American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story

A surprising turn of events leads to Marilyn Monroe becoming Playboy's first pin-up.

Playboy's formula for success - a focus on the `girl next door' - is born after Hugh Hefner persuades his subscription manager to pose for the magazine's first centrefold.

During the 1950s, Hugh Hefner uses the national success of Playboy as an opportunity to speak out about social issues - while enjoying the perks attendant upon being Mr Playboy.

In Chicago, Hugh Hefner opens the Playboy Club - and creates the perfect nightlife hostess in the bunny - in order to make the Playboy bachelor lifestyle available to the public.

Hugh Hefner gives birth to the Playboy Interview, a platform upon which pressing social issues can be discussed. Controversy follows the publication of an interview with Malcolm X.

Hugh Hefner works around the clock after becoming addicted to an amphetamine drug. He uses Playboy in his fight for civil rights and publishes the final written words of Martin Luther King, Jr.