In 1953, he took out a mortgage and borrowed $1,000 from his unsuspecting mother to start a magazine called Playboy. The likes of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield were happy to appear in its pages – but so were (in a different way) writers such as Vladimir Nabokov and Norman Mailer, who appreciated the magazine’s free spirit. In the 1970s, Hefner and his entourage would jet through the skies in a flying penthouse to rescue Vietnamese babies or to escort a gorilla named Baltimore Jack to the arms of a lonely ape lady. “In my wildest dreams,” Hefner once confessed, “I could not imagine a sweeter life.” We congratulate Playboy on its 60th anniversary with fascination, awe and a healthy dose of envy.