Playboy empire founder and cultural icon Hugh Hefner on Tuesday became the first person inducted into the Erotic Hall of Fame at the Erotic Museum on Hollywood Boulevard.
Hefner and his entourage, which included "girlfriends" Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson, pulled up in a black limousine at about 1:30 p.m. and walked the red carpet into the sparkling, two-story space.
The ceremony began with the introductions of Erotic Museum CEO Boris Smorodinsky, museum director Marina Smorodinsky, chief financial officer Mark Volper and curator Eric Singley. Playboy executive Bill Farley was also in the crowd, while Alex Katz, director of special events, made sure the many VIP guests were properly accommodated.
Volper, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, called Hefner "an ambassador to freedom."
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Talk show host and comedian Bill Maher then took the stage and mused, "I've been to the House of Fuck and it's nothing like this. Where are all the stars going to go during the day? All the stars I know like to be blown and in bed by 9:30."
Maher said the reason Hefner was the first person going into the Erotic Hall of Fame was that “we just did the math."
"Who's had more orgasms, more women, more sex?" Maher asked rhetorically.
Maher concluded by saying that he grew up with Playboy, and that "Playboy made me realize that I didn't have to grow up."
Hefner, sharply dressed in a black sport coat and a striped dress shirt with a white collar, told the assembled media that he was most proud of the fact that his magazine has become "a rite of passage" into adulthood.
"The early beginnings of it, the dreams, seem like the day before yesterday to me," the 78-year-old said. "And to have it become an American phenomenon…."
Hefner addressed sexual freedom—or the idea of it.
"If you're not free in your own private life, then you're not really free at all," he said.
But the original Playboy kept the mood light.
"It's an unusual part of the day for all us. I had to get my girlfriends up before noon," he cracked, between sips of a cocktail. "This town and every other town need their own Erotic Museum, he concluded."
Hefner posed for pictures in front of a custom portrait of him that was unveiled during the ceremony, and took questions from local and national media.
"The major civilizing force is not religion, the major civilizing force is sex," Hefner remarked. "I always wanted this to be a lifestyle magazine that I tried to bring sex into. Sex is part of a romantic relationship. "
Hefner joked, "I'm the kid that tried to give sex a good name." He told the crowd to "hold onto the child within you."
"It's a quest for a world where the words to the song are true," he said. "That's what sets us apart from lower animals, the dreams, the yearning…."
