9 April: Hugh Hefner

Born on this date in 1926 was Hugh Hefner, Playboy Magazine founder. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. He served as an infantry clerk in the second world war and during that time drew cartoons for military publications. However, a career as a cartoonist was scuppered by his colleague, Hy Eisman, who didn’t like his cartoons and told him not to give up the day job. Eisman would later become famous for drawing Popeye.

2. Returning from the war to his home town of Chicago, Hefner attended the University of Illinois, majoring in psychology with a double minor in creative writing and art. He graduated in 1949.

3. Although by the time he died, he claimed to have slept with over a thousand women, as a young man he saved himself for his first wife, Mildred Williams, losing his virginity to her after marriage. It wasn’t mutual, though. Mildred had an affair while Hefner was in the army and he was devastated when he found out.

4. He never actually owned the Playboy mansion. It technically belonged to Playboy Enterprises, and they leased it to him for $100 a year. When it was finally sold in 2016 the estate came with Hefner as a sitting tenant. He didn’t want to move so the new owner continued to let it to him, but put the rent up considerably. Hefner paid $1 million a year in rent for the final year of his life. He did own his private jet, nicknamed "Big Bunny." Hefner bought it in the late 1960s and refurbished it to include a disco area, a round bed covered in fur, showers and a powder room.

5. One of his first jobs in the publishing industry was as a copywriter for Esquire Magazine. At one pint he even worked for a children’s magazine.

6. He’s in the record books for having the largest scrapbook collection. In 2011 had almost 2,400 volumes of scrapbooks in the attic of his mansion, full of cuttings about himself and his famous parties.

7. Former president George W. Bush is his ninth cousin, and he also claimed to be descended from a pilgrim who arrived in America on the Mayflower. Despite his Republican family connections, however, he donated and fundraised for the Democratic Party and supported Barack Obama's re-election campaign.

8. He reportedly owned more than 200 custom-made smoking jackets and pyjamas. They were his signature look after he moved his office into his bedroom in the 1960s and he discovered he could get away with wearing them all day. The New York Times claims he never wore underwear, either.

9. He died at the age of 91 from sepsis. He is buried in a mausoleum next to Marilyn Monroe, having purchased the plot next to hers in 1992 for $75,000. He’d wanted his final resting place to be beside her, despite never having met her in life.

10. There’s an actual bunny named for him. The endangered Lower Keys Rabbit was named Sylvilagus palustris hefneri by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in his honour.