Read Online Thy Neighbor's Wife by Gay Talese - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Gay Talese
Tags: Health & Fitness, Sexuality
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remained emotionally remote. The elder Hefners each day quietly went their own way, out to their respective offices in the morning, returning in the evening to use the kitchen at a time when it was not being used by Mildred and Hugh. It was a home of tight routines and tidiness, order and control. In her years there, Mildred never saw either of Hefner’s parents lose self-control, even for an instant. She never heard them yell or cry, argue or stomp their feet; she also did not witness signs of their affection, such as a soft greeting kiss at the door, or a tender touch, or a word of endearment. Mildred did not assume from this an absence of caring, but rather a rigid resistance to showing it. Compared with her own expressive and frequently combative parents, the Hefners were extraordinary examples of restraint and repression.
While Mildred had no idea how such behavior had affected the Hefners’ second son, Keith, who was now away at college, she believed she could measure much of its influence on her husband. Like his parents, Hugh Hefner wanted tight control over his surroundings, was most comfortable with orderliness. From his pietistic Swedish mother he inherited his idealism and standards, and like his German accountant father he was precise and pragmatic. But unlike them he revealed emotion. Mildred had sensed his anger, she had seen him cry. She identified his pornographic cartoons and magazines as signs of rebellion against his upbringing, and, perceiving the depth of his depression after their marriage, she suggested that he leave home for a while, forget temporarily about a career, and perhaps return to the place where he had last been happy, the college campus, and seek a master’s degree.
He did as she suggested in 1950, registering at Northwestern as a graduate student in sociology. But his only achievement there was a lengthy term paper on American sex laws, most of which he thought should be abolished because they were antiquated and too private for government intervention, such as the law that still existed in many states against oral sex even between a husband and wife. Though Hefner received high marks for his extensive research, his conclusions were not enthusiastically shared by his professor, and after one semester, feeling restless, Hefner left the campus and attempted to reinterest himself in the outside world.
He found work as an advertising copywriter in a Chicago department store, then in a small advertising agency; he quit the first job and was fired from the second. He next was hired by the promotion department of Esquire, Inc., which published the men’s fashion magazine and also a sophisticated pocket-sized monthly called Coronet ; and Hefner quickly conjured up images of himself working in a creative atmosphere surrounded by urbane editors and Varga girls. But after working there he found the setting sedate, the female employees dowdy and prim, and the men living unadventurous lives with none of the verve reflected on the illustrated pages. One afternoon when Hefner removed from his pocket a photograph of actress Carmen Miranda twirling on a dance floor with her skirts high and wearing no panties, and showed it to a Coronet executive, the latter turned away, seeming unamused.
In 1951 the company announced that it was moving the Esquire-Coronet promotion offices to New York City, but Hefner, who had just been refused a five-dollar raise, resigned and remained in Chicago. He liked Chicago, and was feeling better about himself there after he had arranged with an independent printer to publish five thousand copies of a book of drawings and cartoons he had done characterizing the city. While the book was not financially profitable, its press reviews brought Hefner local attention, and he foresaw the day when he might be able to launch a slick magazine devoted to Chicago urban life.
In the interim he found a job at eighty dollars a week, twenty more than his Esquire-Coronet salary, as the
While Mildred had no idea how such behavior had affected the Hefners’ second son, Keith, who was now away at college, she believed she could measure much of its influence on her husband. Like his parents, Hugh Hefner wanted tight control over his surroundings, was most comfortable with orderliness. From his pietistic Swedish mother he inherited his idealism and standards, and like his German accountant father he was precise and pragmatic. But unlike them he revealed emotion. Mildred had sensed his anger, she had seen him cry. She identified his pornographic cartoons and magazines as signs of rebellion against his upbringing, and, perceiving the depth of his depression after their marriage, she suggested that he leave home for a while, forget temporarily about a career, and perhaps return to the place where he had last been happy, the college campus, and seek a master’s degree.
He did as she suggested in 1950, registering at Northwestern as a graduate student in sociology. But his only achievement there was a lengthy term paper on American sex laws, most of which he thought should be abolished because they were antiquated and too private for government intervention, such as the law that still existed in many states against oral sex even between a husband and wife. Though Hefner received high marks for his extensive research, his conclusions were not enthusiastically shared by his professor, and after one semester, feeling restless, Hefner left the campus and attempted to reinterest himself in the outside world.
He found work as an advertising copywriter in a Chicago department store, then in a small advertising agency; he quit the first job and was fired from the second. He next was hired by the promotion department of Esquire, Inc., which published the men’s fashion magazine and also a sophisticated pocket-sized monthly called Coronet ; and Hefner quickly conjured up images of himself working in a creative atmosphere surrounded by urbane editors and Varga girls. But after working there he found the setting sedate, the female employees dowdy and prim, and the men living unadventurous lives with none of the verve reflected on the illustrated pages. One afternoon when Hefner removed from his pocket a photograph of actress Carmen Miranda twirling on a dance floor with her skirts high and wearing no panties, and showed it to a Coronet executive, the latter turned away, seeming unamused.
In 1951 the company announced that it was moving the Esquire-Coronet promotion offices to New York City, but Hefner, who had just been refused a five-dollar raise, resigned and remained in Chicago. He liked Chicago, and was feeling better about himself there after he had arranged with an independent printer to publish five thousand copies of a book of drawings and cartoons he had done characterizing the city. While the book was not financially profitable, its press reviews brought Hefner local attention, and he foresaw the day when he might be able to launch a slick magazine devoted to Chicago urban life.
In the interim he found a job at eighty dollars a week, twenty more than his Esquire-Coronet salary, as the
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