A loud, long, self-satisfied laugh. "I mean, I've been famous for a
long time," he says. "Since the end of 1959, the beginning of 1960,
when I came out from behind the desk and started living the
lifestyle to some extent. I started hosting the television show,
bought the first Playboy Mansion in
Chicago, opened the first
Playboy Club. And all of that was in the space of a year. Changed
my life. Ahh, but it's not like it is now. Now, it's this other
incredible level of something."
That incredible level of something is connected to the central
theme of Hef's life: "the ladies," meaning the young women who
allow the aged Playboy to "see life afresh through youthful eyes."
Among them are "The Twins," Mandy and Sandy Bentley from Joliet,
Illinois. He met them shortly after his reemergence. One night at
the
Garden of Eden, he dispatched his date for the evening,
Playmate
Brande Roderick, to invite the twins over to his table for
a cocktail. They accepted, then did the unconscionable. They left
Hef without saying goodbye. Vanished! No one knew where they'd
gone, or worse, where they could be found.
"Hef was consumed with finding us," the twins later revealed on
their Web site. He dispatched his security forces to fetch his
Cinderellas. One twin was tracked down at the University of Nevada,
Las Vegas, where she was studying pre-med, the other working in
Chicago. Hef suggested they move to
Los Angeles for the summer,
offering plane tickets, accommodations, and, of course, instant
fame. The Bentleys arrived soon after, moved into the Mansion, and
joined Hef's harem.
"I met Brande Roderick in May and the twins in June of '98," he
says. "And that turned into a very special relationship. Wherever
we were, we were the center of attention."