Hef Heads Back To 'Reality' TV

Playboy Founder Says New Series Will Show His 'Secret Side'

(AP)  Things are not what they seem to be at the Playboy Mansion.

The blonde sidling up for a pat turns out to be Archie, a male mutt living the good life at Hugh Hefner's estate. A bubbly woman clad in a T-shirt (tight), shorts (very short) and heels (very, very high) is an official G.O.F. — Girlfriend of Hef — but also holds two college degrees.

And Hefner, who founded an empire on the allure of an unavailable nude making eye contact from a magazine page, says he's a misunderstood romantic who created a world befitting his own comfortably elastic definition of the term.

This world is on view in "The Girls Next Door" (premiering 9 p.m. EDT Sunday on E!), an eight-part series from executive producer Kevin Burns that promises to introduce viewers to "the secret side of an American legend."

On the brink of 80, Hefner is an elder statesman — a veritable Yoda of the sexual revolution. He even looks the part, a slight, oddly endearing figure who offers a gentle handshake and polite conversation with the ring of repetition, testimony to a road-tested personal philosophy that forms the basis of an enduring corporate brand.

"The major message in my life is there isn't one way to live your life, and we should not be judging if they're living it a little differently next door — many roads to Mecca," he told The Associated Press. "I think, in my own way, I've tried to break down the boundaries related to sexuality, related to age, related to gender."

In doing so, he argues, he and his 51-year-old magazine have become a gauge of America's awkward back-and-forth dance with sexual freedom while hobbled by Puritan roots.

"At the very beginning, I said my life and Playboy are a Rorschach test. ... It's a culmination of the dreams and fantasies and prejudices you bring to the table," Hefner said.

Inclined toward candor, Hefner opened the door to his life a bit wider to promote a new reality TV series. During an afternoon interview in the mansion's library he's dressed in his trademark uniform of silk pajamas and robe, his gray hair neatly combed.

No dyed coiffure for this swinger, who likes to call himself the "luckiest cat on the planet" as he cavorts with a trio of young and attractive girlfriends, whose combined ages almost reach his own.