Secrets of Playboy: Hugh Hefner's Dark Empire

Secrets of Playboy (2021) documents the lived experiences of Playboy playmates, the Playboy Bunnies, Playboy Security and employees of the Playboy empire, and the abuse they went through at the hands of its founder Hugh Hefner. 

Award-winning filmmaker Alexandra Dean joins us to discuss the making of this 10-part series currently streaming on A&E, and what it was like to uncover the abuses that occurred at Playboy.  

She explains how Playboy founder Hugh Hefner broke women and was able to build up a persona of sexual liberation while creating a culture of abuse. Through the series she also explores why it was so difficult for former playmates to talk about what had happened behind closed doors at the mansion. There were even some former playboy bunnies that dated Hefner that had some really shocking revelations. One of the highlights of the show is how Holly Madison likened her time as a Playboy bunny as having Stockholm syndrome.

“Hugh Hefner seemed to block that darker side of himself when he was outside of the bedroom. He completely inhabited the much more progressive person that people truly loved, but he had secrets which unleashed a lot of damage.” - Alexandra Dean

Time Stamps:

00:00 - The trailer for Secrets of Playboy.
04:01 - What the series is all about. 
07:14 - How Alexandra Dean discovered the dark side of Playboy. 
08:13 - Why she decided to turn the documentary into a docuseries. 
09:11 - The persona Hugh Hefner built in American culture. 
12:55 - What people will find out watching this docuseries and the abuses revealed. 
16:20 - How Hefner promoted women's sexuality but yet manipulated his ‘girlfriends’. 
20:33 - The type of person that was brought into the Playboy world. 
22:19 - How difficult it was for the old playmates to talk about their past experiences. 
24:20 - What Alexandra learned by going through old documents and footage. 
26:11 - What it was like for Jennifer Saginor to grow up in the Playboy mansion. 
27:24 - How the employees at Playboy reacted to what happened at the mansion. 
32:02 - Why Alexandra was so interested in the Playboy world. 
36:44 - The allegations against Bill Cosby during his time at the mansion. 
40:30 - The ways women blame themselves for their abuse. 
44:56 - The victims that have come forward since the docuseries has been aired. 
45:35 - The future projects Alexandra is now working on. 
47:04 - Clip from Secrets of Playboy that shows the drug use at the Playboy mansion. 

Resources:

Secrets of Playboy (2021)
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017)
This is Paris (2020)
MovieMaker Magazine
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures

Connect with Alexandra Dean:

LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram

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Transcript for Factual America Episode 87: Secrets of Playboy: Hugh Hefner's Dark Empire

Alexandra Dean 00:00
My name is Alexandra Dean. And I'm the director and showrunner of Secrets of Playboy on A&E.

Speaker 1 00:07
I was Miss January 1973. My photos were gorgeous. And then I became director of Playmate Promotions. At that point in time, I wasn't interested in marriage. But I was interested in Playboy Enterprises because women were taking their power. They were in command of themselves. So, I thought, Well, wow! That's good to me. And it went along with the sexual revolution that was going on. I had a lot of power, a lot of freedom. It was freedom, you know.

Speaker 2 00:47
My bunny name was Bunny Jackie. And I started working at Playboy in 1967 for eleven and a half years. We definitely got paid well, and I bought a car and I lived the way I wanted to. We had more freedom than as a secretary, or as a teacher.

Speaker 3 01:10
It's 1981. I'm in Chicago as the bunny mother, I had 70 Bunnies underneath me. We did a lot of things to help rise these girls up. And it was exciting to me, because I knew that I could move up the ladder in corporate.

Speaker 4 01:25
There were often times when I would be interviewed by a strong feminist and she would come at me really hard. And I would just, Mhm-mhm, yeah, and I would answer and let them know that I was definitely in charge of my life. And this was my choice. Now, of course, it came at a cost, but at that moment in time, I didn't know about that.

Speaker 3 01:54
Secrets of Playboy. Premieres Monday, January 24, at nine; only on A&E.

Matthew 01:59
This is Factual America. We're brought to you by Alamo Pictures, an Austin and London based production company making documentaries about America for international audiences. I'm your host Matthew Sherwood. Each week, I watch a hit documentary and then talk with the filmmakers and their subjects. This week, it is my pleasure to welcome award winning filmmaker Alexandra Dean. She is the director of the ten part documentary series The Secrets of Playboy, now being released on A&E. Don't let the title fool you. Through her interviews with hundreds of former Playboy playmates, bunnies and employees. She pulls back the veil on the true nature of the Playboy Empire and its founder, Hugh Hefner. Far from being a bon vivant, sexual liberator and empowerer of women, Hefner was a sexual predator, who built a media empire on a web of deceit and a mountain of lies. Join us as we discuss this groundbreaking docu-series, which is likely to prove just the tip of the iceberg in this horrific tale of abuse and rape. Alexandra, welcome to Factual America. How are things with you?

Alexandra Dean 03:03
Very good, thanks, Matthew. How are you?

Matthew 03:05
I'm doing fine, and even better now that we have you on the podcast, and it's a pleasure to welcome you to Factual America. To remind our listeners and viewers the film we're going to be - well, docu-series actually - is Secrets of Playboy. Ten part A&E original documentary series. Episodes 1 to 3 have been released. By the time this podcast sees the light of day I think we'll have episodes 4 and 5. I know it comes out on Mondays at 9pm Eastern. So, congratulations, again, on getting this film made. And thank you again for coming aboard and having a little chat with us. Maybe you can get us started, if you don't mind. What is Secrets of Playboy all about? That's a loaded question, I might - mind you, but maybe give us a bit of a synopsis to kick us off.

Alexandra Dean 04:00
Yeah. So, Secrets of Playboy is really what was happening at Playboy for the last 50 years. Mostly from the perspective of the women that were there, but also employees, people behind the scenes. Playboy from a completely different lens than we're used to.

Matthew 04:19
Okay, and how have you come to the story? I mean, what, you know, you're a documentary filmmaker, what made you say, I'm going to do a film on Playboy?

Alexandra Dean 04:32
I'd done a couple of documentaries that glancingly looked at women and sexuality here in the US. You know, I did Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, and that was really about the first woman to do an orgasm on screen, and how that basically discredited her for the rest of her life from being taken seriously for, you know, inventing something that became one of the basis for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and GPS, and all these things we work today. And then I - again with the Paris Hilton documentary I just did. Her sex tape had discredited her in many people's eyes for many years and made them doubt everything she said. And she reframed that for me as revenge porn. At which point I started to really wonder, like, about our hang-ups around women who have some sort of sexualized image in the public eye, and how it might be interfering with our ability to see them clearly.

Matthew 05:28
And so, is this - I mean, in terms of the timing of this, this is post #metoo, is - I mean, not post; I shouldn't say post #metoo, but, you know, it's the, I guess, maybe the pandemic starting to rage. And were you aware of the rumors about - I mean, about Playboy, about Hugh Hefner? This is about someone - I'm of an age who remembers; I was quite young, but do remember when he was still being held up as sort of a self-styled father of sexual liberation, someone that maybe men might aspire to, you know, even then. I mean, were you aware of - because, I might as well say it now, I mean, this will come up; there's a lot of - Secrets of Playboy is a very innocuous, benign title for this, I think. I mean, there's a lot of bombshells here because you get to the reality of what was happening. And so, were you aware of some of the rumors or some of these stories? No, not at all.

Alexandra Dean 06:37
I really wasn't. And, you know, it's funny, some of the press reaction to the series has been like, Oh, we know all this dark stuff was happening in the mansion. And I'm like, You did? Because I didn't, I had no idea. Like, I started, really, as an innocent calling all these women who had been in the magazine just sort of saying, Tell me about your experience. Tell me.

Matthew 06:57
And so, that was the movie, you, as you say, this is the movie you set out to make, to explore this topic. And then, at what point do you realize this is a very different, potentially very different, film?

Alexandra Dean 07:14
Well, almost immediately, I started realizing that there was a huge range of experiences that people had had at the mansion, and that there were women who really came through it feeling this was a great experience, and it had helped them truly, and that there were plenty of women who did not feel that; in fact, felt, you know, some sort of negative attitude. But it was a gradual uncovering. I really, truly, didn't know all these dark secrets, right away. You know, I really, I was just wondering how it was possible for women to have such a range of experiences for a long time. And then, as the trust built between me and certain characters, more and more kept coming out. And I was really, you know, scrambling to figure out how to make it all part of the story as it kept sort of breaking over me.

Matthew 08:05
And so, you didn't set out to make a ten part docu-series, I guess, maybe?

Alexandra Dean 08:11
No, I mean, really, I thought, you know, initially, I thought maybe it could be a feature, or maybe two hours or four hours. And then the revelations started happening. And I also started to realize how enormous the Playboy world was. I was trying to talk about something much bigger than Hugh Hefner, the individual. I was trying to talk about the entity he'd built. And that meant the Playboy clubs. And it meant the models in the magazine and the girlfriends. And if you think about it, all of these women have been incredibly iconic. And none of them have really been heard from.

Matthew 08:45
And maybe it's worth taking a step back. I've already alluded to it. What was this, you know, what was this image that American society had of Hugh Hefner? And, sort of, the Playboy empire? I know that's evolved over time, but certainly for the large part of that there was a sort of a conventional kind of wisdom.

Alexandra Dean 09:10
Yeah. The conventional wisdom was that he was the man who had bought about our sexual revolution. He had a lot of credit for that. And that, at the same time, he'd been sort of a progressive champion who had promoted women and women's empowerment. And his idea that the girl next door could get naked, too, and have fun and not be, you know, slapped with some branding of, like, a slapper or a whore, you know, that was really important for the American zeitgeist, psychology.

Matthew 09:43
Yes. And then I mean, you - and you bring it up in the film - I mean, he was very, you know, he had African-American playmates, and, I mean, in bunnies, in the clubs, and very, very early, you know, well, you know, very pro-civil rights. And, you know, this was an image that - I, to be honest, I think he actually did believe. Yeah. Yeah.

Alexandra Dean 10:09
I think he believed it. And that's one of the really interesting things about this series is we're not talking about a character that, you know, just does what he says on the tin. It's not like that with Hefner. There seems to be these two sides to him, possibly more. But I'm not sure they were talking to each other, you know. I'm not sure that Hef didn't - yeah, I think he completely blocked that darker side of himself when he was outside of the bedroom. I think he was - he completely inhabited this much more progressive person that people truly loved. And then he had these secrets. He had the secret self, and it unleashed a lot of damage, as well.

Matthew 10:46
Okay. And then, I think, as I said, there's, you know - I've now seen it. Each time an episode comes out, there's a bit of, you know - creates a buzz, because there's - I find them to be bombshells. I mean, let's touch on that. If the media said they knew this all along, what were they doing?

Alexandra Dean 11:11
I don't know. It's so bizarre. I don't know. Why didn't people say anything? Or, you know, maybe it was buzzing around LA. I'm not from LA. I grew up in England. I'm from New York. I've been here for 20 years. You know, I think that people in LA do know more, maybe, in the whispers of LA, you know, in the whole industry? I didn't, I really came at it from an outsider's perspective. And also, from the perspective of someone who had been seduced by Hef as a kid and thought it was pretty cool that, you know, all these stars of Baywatch came from Playboy, and they were cute, and I wanted to be cute like them, you know. I was an idiot!

Matthew 11:50
Or you can be a host on MTV or you can, you know...

Alexandra Dean 11:54
Right! You can be super cute and bounce around in a little red bathing suit, and it looked like fun and it looked like freedom. And I didn't see anything wrong with that from the outside.

Matthew 12:04
I mean, for our listeners, I think I've been - I'm not being a very good host of this and that we're kind of dancing around some of this, but in that - I mean, do you want to tell, maybe, just give us a sort of summary in terms of what people are going to learn when they watch this series? Because I've had the fortune of - I've seen all the 10 screeners. So, yes. Yes, I put one in for the team! But my goodness, it wasn't - I shouldn't say it wasn't easy watching, everyone should watch this, but it's - there's some very horrific, difficult scenes, and we can talk more about some of the women and what they've had to go through in order to bring this story to life. But what are people going to find out when they watch this?

Alexandra Dean 12:54
It's kind of an onion peeling situation. You're gonna keep seeing layers of Playboy and its image fall away. And each layer we look at what Playboy was kind of seducing people, what was the seduction of Playboy when it came to, like, the clubs or the girlfriends, or the playmates. And then we look at inside the mechanics of it, you know, we really see these patterns where women were often not protected from abuse, or you know, sometimes they seemed almost offered up for abuse. And then we kind of get deeper and deeper into what Hef was really up to himself in the bedroom. And we realize that, you know, maybe it wasn't an accident that all this rot was happening in different parts of the Playboy empire, because this guy at the center of it didn't seem very worried about protecting women, either.

Matthew 13:44
Okay, I mean, I think that's - I should stress it's not salacious. This isn't, you know, being - we're not, you know - it's actually, I mean, it's - like you say it's unwrapping an onion, and it's actually finally shining a light on things that for whatever reason - I mean, why do you think this has been so covered up for so long?

Alexandra Dean 14:10
I think Hef was enormously powerful. I think he was also a beloved American icon. You know, when you look at American exports, Coke and Disney and Hef, you know, the Playboy icon is right up there with them. It's a big part of our identity like, and so I think, Hef just became this cartoon character that we love to love. And we didn't really want to look more closely at all the clone girlfriends and the weirdness going on.

Matthew 14:40
I mean, even in the end, he's kind of almost a Mr. Magoo cut type character, but yeah, the clone - yeah, I think that's a - I mean, that's a very good point. I think he's, you know, how - well, maybe that's something we should discuss when we get - after the break. I'm going to let our listeners have a break here. We'll be right back with Alexandra Dean. Docu-series, The secrets of Playboy. Ten part A&E original, and do check it out.

Factual America midroll 15:10
If you enjoy Factual America, check out the moviemaker podcast. That's all one word: moviemaker. Where our friends at moviemaker.com interview everyone from filmmakers just breaking in to A-Listers like David Fincher and Edgar Wright, about their moviemaking secrets, and behind the scenes tricks of the trade. They go deep, and let the guests speak uninterrupted, to get you the most film insight. Now back to Factual America.

Matthew 15:38
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with acclaimed filmmaker, Alexandra Dean. We're talking about Secrets of Playboy, the ten part A&E original documentary series now out. I think, episodes 1 to 3 are already out. By the time you listen to this podcast it will probably be more, about 4 or 5. Alexandra, we're talking about, you know, you've been shining this light, let's maybe cut - well, I should cut to the chase, I mean, we're talking about these myths of Hefner, and Playboy. So, maybe we could walk through some of these. I mean, he's the father of sexual liberation, but let's look at that one first. He enslaved women, didn't he?

Alexandra Dean 16:20
Yeah, in a way. Both are true, right. It's an uncomfortable reality, sometimes really, opposite things are true at the same time. Hefner did liberate many women into feeling like they could enjoy their own nudity and sexuality, and that was great. At the same time, he seemed to have a culture at the mansion that was all about controlling his girlfriends, in controlling them tightly in weird ways. And you do hear from women throughout the decades who compare it to a cult.

Matthew 16:52
Yeah, yeah, that comes out a few times. And it's across many different interviews that that term gets used. It's all about consenting adults, just having fun. But actually, rape's involved.

Alexandra Dean 17:11
Right, right. So, we hear early on in the series, one of the journalists that I interviewed said, You know, the philosophy that Hef promoted in the magazine was very explicit. It was something that he'd really worked on. It was a literary feat. And he said in the philosophy, basically, he believed in freedom to do whatever you want, as long as you're not hurting anybody. That was his philosophy. And, you know, that's what sort of opened the floodgates for a lot of people to sexually experiment because if they weren't hurting anyone, it wasn't morally wrong in his universe. And the problem is, he was hurting people. And maybe not everybody, but he was hurting some people very badly. And we do hear from one of his most long term girlfriends who was extremely close to him, you know, thought she was going to marry him and have his babies and how - and she really takes us through a journey around how damaging he could be.

Matthew 17:19
Is that Sondra Theodore?

Alexandra Dean 18:11
That's Sondra Theodore. So, she's a very important central character because she kind of takes us into the heart of darkness of his legendary bedroom, and tells you all about it.

Matthew 18:21
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you have, I wouldn't say he was never against, he was never no drugs. But he was always saying there really wasn't any drugs going around, or he wasn't aware of it. But it sounds like they were just popping pills and doing all kinds of stuff all the time.

Alexandra Dean 18:39
Oh, my God, right? Episode Four, you'll see is really - it's all around this battle that Playboy had with the authorities during the Nixon era to try and convince them that they were not this hedonistic playground, that drugs weren't rampant. And, of course, you know, the evidence that we see in the doc. is that they were pretty rampant. And not only that, Hefner was deeply involved in how the drugs were procured.

Matthew 19:05
Right. And that's again in the Sondra Theodore episode, isn't it?

Alexandra Dean 19:09
Yeah, that's the Sondra Theodore episode. So, she's a sort of a guide for us, right at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end, really telling us what was happening.

Matthew 19:18
And then, he's a lover of women, but I think it's in some of the latter episodes, I think more than once your interviewers - interviewees - say they think he hated women?

Alexandra Dean 19:33
Yeah, a couple of the women at the end of all the interviews, they sat down and said, I really think he hated women. And I think they're saying that because they feel like they witnessed him, and the word they use is 'break', break women. And it was really interesting because I heard that word from four separate interviews, very different interviews, same word 'break', he broke these women. It's a serious allegation. It implies long term psychological damage and scarring.

Matthew 20:06
And I guess, let's put this in perspective as well. These are more often than not, they are women, but they are just become women. There's 18, 19 years old, aren't they? And he's middle aged, at least, when this happens.

Alexandra Dean 20:23
Right, well, and you know, he keeps getting older.

Matthew 20:25
He keeps getting older, and they keep, you know, it's the - but yeah.

Alexandra Dean 20:30
There is a profile that keeps cropping up as well. In my reporting, I kept coming across the same story: I was 16, I was 17, I was 18. I was scooped up, bought into Playboy, often, you know, the person who was attracted to Playboy, or Playboy was attracted to, had some sort of abuse in their own families and their childhood. So, it was a pattern, they were repeating, or they were sort of orphaned in some way and Playboy positioned itself as a new family. And they would very often move in for long periods of time, nine months to two years.

Matthew 21:12
And then I think, maybe, it's worth, you know, at this point, there are some - well, there, oh, what I was going to ask you is, you must feel like you've become an investigative reporter in some way.

Alexandra Dean 21:29
Well, that's my background.

Matthew 21:30
Is it? Okay.

Alexandra Dean 21:31
Yes, I was a PBS documentarian, you know, and I worked on the news magazine Now, which is investigative. And I did that for the first five years of my career. So, it was for me, you know, it felt to me like that shoe leather reporting. Yeah.

Matthew 21:52
All right. And then these women that - there are many women who you interview, many former employees. But, you know, what about these women that have come forward, or you were able to get in touch with who've - I mean, how difficult was it for them to relive this again, because we're talking about people like Miki Garcia, Sondra Theodore, PJ Masten just to name three. But those are three of your main characters.

Alexandra Dean 22:23
It was incredibly difficult for all three of them in different ways. And Jennifer Saginor, at the beginning of the series and comes back later. And Susie Krabacher comes up in the end that, you know, as one of my main characters. All of these women. It was a really long dialogue that we had. And what you are seeing isn't one interview, it's often four or five, over a long period of time. And it's like boxes within boxes of being opened up. People would call me and say, I've just remembered something. Oh my God, I've remembered. Or, more often, I think I'm ready to tell you something that I haven't wanted to share. I'm so scared, but I think I'm ready to tell you; I think it's important, I tell you.

Matthew 23:14
And some of them have, like Sondra Theodore, she's got children. I mean, she's, you know, it must be - it can't be the easiest thing, obviously, you know.

Alexandra Dean 23:23
No. For Sondra that would be a huge struggle. Yeah, she has kids and the kids didn't really know about her relationship with Hef; like, she'd really kept this veneer that it was all okay. And it was to protect them. She didn't want them to know how bad it had been. But I think it's actually been healing in some way in her family, for them to find out the truth.

Matthew 23:48
Well, probably helps explain some things, too, you know; I mean, you know, I mean, what - you have some incredible scenes. I mean, PJ just goes to the garage, she's there in the Villages, in Florida, and she just goes to her garage and starts pulling things out. There's even that one, I think it's the one on drugs, where - not literally on drugs, but the one about drugs - where the guy, you know, you've got these former detectives, and they've kept a lot of these notes. And they've got their own investigative notes and things. It's quite incredible.

Alexandra Dean 24:19
Yeah, that was so lucky, because, you know, it's during the pandemic, so we don't have any else - you know, nothing else to follow [inaudible]; like, What have you got in your garage? Can we spot over some boxes with you? But it did become really interesting. It taught me a lot, actually, the documentarian. There was so much in the boxes in the garages and in the photo albums. And also, you know, we began to really look at videos, movies with people, and you see that a lot. You see them watching their own images in their home movies and things.

Matthew 24:31
And there's something about an image that just brings everything, or a film, that just brings everything back, doesn't it?

Alexandra Dean 24:57
Yeah, and it is interesting the way we projected Sondra's old films. They kind of slid across her face, and I realized it looked like memories.

Matthew 25:10
And ones that I think she, I think it's in the last episode, actually, where she basically thought she had repressed many of them.

Alexandra Dean 25:18
Yeah, she'd repressed them, for sure. She'd had such a hard time reconciling the two sides of Hef for herself. And so, she had to kind of shut down part of herself. And she talks about all her struggles and all the way she realized she was repressed and sort of breaking down for a long time.

Matthew 25:36
And there's that word 'break' again. I mean, because that's what comes up. I mean, as you say, what we see unfold is through their testimony, how this all - how Hefner and his cronies, as his group, circle, push these women to breaking points. And you just, a few minutes ago, reminded me there's the other character I haven't mentioned, which is incredible. I know she's written a book, and that's out there. But you have Jennifer Saginor, who grew up in the Playboy Mansion.

Alexandra Dean 26:11
Right? We start with her, because she's this innocent, you know. A little kid really, truly an innocent wandering through, you know, Hefner's Shangri La, which looks to her like Disneyland, until she starts opening doors and stumbling on what's happening behind the closed doors. So, I thought it was, you know, her story is incredibly poignant. And it was a very moving way for me to sort of uncover the mansion through her eyes and start to see some of the things that were maybe going wrong.

Matthew 26:42
And what about some of the - I mean, the women we're talking about were - many, well, someone like Miki Garcia, she's a former employee, but I mean - but the non sort of playmate, bunny, employees, like the valet and the butler and the security guards, you know, how do they feel? I mean, you know, in the guilt that comes out, I mean, they obviously, you know, because they kept silent at the time, and how do they, I mean, it kind of comes up, but how did they, you know, in filming and talking with them, how do they feel about that? And how do they reconcile that?

Alexandra Dean 27:24
Every person was different in how they process all of it. And some people seem to be in denial about parts of it, for sure. And it was easier to just kind of drink the Kool Aid for some people and be 'Rah, rah Hef'. I see that a lot in the Playboy universe, people don't really want to confront the dark side; it's too painful. But, I did, you know, really find that some of the employees who really confronted what had happened there had these really raw, emotional moments where they confronted their own complicity. And they had to stop, or, you see one of them say, You can stop filming me now, I'm sorry; you know, and this pain comes over his face.

Matthew 28:13
And what is - I mean, what's the reaction been? I mean, besides, you know, we get some of these stories drop on each episode, and there's a bit of a media buzz with each episode. But what is the reaction? Because I think I saw something it's been interesting to see how Playboy reacts.

Alexandra Dean 28:31
Right? Playboy surprised us by completely coming out in support of the women, and saying, You know, we are not affiliated with the Hefner family, anymore, and we do completely support the women who've come out and support their stories. And honestly, I thought, you know, what a marvelous way to react. It was really - impressed me, deeply. And we did, in fact, put it in the film at the end, what their reaction is, is there for everyone to see.

Matthew 29:04
Okay. And you said they're not affiliated with the Hefner family any more. It's a question someone I know asked me. I do remember at some point, I don't know how old I was, but they're making a big to-do about the fact that Hefner's daughter was going to take over, you know, the running of the of the magazine and everything, but she just seems to - and even in your doc., she just kind of disappears. I mean, what happened? Do we, do you know what happened with that? Because it's a very, it strikes me as a very strange - well, all of Hefner's relationships seem to have been very strange, but that seems like a strange one as well.

Alexandra Dean 29:45
Yeah, the famous line of Christie's is, if I hadn't existed, my father would have had to invent me. And that's what Hefner said to her, you know, because he was so savvy and he understood that putting his daughter at the front and helm of the company was incredibly good for the company, right at the moment where it was kind of under fire for being anti-feminist, you know, right, against women in some way. He would say, No, my beautiful daughter is the new head of Playboy, and how could it be anti-women when she's at the helm? But I think it wasn't, you know, completely easy atmosphere for her from what I can gather. I think that she wanted to do a lot of things with the company that the old guard probably wasn't really happy with. And at the end of the day, when private equity took over a lot of the company, she left, and I think she'd had enough.

Matthew 30:40
You know, I think I was telling someone beforehand, you know, you don't see many ten part doc. series, anymore, but this one, actually, but I think it definitely justifies ten parts. There's a lot there, you cover a lot of ground, and I think you're only hitting the tip of the iceberg in many ways.

Alexandra Dean 31:05
Yeah, that's the great part, right?!

Matthew 31:07
No, it is, I mean, that was meant - wasn't meant as a criticism. I mean, I think you had so much material, you've done an amazing job putting it all together and peeling that onion, but you have a whole - one of the whole - one of the episodes is very much focused on the company culture. And, you know, so again, it's not just Hefner, it's the whole corporation. I talk like someone who has an MBA, and unfortunately, I do. But you know, I've got, you know, you've got this whole thing, where this is what they're saying, but what's actually happening, and the glass ceilings that were in the - actually, definitely in place, even though the women didn't realize they were there. And then just the steady diet of harassment that they had to deal with in their positions. It's quite...

Alexandra Dean 31:59
Yeah, it's sobering. I think that all of those aspects of Playboy were very interesting to me, because that's really the world I came up in where it was, like, on the face of it very, very equal and very, you know, pro-women and then you smack your head against the glass ceiling every once in a while by accident and just come out of it like whoozy, you know, and wondering what happened. So, I think those women in that corporate story really struck a nerve with me. They had it much worse than my generation, did. Their harassment was really overt. But it still lingered when I was coming up. And I did recognize that whole thing. And I think that's so important to talk about. It's not just, like, the really obvious stuff, but it's also how this attitude that Playboy had that women were disposable, kind of dripped through every part of the culture.

Matthew 32:58
And, yeah, what you also uncover is all the cover-ups that - the great lengths they would go to, to make sure no bad press would come out. Hence, the discussion we had earlier about how did we not know about this?

Alexandra Dean 33:14
Right. The cover up; the clean-up crew. Yeah, that episode hasn't come out. Yeah, the clean-up crew was a thing, you know, and you see me kind of incredulously asking one of the security men, like, is this true? The clean-up crew? Like, can you confirm the existence of a clean-up crew? And he's like, Oh, yeah, yeah, that's true. That really happened.

Matthew 33:36
You were probably expecting him to say, No; what are you talking about? But now he's like, Yeah, I was on it. Or something, you know.

Alexandra Dean 33:42
Oh yeah, I was part of the clean-up crew. So was Mickey, and so was, you know...

Matthew 33:45
They all were part of it. Everyone you've been talking to was on the clean-up crew, essentially.

Alexandra Dean 33:49
Right.

Matthew 33:49
Yeah.

Alexandra Dean 33:49
And that's why they were so disturbed. Like, if you want to know why these people and not those people at the mansion? Of course, the people in the clean-up crew saw the worst stuff. And a lot of the other people were shielded from it.

Matthew 34:04
Okay. And then, I mean, I don't think - well, I'm not sure exactly; I'm trying to remember - but there's things that come out about people who are still alive, you know, especially about some men, I mean, how have you dealt with it so far? And what are you expecting to be the reaction?

Alexandra Dean 34:30
Yeah. We did not make any allegation that we couldn't corroborate many different ways.

Matthew 34:41
In your investigative....

Alexandra Dean 34:43
Yeah. We did not do that, because that would be nuts.

Matthew 34:46
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Alexandra Dean 34:48
You know, and so, you know, I know that people wonder like, why do we name these people and not those people in an episode? It'll always be because what could we do legally? You know, there are legal hurdles to overcome, there are investigative hurdles to overcome, you have to have other sources. So, where you hear somebody alive, and allegations against that person coming to light, you should know there is a lot more that I know than that. A lot more. It's much deeper than that. This is the tip of the iceberg. So, that's why we went forward with it.

Matthew 35:24
Okay. So, there could be - well, I mean, I don't think I will get into trouble - no one will be surprised if I say, you know, Bill Cosby is one of the people that gets discussed. So, and unfortunately for one of his victims, and she does share in utmost detail the experience, but I think, I mean, as you say, so, if that's the case, you must - are you living with the burden on your shoulders? You must have, there must have been a lot of names that have been mentioned that you are pretty sure probably did the things they've been accused of, but you are not in a position to - well, as you say, for many reasons, and rightly so, I think, let's put it that - I also should say, every episode, I forget how many times says, well, certainly at the end, there's always a title card saying, you know, these people never been tried, you know, tried in a court of law. I guess we should also say, just because you're seen in a photo that you happen to be at a Playboy Club doesn't make you, you know, guilty, obviously, because it was part of the culture, you know.

Alexandra Dean 36:43
That's right. And there were many men that I know went there for a long period of time who did not become predators or engage in predatory activity. So, for everyone listening out there, don't just assume because you see somebody at Playboy, they were a predator, it's not true. But, you know, yes, there were some, for sure. And, you know, when it came to Cosby, he, you know, the allegations against him spanned 50 years at Playboy. So, for me that was important to look at because it kind of started to lead to well, what did Hef know? Could he really have missed all of these allegations over all of these decades against the same, yeah.

Matthew 37:26
Yeah. And I think that's a good point you make as well, which is, you had the people who could go to the clubs, they had certain access. You know, you even looked at a bunny wrong, you would get - could get turfed out. And then you had these friends of Huff - of Hefner, I should - sorry, not Huff, but Hefner, wrong celeb. But Hefner who, you know, we're kind of told carte blanche, you know, anything goes, seemingly.

Alexandra Dean 37:53
Yeah, there's this weird hierarchy at Playboy that you see, kind of in all different situations where there's the rules for the ordinary folk, and then there's the rules for the VIPs, who are often celebrities or somebody close to Hef, or, you know, somebody big in some other part of culture. And they can do whatever they want. Like, all the rules are suspended for them. And it's really a playground for them. And I think that was in place because it made Hef feel special. He could offer all these really big names somewhere that was just a free playground for them. And they all came and made him feel like king of that playground of special people. So, yeah, he kept it going.

Matthew 38:33
Yeah, and I think as you point out, I mean, there was this, there was Playboy, there's the clubs, there are the mansions, but then there was this sort of - it became a haven for a certain type of man, didn't it in terms of part of his inner circle? And I think - I don't think it's been really said, but you even point out that this wasn't just happening at the mansion. This was being replicated across LA at least, wasn't it?

Alexandra Dean 39:05
Yeah. One of our episodes is really, we go back to Jennifer Saginor, who, you know, we met in the first episode, she comes back towards the end to say, she's sort of kept doing her research, and she discovers that there's this kind of network of mini-mansions, which are mini Playboy mansions, which we also call shadow mansions in the episode. But it's all her concept of the mini-mansions, which she was recognizing as smaller versions of the Playboy mansion because she knew everyone from the mansion, and she realized it was run by people connected with the mansion. And they were kind of replicating what they saw happen there.

Matthew 39:42
I mean, I think that does remind me, there's - I forget her name. It doesn't actually matter so much, but you're talking about this selective memory thing. There's one, one of the former employees, I think she's a photographer, and she even kind of - I wouldn't say she's disparaging, but she does, you know, say about one of the playmates, I think one of Hefner's girlfriends that you talk about, that, you know, maybe casting doubts on her motivations or things like that. And then in a later episode, she just barely avoided getting raped by one of Hefner's inner circle, you know, she gets left alone with this guy and gets attacked, yet, she kind of seems to shrug it off. But it's a very interesting, you know, dynamic that even she wasn't safe.

Alexandra Dean 40:32
Well, in her mind Hef protected her from that situation, that she had been put in that situation by Playboy-at-large and Hef protected her. So, you can see the complexity here of this situation. Really complex. And it's a complex thing to navigate as a woman and to see your, you know, to see clearly, I think, in some ways. And I think what that points to also is that we as women, we often process exactly the same situation very, very differently. And we assign blame differently. We tend to judge each other a lot. I find that a very, very painful thing, that women can go through the same, like, assaults and assign blame to each other. I think that's really hard for me to see, sometimes, but it's true, it happens.

Matthew 41:25
And do you think that's partly - that also gets to this whole element of why it's taken so long for this story to come out as it has, because not only - well, as you said, I mean, there's also this element of self-blame, isn't there, that happens.

Alexandra Dean 41:46
Mhm-hmm. Oh, yeah.

Matthew 41:48
I must have been at fault, you know, self victim blaming, you know.

Alexandra Dean 41:54
Yeah, absolutely. A lot of that. A lot of that. You know, Playboy had the reputation of Vegas, right. What happens at Playboy, stays at Playboy. And so, a lot of women felt if they had walked through the doors there, they had bought this upon themselves. And what's interesting is, I think, until very recently, our culture would have wholeheartedly agreed and said, you know, shut up and never tell us. You walk through those doors, you take responsibility for that. And I think now we're just beginning to say, Wait a second, you can sign up for a wonderful, playful, joyous, sexual experience, and you don't have to be responsible for being crushed and ending up with PTSD.

Matthew 42:36
Right, right. And do you think that is a - do you feel like that is actually - maybe it's just the beginning, but it is a change, that's actually going to happen? This isn't just something that's - hopefully it's a change that's going to happen, but, I mean, it isn't just going to be stuck at, you know, of an era one or two years there where names, you know, people get brought to, you know, brought to sort of responsibilities for this, you know, and then we kind of - there's no going back to that era. Some of this seems so almost anachronistic, doesn't it? I mean, in terms of where we are now versus what was going on in the 70s, 80s, 90s.

Alexandra Dean 43:23
It does, but I also am a believer in, like, The Handmaid's Tale. I think we can slide backwards very easily. The history of women is all, you know, the history of all of these incredible strides forward, followed by these terrifying slides backwards. If you're watching Catherine the Great right now you know what I'm talking about. She's like, the era of the [inaudible] and the Rights of Women and then they, you know, we know what happens after that, they all [inaudible] in corsets and stuffed in untidy marriages and things. You know, women have gone back and forth; I don't think that the place we're at is ever guaranteed. We have to fight for it.

Matthew 44:04
And with that in mind, what do you want the legacy of this docu-series to be?

Alexandra Dean 44:09
A little more freedom. I want women to feel free to speak up about their experiences. I want people to feel a bit more open minded about what these experiences are really like. And then, you know, I want to hopefully help at some point create a more free world where people can experiment in a space that actually is a bit more safe.

Matthew 44:33
And it seems, I think it's in Episode Ten, which I've had the good fortune of seeing, Miki Garcia, Sondra Theodore, they all are now saying we hope more women, more, you know, more victims will come forward and be in a position to tell their stories. Have you seen any signs of that yet?

Alexandra Dean 44:56
We certainly have. We have heard from a handful of victims since the show started airing. And some of them have called Sondra, Miki directly. In Sondra's case, I know one woman said, you know, shaking and crying, You've changed my life, you've made me able to tell my story, which I thought I would have to keep locked up for the rest of my life. And that's like a jail sentence for her, apparently. So, I think that's why we do this. It's a freedom for people.

Matthew 45:26
Okay. Will you be revisiting this story, you think? It's a lot to put on your shoulders.

Alexandra Dean 45:36
It's a lot, it's a lot. I don't know. I don't know. It depends what comes out, you know. If I feel like there's something there that we haven't covered that really needs to be told, I would certainly consider it. But there's also a lot of other stories I want to tell.

Matthew 45:49
Yes, I was gonna ask, and we're coming to the end of our time together, but what's next for you?

Alexandra Dean 45:58
Not running out yet, but I am working on a - I think I can say I'm working on four parts, for a big streamer, and four parts is very comfortable after ten. It's wonderful. It's a great sized playground. I'm enjoying it a lot. Again, it's a woman we all know, and its completely different angle on her. And there's a lot of scandal and a lot of prejudice. We're gonna tackle it head on.

Matthew 46:27
Intriguing. Well, I can't wait to see it when we finally do get to know who the subject is. And hopefully, we can have you on again, sometime. It'd be great to discuss that. And good luck with your career. And good luck with, and congratulations on, this series. And thank you for bringing this story to our attention. I think it's long overdue. So, thanks again so much, Alexandra Dean, acclaimed filmmaker of Secrets of Playboy. Ten part A&E original documentary series.

Alexandra Dean 47:02
Thanks so much, Matthew.

Speaker 1 47:05
Hef pretended he wasn't involved in any hard drug use at the mansion. But that was just a lie. Quaaludes, down the line, were used for sex. Everything felt good to touch, everything felt soft and soft focus and it was lovely. Usually, you just took a half. Now, if you took two, you'd pass out. It was such a seduction, and the men knew this, that they could get girls to do just about anything they wanted if they gave them a Quaalude. Before I met Hef, I had never done a drug in my life and I was just a young, naive girl that didn't know the ways of the world.

Speaker 2 47:46
I worked for Hefner at the Playboy Mansion in LA from late 1977 to mid 1989 as Hef's secretary, and then eventually, executive assistant. Quaaludes were - we call them the leg spreaders, you know, I mean, and I don't know that I want to get that crude, but that is what the whole point of them was, you know, they were are necessary evil, if you will, to the partying. We would have prescriptions in some of our names. There were prescriptions in Sondra's name, and Hef's name, and my name. There was a prescription in Mary's name. We kept a desk calendar that just would say, you know, Lisa's Q, or Hef's Q, or Sondra's Q, that enabled certainly four, and sometimes five, different prescriptions for the same medication to feed the machine.

Speaker 3 48:45
Secrets of Playboy, premieres Monday, January 24 at nine, only on A&E.

Matthew 48:50
I'd like to give a shout out to Sam and Joe Graves at Innersound Audio in Escrick, England in deepest, darkest Yorkshire. A big thanks to Nevena Paunovic, podcast manager at Alamo Pictures, who ensures we continue getting great guests onto the show. And finally, a big thanks to our listeners. As always, we love to hear from you, so, please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas. You can reach out to us on YouTube, social media, or directly by going to our website, www.factualamerica.com, and clicking on the Get in Touch link. And as always, please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America, signing off. Our homepage is alamopictures.co.uk