32 Facts About Victor Lownes

Victor Aubrey Lownes III was an executive for HMH Publishing Company Inc.

Victor Lownes was a close confidant of Hefner and gained a reputation for dating Playboy Playmates.

Victor Lownes headed Playboy Europe and the UK Playboy Clubs from the mid-1960s until his dismissal in the early 1980s.

Victor Lownes oversaw Playboy Enterprises's move into casino gambling in the UK in the 1960s, which became Playboy's most successful business other than its publishing until the advent of cable television.

Victor Lownes oversaw the most successful part of Hefner's attempt to diversify out of publishing and into motion pictures, hotels and casino gambling.

Victor Lownes is credited with creating Playboy Clubs in the United States.

Victor Lownes enrolled at the University of Chicago in 1944 under the experimental "Chicago Plan" undergraduate program developed by then-chancellor Robert Maynard Hutchins.

In 1946, at the age of 18, Victor Lownes wed fellow University of Chicago student Judith Downs.

Victor Lownes rebelled against the apparent respectability of the middle class American dream, trapped by marriage and decided to abandon his family.

At a party in 1954, Victor Lownes met Hugh Hefner, a man whose almost identical interests had not long previously led him to create Playboy magazine.

Victor Lownes was asked to write a couple of articles, and in November 1955, he was offered a full-time job with the company as Promotions Director.

Victor Lownes set about drumming up advertising for the pariah publication, most conservative companies wanting nothing to do with the magazine.

Advertising for a club called Gaslight in Chicago, Victor Lownes saw an opportunity to diversify the Playboy brand and suggested to Hefner that Playboy should open a club of its own.

In 1963, Victor Lownes asked Hefner to send him to London to open the first British Playboy Club.

Victor Lownes spent months in London working out how and where to open a club.

Gambling had recently been legalized in the UK and Victor Lownes realized there was an opportunity to add the attraction of a casino to the nightclub.

In 1967, Victor Lownes moved to 1 Connaught Square, which had previously been the London residence of Mary Augusta Ward, a novelist of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Victor Lownes was briefly recalled to Chicago by Hefner as a hatchet man to "trim the fat" off the corporation.

Victor Lownes was given virtually unlimited powers: on the job, Lownes was so dedicated to cutting expenses that he was known within the company as "Attila" or "Jaws".

Under the auspices of the fledgling Playboy Productions unit, Victor Lownes was the executive producer for And Now for Something Completely Different, the first Monty Python film.

Victor Lownes was a fan and proposed the idea of a film specifically designed to introduce the British comedy troupe to a US audience.

Gilliam refused and so Victor Lownes had the credit made elsewhere at his own cost.

Gilliam then created a different style of credit for the Pythons so Victor Lownes' credit is the only one that appears in this way.

Victor Lownes persuaded Hefner to provide $1,500,000 to finance Polanski's film Macbeth through Playboy Productions when no other movie studio would touch it.

Victor Lownes wrote that "I'm sure you'll have no difficulty finding some friend you can shove it up".

Victor Lownes was leading the effort to open up Atlantic City, New Jersey for gambling from his London base.

However, Victor Lownes was accused of irregularities by the Gaming Board for Great Britain as the project progressed.

In 1990, Hefner and Victor Lownes reconciled after a nine-year estrangement.

Victor Lownes had accumulated a fortune during his years as Britain's best paid executive and he still had his wife, Marilyn Cole, whose affections he and Hefner had both attempted to gain.

Victor Lownes continued to pose for Playboy until 1984, and became a journalist who has written for The Observer, Esquire and GQ.

Victor Lownes was rarely seen in public in his latter years.

Victor Lownes died in London, on January 11,2017, at the age of 88, from a heart attack.