Hugh Hefner was an icon of American pop culture, a supporter of civil rights, an advocate and champion of the sexual revolution in the 1960s and an entrepreneurial success story. Hefner, the man, and Playboy, the brand, were inseparable. The Playboy Philosophy advocated freedom of speech in all its aspects and both advertised themselves as emblems of the sexual revolution, an escape from American priggishness and wider social intolerance.

"Life is too short to be living somebody else's dream. If you let society and your peers define who you are, you're the less for it.”