Chicago Playboy Club. Hugh Hefner & Zev Braun
By Frank Cornacchiulo
Hefner was born in Chicago on April 9, 1926, the first child of Glenn Lucius Hefner (1896–1976), an accountant, and his wife Grace Caroline (Swanson) Hefner (1895–1997) who worked as a teacher. His parents were from Nebraska. He had a younger brother, Keith
(1929–2016). His mother was of Swedish ancestry, and his father was German and English.
Through his father's line, Hefner was a descendant of Plymouth governor William Bradford.[12][13] He described his family as "conservative, Midwestern, [and] Methodist". His mother had wanted him to become a missionary.
He attended Sayre Elementary School and Steinmetz High School, then served from 1944 to 1946 as a U.S. Army writer for a military newspaper. Hefner graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaignin 1949 with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and a double minor in creative writing and art, having earned his degree in two and a half years. After graduation, he took a semester of graduate courses in sociology at Northwestern University, but dropped out soon after.
Zev Braun (October 19, 1928 – October 17, 2019) was an American motion picture producer. Though much of his work is in television (most notably as the executive producer of the Tour of Duty series) he was a successful filmmaker from the early 1960s onwards.
Early life
Braun was born in Chicago, Illinois. His interest in filmmaking led him fresh from studying Humanities and Classic Arts at the University of Chicago to enter movies while still serving as President of Braun International, his family's packaging firm.
I first met Zev when I started my career in 1959, in the mailroom of the W Braun Company New York office. I was fresh out of High School in 1959 when I started working in a Union wholesale Butchers shop with 50 other Butchers. Within months of working at this butcher shop I knew that being a Butcher was not going to be my career goal. So, I quit and took a 40% pay cut for a low paying mailroom position at the W Braun Company in Manhattan. I'm writing my story about when I initially met Zev Braun in the early 1960’s. That's when my boss, Ed Feinstein, told me “That our company will be exhibiting at a packing show in Atlantic City, New Jersey next week. Please pack a bag because we need you to be there for a couple of days to help set up our exhibit”at the show. I said to myself “Wow! I’m going out of town on my first business trip.” One of our salesmen, Al Sternberg, was going to pick me up early one morning in Brooklyn for the trip to Atlantic City.
It was great for me to be at the packaging show because I met a ton of people from Braun’s headquarters in Chicago, one of whom was Zev Braun. Over the years I was promoted to a job called an “Expeditor”. That was when I was invited to take my second “out of town” trip to our headquarters in Chicago so that I could meet the staff controlling all our business operations. That’s when I met Zev Braun for the second time, and he asked me if I was available to have dinner with him that night. Wow, everything seemed to be moving so fast. I said Okay, he picked me up at the hotel and that’s when he said to me that we were going to the Chicago “Playboy Club” for dinner. I knew that Zev was the heir apparent to take over our company someday in the future and that's one of the reasons I would like to get to know him better.
As we were having dinner a stranger came over to our table to say “hello”. Zev turned to me later and told me that was his friend Hugh Hefner. I didn’t recognize his name but found out much later who he was. As we finished dinner Zev turned to me and asked me if “I wanted to play with a Playboy Bunny?” I was socked because I didn’t know what he was talking about. That’s when he pointed to a bunch of Pool Tables and said, “I know you’re from Brooklyn and I assumed you know how to play Pool?” I immediately responded “Oh, yeah I’d love to.” Well, that’s when I played Pool with a Playboy Bunny and she kicked my ass.
I only found out later that Zev was going to move on to his love for the movie business.
Over the years he went on to produce movies and TV shows like Freedom Road with Mohamed Ali, The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane with Jodie Foster and Martin Sheen. Also an Oscar Nominated movie EDGES OF THE LORD, an inspiring and enthralling story, Oscar Nominated, that's seen through the eyes of a child. To escape an unthinkable fate, a young Jewish boy's (Osment) parents send him to the countryside. And that's when his adventure begins. Spirited away from the Nazi-occupied city in 1942 Poland. Produced by Zev Braun.
Meanwhile, The Boy, Haley Joel Osment, also stared in The Sixth Sense is a 1999 American psychological thriller. Which stared Bruce Willis, as a child psychologist whose patient (Haley Joel Osment) claims he can see and talk to the dead. Spooky, and a TV series, Tour of Duty. We kept in touch over the years and when he would come to NYC, we would have lunch together at one his nephew’s,
Josh Pickard’s new restaurants in Manhattan. Zev was such a dynamic entrepreneurial individual and as luck would have it, I will always appreciate the time we spent together over the years.
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