Playboy lifestyle

A playboy lifestyle is the lifestyle of a wealthy man with ample time for leisure, who demonstratively is a bon vivant who appreciates the pleasures of the world, especially the company of women. The term "playboy" was popular in the early to mid-20th century and is sometimes used to describe a conspicuous womanizer.

This article is about the lifestyle. For the magazine named after the lifestyle, see Playboy. For other uses, see Playboy (disambiguation).

Development
"The Original Playboys relied upon a perfect storm of pleasurable circumstances: The world was at peace; airplanes began flying internationally; their parents were members of the 1920s café society and raised progressive, well-mannered, fashion-forward children; they possessed unparalleled wealth, there was no Internet – as a result, they will forever remain an inimitable breed of elite, professional pleasure seekers, the likes of which the world will never see again."[1]

Initially the term was used in the eighteenth century for boys who performed in the theatre,[2] and later it appears in the 1888 Oxford Dictionary to characterize a person with money who is out to enjoy himself.[3] By the end of the nineteenth century it also implied the connotations of "gambler" and "musician".[4] By 1907, in J. M. Synge's comedy The Playboy of the Western World, the term had acquired the notion of a womanizer. According to Shawn Levy, the term reached its full meaning in the interwar years and early post WWII years. Postwar intercontinental travel allowed playboys to meet at international nightclubs and famous "playgrounds" such as the Riviera or Palm Beach where they were trailed by paparazzi who supplied the tabloids with material to be fed to an eager audience. Their sexual conquests were rich, beautiful, and famous. In 1953, Hugh Hefner caught the wave and created the Playboy magazine.[5]

Famous playboys

Porfirio Rubirosa, who died in a car crash in 1965, is an example of someone who embodied the playboy lifestyle.[1][3] The diplomat claimed to have no time to work, being busy spending time with women, getting married briefly and in sequence to the two richest women in the world, drinking and gambling with his friends, playing polo, racing cars, and flying his airplane from party to party. He was linked to other famous playboys of the time Aly Khan,[1] Jorge Guinle, "Baby" Francisco Pignatari,[1] and later, Gunther Sachs,[1] his acolyte, who termed himself a homo ludens.[3]

Other people who adopted the playboy lifestyle included Alfonso de Portago,[6] Hugh Hefner, Dan Bilzerian, Julio Iglesias, George Best, Imran Khan, James Hunt, Howard Hughes,[1] Averell Harriman,[7] Errol Flynn,[1] Gianni Agnelli,[1] Silvio Berlusconi, John F. Kennedy,[1] Alessandro "Dado" Ruspoli,[1] Carlos de Beistegui,[1] Count Theodore Zichy,[8] David Frost,[9] Bernard Cornfeld, Wilt Chamberlain, Maurizio Zanfanti and Mario Conde.[10]

Fictional playboys include Oliver Queen from the DC Comics The Arrow, Bruce Wayne from the DC Comics Batman franchise, Tony Stark from Marvel Entertainment, Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock, and Charlie Harper from Two and a Half Men.

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See also

Notes
  1. "The 12 Original Playboys of the Jetset Sixties". Kempt.com. UrbanDaddy. August 17, 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-24.
  2. Levy S., p. 117
  3. Schultz, Ole (February 13, 2003). "Riviera-Nichtstuer - Geschichte der Playboys" (in German). Deutschlandradio Kultur. Archived from the original on February 10, 2013. Retrieved December 20, 2010. link broken June 2015
  4. Levy S., p.117
  5. Levy S., p. 118
  6. El Mundo: El hijo de Soledad Cabeza de Vaca, marquesa de Moratalla, denuncia su "secuestro" – 26 August 2017
  7. "Three Americans In London, Fighting For War". npr.org. NPR. February 3, 2010. Retrieved 2016-08-25.
  8. Zichy on the 'Art & Popular Culture' website
  9. "When the playboy met the liar". The Guardian. August 1, 2006. Retrieved 2013-02-05.
  10. "Conde vende su casa desde la prisión por 3,7 millones". El Español. April 14, 2016. Retrieved 2020-01-04.

References
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