A True Hollywood Story (Sort Of)

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Sunday, February 8. 2009

A True Hollywood Story (Sort Of)

If you’re a fan of the Girls Next Door, then you know this is the final season with the three girlfriends as girlfriends. Kendra Wilkinson, the youngest one who is from San Diego, is getting married to a football player, Hank Baskett, wide receiver of the Philadelphia Eagles.

She claims she no longer approves of Hugh Hefner’s lifestyle, according to US magazine, and when she did approve of Hef’s lifestyle, she wasn’t getting any from the Old Man so she had to go out and sneak in some sex — in other words, she cheated on Hef.
 According to Girlfriend #2, Bridget Marquardt (my favorite of the three! She has all those college degrees!), since getting engaged Kendra has become “conservative,” she no longer flashes her boobs at everyone who asks!

Everyone has no doubt wondered if Hef banged all three girlfriends, assuming that he probably did since Hefner has always been notorious for wanting as many sex partners as his stamina could allow, but Kendra’s revelations about having to sneak sex leads us to believe that the only woman in that foursome getting’ some was Holly Madison. What’s the point of having a couple hotties living under your roof as your girlfriends if you’re not having sex with them?

It wasn’t just for the TV show on E!, Hef was keeping multiple girlfriends for years before the show ever aired. The rumors are, Holly Madison, Hef’s main girl and the one who actually shared his bed was controlling things around the Mansion.
 The Playboy Mansion is capitalized because it is titled. When people discuss parties and other occasions at the home, they always refer to it as “The Mansion,” as if it isn’t possible there could be any others.

The breakup became public when Holly was seen being dreamy with MindFreak Criss Angel. The ensuing drama was tabloid Nirvana. The three girlfriends leaving the Mansion, all immortalized on the various gossip sites and in all the gossip magazines.

Here’s why all of it is important. Well, none of it is important really, but it makes for interesting reading and water cooler gossiping plus, it actually has an impact on Playboy magazine, a publication I’ve known and loved for … err … a long time now.

I do have favorite Playmates going back to 1968 and I can name them all without looking them up: Cynthia Myers, December 1968; Jill De Vries, October 1975; Christina Smith, March 1978; Sandy Cagle, February 1980 (hometown girl); Roberta Vasquez, November 1984; Tawnni Cable, June 1989; Julie Anne Clarke, March 1991, Deanna Brooks, May 1998, Lindsey Vuolo, November 2001, Nicole Narian, January 2002; Colleen Marie, August 2003; Sandra Hubby, March 2004; Hiromi Oshima, June 2004; Athena Lundberg, January 2006; Cassandra Lynn, February 2006; Heather Rene Smith, February 2007, Spencer Scott, October 2007 and A.J. Alexander, May 2008. Their centerfolds are vivid in my memory!

Just as important as the Playmates … well, almost as important as the Playmates, is the great reading. In the March 1978 issue for instance, we were treated to not only Playmate Christina Smith, but also the interview with Bob Dylan. In November 1976, the Playmate was Patti McGuire, who went on to be the 1977 Playmate of the Year and wife of tennis legend Jimmy Connors, but it also featured an interview with soon to be president Jimmy Carter.

Then there are the articles and fiction by people like P.J. O’Rourke, Kurt Vonnegut, Gore Vidal, Alex Haley, and William F. Buckley. It was the first non-sports publication I read that had substantive articles on sports, giving analysis of college and professional football and basketball, as well as Major League Baseball before the seasons. They rarely featured the Green Bay Packers and the Milwaukee Brewers as I thought they should be treated, but otherwise, pretty decent coverage, if you like sports.

Playboy magazine has been, at least since the 1960’s, a great read. Seriously. I could rarely afford any of the cool items that have been featured in the various gift issues, but it was always nice looking.

So, back to Holly Madison. She was never a Playmate, but was briefly featured on the Playboy website, the Cyber Club, in 2002, but once she became a girlfriend, the girlfriend, the feature was pulled. No such action for girlfriend number two, Bridget Marquardt. Kendra wasn’t even a Cyber Girl; Hef met her when she was body-painted for a Mansion party.

Okay, now back to Madison. When, according to the reports, she and Hef found out he was shooting only blanks, Holly had a change of heart. She wanted to get married and have children, tame the old beast and keep him for herself, forgetting (we assume) that had been tried before with little (no) success and Hef was still legally married to his second wife, Kimberly Conrad. She and the two boys sired by Hef, reside in a home literally next door to the Mansion.

Such a Hollywood story!

So, before Holly had her falling out with Hef, he appointed her a photo editor for the magazine and Holly got to have a hand in picking the Playmates. Well, the readership, if you go by the remarks in the forum of the Cyber Club, was skeptical of Holly’s influence. She wanted to fill the space left behind when long time West Coast photo editor Marilyn Grabowski retired. Grabowski not only had a woman’s eye for beauty, she was also well aware of what men wanted.

The question was, would Holly Madison offer the same? As it turns out, if you believe people connected to the operation, Holly Madison wasn’t well liked by the West Coast staff, and she began to choose women for Playmate based on whether they would appeal to her man. If Holly thought a model would be to Hef’s liking, she would eliminate the woman. The gossip being, Holly already had two rivals, friendly rivals mostly, living in the Mansion and she didn’t want any more women catching Hef’s fancy. That became, the gossip goes, her over-riding criteria.

Now, a lot can be said for gossip, regardless of who spills it and most of what can be said about gossip is that it may have a kernel of truth, but is usually suffused with speculation and just flat out lies and exaggeration. There’s a lot that can be said for exaggeration: it makes any story better!

But here’s the twist that makes you smile and go, “Hmmm …” Last year the magazine went on its hunt for the 55th Anniversary Playmate, a ritual that takes place every five years. This time they used YouTube and Playmate aspirants created videos and submitted them to Holly’s YouTube group. Thousands of videos. You’d probably be surprised how many women — young and old — want to be a Playmate.
 I did watch … err … a few …

In these last few episodes of the current season of The Girls Next Door, the selection process is spotlighted and the model who did become the 55th Anniversary Playmate was a Romanian woman who also happened to be the Playmate of the Year in the Romanian version of the magazine.

She was not Holly’s choice, according to these same inside sources and that can be confirmed by watching the TV show. What was really interesting is that according to the sources, Hef wanted to spend his time with Dasha Astafieva, the 55th Anniversary Playmate and the three “official” girlfriends were jealous — they didn’t want an interloper in their ménage á quatre. If that is true, it was a battle the three girlfriends were going to lose.

So, let me add my twist to the twist in this story. I mean, what the Hell, what’s the fun of passing on gossip if you can’t embellish it with your own bullshit? News of the breakup of the famous television quartet coincided with the news that the 55th Anniversary Playmate had been selected. The breakup then, in my wildly exaggerated imagination, had less to do with Hef shooting blanks and was more likely due to Hef’s wandering eyes — all three of them.

He’s always said he is not a monogamous-minded man, even when he was in love with a woman, like Kimberly Conrad. It was the reason that marriage ended, for all practical purposes. In interviews while the Girls Next Door was on the air, he has confirmed as much. Why would he, in his 80’s, change that lifestyle? Hef is living his fantasy, 60-plus years after going for it.

So now, as the final episodes of the season unfold, it will be all the more interesting to see how it ended and maybe we’ll see exactly what broke up the quartet.

As if it really is important. It’s a true Hollywood story, in that fictional Hollywood way.

Posted by Tim Forkes in Celebrity at 12:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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