Playboy founder and icon Hugh Hefner died on Wednesday evening, a spokesperson for the men’s magazine said. He was 91.

Hefner passed of natural causes at his home, the famed Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, surrounded by loved ones. Burial details and memorial plans are presently unknown.

“My father lived an exceptional and impactful life as a media and cultural pioneer and a leading voice behind some of the most significant social and cultural movements of our time,” his son and current Playboy Chief Creative Officer Cooper Hefner said in a statement.

“He will be greatly missed by many, including his wife Crystal, my sister Christie and my brothers David and Marston, and all of us at Playboy Enterprises,” Cooper added.

Playboy began on Hefner’s kitchen table 64 years ago, his official obit says, and spawned a branded empire that encompasses print and digital publications, merchandise and other portfolio companies.

“By putting up his furniture as collateral for a loan and borrowing the rest from family and friends, Mr. Hefner published the very first issue of Playboy in December of 1953. It was an instant sensation,” Hefner’s bio reads.

A symbol of progressive (and excessive) sexual liberation, Playboy was a hotbed of star writers during the heyday of magazine journalism — a place where nudes existed beside essays and profiles from Ray Bradbury, John Updike, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Margaret Atwood, Jack Kerouac and Kurt Vonnegut.

Well aware of accusations that he exploited women, he fought hard to defend his reputation. He boasted to Rolling Stone in 1986 that “there has never been a casting couch connected to Playboy,” though he acknowledged having relationships with Playboy Playmates, and married two women who appeared in the magazine, including his widow, Crystal Harris.

When several of Bill Cosby’s accusers said Cosby had raped them at the Playboy Mansion, Hefner called the allegations “truly saddening” and said he would “never tolerate this kind of behavior.”

He engaged in a long fight with Peter Bogdonavich in the 1980s after the director accused Hefner of raping Dorothy Stratten, a Playboy centerfold who was later killed by her ex while living with Bogdonavich. Hefner strongly denied the allegations, and blamed Bogdonavich for a stroke he suffered in 1985.

Hefner is the recipient of numerous prestigious publishing awards, and two-time Guinness Book of World Records holder “for being the longest running editor of a magazine and for having the largest scrapbook collection, which currently consists of more than 2900 volumes,” the Playboy rep said.

source: AFP