven years where I was then producing all of my own content.

And with that said, now today I own 36, 640 images of beautiful photos that I created that I https: otter. ai By setting up, you know, hiring the makeup artists and the photographers and locations and stuff. But understanding how to do that. Yeah. Production for me. A production for me. Right. And I got burnt out and I, I put all of my, all of my stuff away.

I have nine covers I'm on. I put all of those away and I needed to kind of decompress from it. And I had a baby. I just kind of, you know, let go of that for a while and, you know, was grateful for it. And [00:44:00] then in my late thirties, I'm 40, am I 47 or 48? I don't, I think I'm 47. In my it was just a couple of years ago and I just really started.

started having a much better understanding of, of, of the history and the exclusivity of what we were a part of. And I. I, I just, I got it. And I was like, I'm going to do something with this. This is all going to come full circle. And now here it is. And I'm, I'm writing, I have, I have published stories online. 

We're creating this podcast and it all goes back to half, but, but with that said, I definitely was too young and I think. Corinna can speak to this as well. She was 18. They didn't, they didn't warn you about what was about to happen to your life. You had no, hold on. My [00:45:00] issue came out and I, and I got I got so overworked.

I hated signing autographs. You know, that first year you're, you're working all the time that BJ Turner said, you're not working anymore because your attitude sucks and you don't even know what you're a part of. And I didn't work for two years. And then I realized. Oh, okay. I want to be a part of this. And I started writing letters to all the big people and made sure I went and saw every single person face to face in Chicago offices and in LA offices.

And then I started working with the top of the top with Tony Lin and all the international promotions. And You know, it was, it was a really incredible experience. I don't say, I, I, I can't say that I would want my daughter to do that at that age. I have no problem with it, but 18 was definitely too young.

I have no regrets. And I, I told you mine, I don't have regrets. I just wish that they had, I wish, I just wish that they had better. Like I, and I told Playmate Promotions this, I said, you know, you [00:46:00] should have older Playmates come in and speak to, especially these young girls that are coming in and give them an idea of what is about to happen to their lives.

Cause we have no idea. And that's the only thing that I would say. But my God, it happened. And thank you, Greg Gorman. Thank you, Hef. And thank you for this journey. And I applaud Hef. And I love him. And I'm so grateful for him. And I'm so grateful to have these conversations with you. And the interviews we've had this week have just been mind blowing and Crane and I just keep learning so much more.

And that's the thing, it's, it's the history for me. It's amazing. Well, I'll just tell you Peterson, now that we know you're Peterson. We were, we were having bourbon by the fire. I mean, and all these three years ago, all these three years ago, got some after some tragic we don't glamor con well, don't, we don't go and sign on.

I, I don't, yeah. I hadn't signed autographs and I don't know how many years and I thought, you know [00:47:00] what, I'm, I'm gonna go do this. I'd love to see some of the girls I. Went to this autograph signing and then echo stayed with me and we sat by the fire and, and I had an idea about a documentary that I, I wanted to do because we wanted to give a proper send off and farewell to have.

Well, because we're also furious about the books that came out from Holly and his other girlfriends that were absolutely atrocious and were not correct. To who he was as a human being and as a man, that was not our truth. Yes. Yes. It was their truth. And so we wanted to. I never felt threatened. Ever. Never.

Ever. Ever. He was a gentleman. I felt the safest I ever did. But I was a kid, Peterson. And for me, I wouldn't even get naked in front of my friends. I always put my t shirt, I was very modest. And I had a, I mean, I'm not going to go into mine like Echo did, but long story short, I mean. Half gave me a chance.

You [00:48:00] are who you are today because of it. Yes. And I ended up testing and I thought my boyfriend was crazy. He found an ad in the paper and I'm like, playboy or playmate? I called my mom. I said you know, my boyfriend wants me to do playboy. Can you believe it? And I thought it was horrible. She goes, yeah.

Not knowing that my grandpa was a collector and you know, they were all excited. They all came to my playmate of the year party. But yeah. Long story short, it was so many details that came together that was not only meant to be, but I was prepared for God's humor really. And I, again, here we are, but, but for me, the fascinating thing is the freedom of it and getting to experience things I never would have and meeting fascinating people such as yourself and understanding this living, breathing brand and how many incredibly.

No longer. Colorful human beings are a part of it. And then hearing your [00:49:00] story. It's fascinating. It's, it's. Yeah. Good stuff. We are learning just so much, Jim. And it's, it's. And we're going to have a party, by the way. Yeah. By the way, we're, we're going to do a party that's going to be a memorial service, a huge celebration of life should have been done for the man that launched all of our careers really made an impact in our lives.

And we didn't get to say goodbye and we didn't get to say goodbye. And we would love to do a, a party in honor of him. So we're putting that together for all the, the, the staff, the way he would have had a party for us, the way he did have a party for us, as if you're watching it, walking into a party at the mansion.

And we get to say goodbye and we would love to have you there, Peterson. So we're, we're gonna, we're gonna do this. So what do you think, yeah, dedication to have, what do you think, Peterson? What do you think? Tell us. 

[00:50:00] I, the night Hefner died, I was having dinner with Arthur Kretschmer and it was also the night my first grandchild was born. Oh, wow. And so Arthur and I, I drive Arthur to these dinners out that we still have. And we sat and talked about the Hefner we knew. Yeah, which I've alluded to the man who did the work and who trusted. 

And then I, I just in passing, I said, you know, my grandson will grow up into a world that has forgotten half by the time my grandson is old enough to be interested in the things that. Half was interested in he will have faded and it bothered me that the coverage is death was hashtag will miss the terrible.

It was [00:51:00] awful. It was awful. That's what we're doing. We're not. It was not. It was not. We're not letting it happen. Peterson work. We're not gonna let it happen. No, it is and I've had drinks with the people around campus who are working there and it's always a very solemn, sad and strengthening dinner to just share the stories that I had worked there, what, 40 years and never heard the goldfish was looking in the wrong direction.

See, all of us. We learn from, we're all learning from each other. It never gets old. It's, it's beautiful. There's so many little golden nuggets of history that we're pulling out from everybody. And it's, it's beautiful. And we are so grateful. And I tell you, Hef is with us. Pat Lacy has been with us this whole time doing our recordings.

And she [00:52:00] said, Hef is here right now with you girls. And he is so happy and he is so grateful. He did not get the proper send off. And we are not going to allow that to happen. So that's what we're doing. And we were grateful that. That you're a part of it. Yeah. I wish you guys luck. Thank you. Thank you. I think it's three words, you know, three words.

One second. Okay. Cause I think it's important. Like you said, that when your grandson was born and that's what you thought that, wow, my grandson's going to grow up in a world that. You know, it's a faded memory and that shouldn't be, that should never be, it's been dirtied because of the movements and the cancel culture and the hashtag me too and the overboard babies.

So tired of it. Yeah. Tired of that. I'm first amendment rights. Amen. First amendment rights. I love that. F was such a big advocate of that and that the HMH foundation is solely for that. [00:53:00] So yeah. So three words. Just three words that you would describe. Hugh m Hefner.

Hmm.

Get it right. ? Yes. Oh my gosh. That's awesome. That's the best. Thank you. Get it right. Nobody said that one yet. I love that. Get it right. But he just did it in one excellent, one shot. Excellent. All right, my dear. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We really enjoyed this conversation. Peterson. Right.

Here we are. You know, thank you. An honor. And if I have any, if we have any other questions or anything, we can give you a call, right? And talk. Yeah. Okay. And anyone else you think that might want to come [00:54:00] on and tell their story like you said. And it's comforting to everyone. There's a lot of people that are coming on still, so.

It's, there's so many. Absolutely. So many people beyond the 10th floor that became 680 that, exactly. We know that this is completely, it's the one story I think I mentioned in our pre interview that when I was doing the book, I asked him, well, what do you think you did? How did you change America?

And he said. I invented living together. I love, I invented living together. And I went and did the numbers in 1970. The census said that there were something like 75, 000 Americans living together. These are things that no one would think about. Living in sin, fallen [00:55:00] women, despicable men, 75, 000. By 1980, there were over a million.

And I don't even know the number today. He made it. acceptable. He made it attractive. He had Barbie Benton and Lillian Muller and this, you know love of his life, sharing space in a mansion, but without wedlocks, without posting bands, and said, this is what it looks like to do it. And my generation said, good idea.

I like that. And that they got on board and they got on board and that's just, and that, that was what he knew he personally had. But he never spoke. He would, he would never toot his own horn or say, I did this or I did, and we're finding out more and more just private little philanthropy [00:56:00] you know, his philan, I mean, we found some really interesting stuff out about the zoo and his contribution to rare exotic animals and, and. 

So so, so I want to, I want to end it with the, I want people to know that you wrote the book called the century of sex, which was all about the playboy history of the sexual revolution. And it was, it took you three years to write that book and it was a complete labor of love. And it was edited by Hugh M.

Hefner. Right. Exactly. So people go get that book. Yes. It'll be eye opening. Is it on Amazon or where can they order your book? You might be able to find it. I found the I did a collection of sex advice, the Playboy advisor on love and sex. That was the first time my name went on the column or not on the column, but on the concept.

I had been the Playboy advisor for 10 years. I saw a copy of that on sale on Amazon. For 509 and I'm saying [00:57:00] what, what, you had no idea where are my check?

Someone must have really liked the Chinese basket trick. I really have to read this book. Yes, you can find it. much less expensive than that. Yeah. There are people who put things on eBay and Amazon with a ridiculous price and someone may pay it. Who knows? Yeah. All power to it. But okay. All right, darling.

Thank you so very much. Have a wonderful evening. We're probably going to have to have you back on again. There's a couple of people that we need back on because it was just one hour was not enough. We only have so much. We're, we've got a Our engineers eyeballing us over here. They gave us the five minutes, 20 minutes ago.

All right, sweetheart. Thank you so very much. It's such [00:58:00] a pleasure and an honor to have you on the show. We can't wait to meet you in person at the big party. Okay. Okay. Bye for now.