Hugh Hefner (born April 9, 1926, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.—died September 27, 2017, Los Angeles, California) was an American magazine publisher and entrepreneur who founded (1953) Playboy magazine.

After serving in the U.S. Army (1944–46), Hefner attended the University of Illinois, graduating in 1949. Four years later he created the men’s magazine Playboy. Its intellectually respectable articles and forthright philosophy of hedonism made Playboy a major influence on the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Hefner later expanded his enterprise into nightclubs and other entertainment media.