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A Playboy Club was originally one of a chain of nightclubs owned and operated by Playboy Enterprises
Playboy Enterprises

Playboy Enterprises, Inc. , also organized as New Playboy, Inc. , is the company founded by Hugh Marston Hefner to manage the Playboy magazine empire....
 until 1991, with the first club opening at 116 E. Walton in downtown Chicago
Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
, Illinois
Illinois

The State of Illinois is a U.S. state of the United States, the 21st to be admitted to the United States. Illinois is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern United States state and the fifth most populous state in the nation....
, United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 on February 29, 1960. The clubs were essentially bars with entertainment, featuring Playboy Bunnies
Playboy Bunny

A Playboy Bunny is a waiter at the Playboy Club. The Playboy Clubs were originally open from 1960 to 1988. The Club re-opened in one location in The Palms Hotel in Las Vegas in 2006....
 serving drinks to keyholders, and performances by some big names in entertainment. There is now only one Playboy Club, and it is in The Palms
The Palms

The Palms Casino Resort, also known simply as the Palms, is a resort and residential tower located west of the Las Vegas Strip. The main tower has 702 rooms and contains a casino, a recording studio and a 2,200 seat showroom and is owned by Gregory Alan Wheeler Timms and operated by George Maloof with 5% ownership The Greenspun Corpo...
 Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas
Las Vegas Strip

The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately 4 mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada, Nevada, United States. A small portion of The Strip lies in Las Vegas, Nevada, but most of it is in the unincorporated area areas of Paradise, Nevada and Winchester, Nevada....
.

Hugh Hefner opened his first Playboy Club in 1960.






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A Playboy Club was originally one of a chain of nightclubs owned and operated by Playboy Enterprises
Playboy Enterprises

Playboy Enterprises, Inc. , also organized as New Playboy, Inc. , is the company founded by Hugh Marston Hefner to manage the Playboy magazine empire....
 until 1991, with the first club opening at 116 E. Walton in downtown Chicago
Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois and the Midwestern United States, as well as the List of United States cities by population city in the United States with more than 2.8 million residents....
, Illinois
Illinois

The State of Illinois is a U.S. state of the United States, the 21st to be admitted to the United States. Illinois is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern United States state and the fifth most populous state in the nation....
, United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 on February 29, 1960. The clubs were essentially bars with entertainment, featuring Playboy Bunnies
Playboy Bunny

A Playboy Bunny is a waiter at the Playboy Club. The Playboy Clubs were originally open from 1960 to 1988. The Club re-opened in one location in The Palms Hotel in Las Vegas in 2006....
 serving drinks to keyholders, and performances by some big names in entertainment. There is now only one Playboy Club, and it is in The Palms
The Palms

The Palms Casino Resort, also known simply as the Palms, is a resort and residential tower located west of the Las Vegas Strip. The main tower has 702 rooms and contains a casino, a recording studio and a 2,200 seat showroom and is owned by Gregory Alan Wheeler Timms and operated by George Maloof with 5% ownership The Greenspun Corpo...
 Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas
Las Vegas Strip

The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately 4 mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada, Nevada, United States. A small portion of The Strip lies in Las Vegas, Nevada, but most of it is in the unincorporated area areas of Paradise, Nevada and Winchester, Nevada....
.

Hugh Hefner opened his first Playboy Club in 1960. He was inspired by Burton Brown's Chicago chain of . The Gaslight Clubs opened in 1953, featuring women dressed in velvet, one-piece "bunny" type costumes, and had live entertainment.

History

The first Playboy Club opened in Chicago in 1960. The last American location was Lansing, Michigan
Lansing, Michigan

Lansing is the List of U.S. state capitals of the U.S. state of Michigan, and the state's sixth largest city. It is located about 80 miles west-northwest of Detroit, Michigan and is mostly in Ingham County, Michigan, although small portions of the city extend into Eaton County, Michigan....
, which closed in 1988. International Clubs existed until the 1991 closing of the location in Manila
Manila

The 'City of Manila' , or simply 'Manila', is the Capital of the Philippines and one of the 17 cities and municipalities that make up Metro Manila....
, Philippines
Philippines

The Philippines, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
. Manila was the only Club ever featured in Architectural Digest
Architectural Digest

Architectural Digest is a glossy United States monthly magazine. Its principal subject is interior design, not ? as the List of architecture magazines might suggest ? architecture more generally....
. During the last three months of 1961, more than 132,000 people visited the Chicago club, making it the busiest night club in the world.

Playboy Club membership became a status symbol. Only 21% of all key holders ever went to a club. At $25.00 per membership, Playboy earned $25 million for every 1,000,000 members. This revenue stream was critical to the development of the Playboy empire.

In 1965 Hugh Hefner
Hugh Hefner

File:Hefner 1973 .jpgHugh Marston Hefner , sometimes known simply as Hef, is an American magazine publisher, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Playboy Enterprises....
 sent Victor Lownes
Victor Lownes

Victor Aubrey Lownes III . An executive with Playboy Enterprises in various capacities, various vice-presidencies, always a close confidant of Hugh Hefner....
 to London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
 to open Playboy's British casinos, following legalization of gambling in the United Kingdom
Gambling in the United Kingdom

Gambling in the United Kingdom is regulated by the Gambling Commission on behalf of the government's Department for Culture, Media and Sport under the Gambling Act 2005....
. Gaming income from these casinos enabled Playboy to continue throwing money at financially disastrous clubs, theaters, resorts, record companies and film investments. The magazine's income was modest compared to that from these casinos. In 1981 the casino at 45 Park Lane was the most profitable casino in the world and the British casinos contributed $32 million to the corporation. Playboy showed a total profit of $31 million that year, meaning the rest of the empire made a net loss of $1 million. However, in that year Victor Lownes was fired, and gambling licenses were not renewed, thereby cutting off Playboy's biggest source of income and creating a financial crisis that would only be solved by enormous changes within the empire.

The Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

Lake Geneva is a city in Walworth County, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 7,148 at the 2000 census. A resort city located on Geneva Lake, it is southwest of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and popular with tourists from metropolitan Chicago and Milwaukee....
 had a ski slope and was one of the first to install a chair lift.

Playboy recently opened a new Playboy Club in Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada, the seat of Clark County, Nevada, and an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and entertainment....
. The new club at The Palms
The Palms

The Palms Casino Resort, also known simply as the Palms, is a resort and residential tower located west of the Las Vegas Strip. The main tower has 702 rooms and contains a casino, a recording studio and a 2,200 seat showroom and is owned by Gregory Alan Wheeler Timms and operated by George Maloof with 5% ownership The Greenspun Corpo...
, with its very noticeable neon bunny head, has casinos, bars, and a bathroom with pictures of Playmates on the walls.

Famous acts

Famous entertainers who performed at the clubs include:
  • Steve Allen
    Steve Allen (comedian)

    Steve Allen, born Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen , was an United States television personality, musician, actor, comedian, and writer....
  • Milton Berle
    Milton Berle

    Milton Berle, born Milton Berlinger was an Emmy-winning United States comedian and actor. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater , he was the first major star of television and as such became known as Uncle Miltie and Mr....
  • Sid Caesar
    Sid Caesar

    Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy Award-winning United States comic actor and writer known as the leading man on the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2....
  • George Carlin
    George Carlin

    George Denis Patrick Carlin was an American stand-up comedy. He was also an actor and author, and he won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums....
  • Ray Charles
    Ray Charles

    Ray Charles Robinson , known by his stage name Ray Charles, was an United States pianist, singer, and songwriter who shaped the sound of rhythm and blues....
  • Bill Cosby
    Bill Cosby

    William Henry "Bill" Cosby Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a vanguard role in the 1960s action show I Spy....
  • The Count Basie Orchestra
    Count Basie Orchestra

    The Count Basie Orchestra is a 16 to 18 piece big band, one of the most prominent jazz performing groups of the swing era, founded by Count Basie....
  • Dizzy Gillespie
    Dizzy Gillespie

    John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie [/g?'l?spi/] was an United States jazz trumpeter, bandleader, singer, and composer. He was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, the youngest of nine children....
  • Bob Hope
    Bob Hope

    Bob Hope, Order of the British Empire, Order of St. Gregory the Great , was an British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway theatre, and in radio, television and movies....
  • Peggy Lee
    Peggy Lee

    Peggy Lee was an United States jazz and traditional pop singer and songwriter and Academy Award-nominated actress. She was born Norma Deloris Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota....
  • Jay Leno
    Jay Leno

    James Douglas Muir "Jay" Leno is an Emmy Award-winning American stand-up comedian, television host and writer, who succeeded Johnny Carson as host of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 1992....
  • Ann-Margret
    Ann-Margret

    Ann-Margret is a Sweden-born American actress, singer and dancer. She has won the Golden Globe Award five times, and has been nominated for the Academy Award, Emmy Award and Grammy....
  • Steve Martin
    Steve Martin

    Stephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an Emmy Award-winning United States actor, comedian, writer, playwright, Film producer, musician, and composer....
  • Bette Midler
    Bette Midler

    Bette Midler is an American singing, actress and comedienne, also known as The Divine Miss M. During her career, she has won four Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, and a Tony Awards, and has been nominated for two Academy Awards....
  • Ginger Rogers
    Ginger Rogers

    Ginger Rogers was an Academy Awards-winning United States film and stage actor, dancer and singer. In a film career spanning 50 years, she made a total of 73 films, and is now principally celebrated for her role as Fred Astaire's romantic interest and dancing partner in a series of ten Hollywood musical films that revolutionized the genre....
  • Mike Ryan
  • The Smothers Brothers
    Smothers Brothers

    The Smothers Brothers are an United States music-and-comedy team, consisting of the brothers Tom Smothers and Dick Smothers. The brothers' trademark act was performing folk songs , which usually led to arguments between the siblings....
  • Mel Tormé
    Mel Tormé

    Melvin Howard Torm? , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known as one of the great jazz singers. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books....
  • Muddy Waters
    Muddy Waters

    McKinley Morganfield , better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician and is generally considered "the Father of Chicago blues"....


Playboy Clubs in popular culture

  • The film Hefner; an Unauthorized Biography largely focuses on leotard-wearing women being trained as hostesses in a Playboy Club.
  • In the James Bond
    James Bond

    James Bond 007 is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections....
     film Diamonds Are Forever
    Diamonds Are Forever

    Diamonds Are Forever may refer to:* Diamonds Are Forever , the fourth novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series* Diamonds Are Forever , the seventh film in the EON Productions James Bond series...
    , it is revealed that Bond is a member of the London Playboy Club.
  • A Trivial Pursuit
    Trivial Pursuit

    Trivial Pursuit is a board game in which progress is determined by a player's ability to answer trivia and popular culture questions. The game was created in 1979 by Scott Abbott, a sports editor for The Canadian Press, and Chris Haney , a photo editor for Montreal's The Gazette ....
     question asked, "Which country still had four Playboy Clubs in operation after the last one closed down in the United States?" Answer: Japan.
  • In the That '70s Show
    That '70s Show

    That '70s Show is an American television program situation comedy that centers on the lives of a group of teenagers living in the fictional town of Point Place, Wisconsin from May 17, 1976 to December 31, 1979....
     episode 'Eric's Burger Job', Donna's parents go to the Playboy Club at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, The character Michael Kelso, played by Ashton Kutcher leaves Point Place, Wisconsin to work in the Playboy club in Chicago.
  • In season one, episode two of Swingtown
    Swingtown

    Swingtown was an American television series created by Mike Kelley as a midseason replacement series for CBS. The show was a Period piece and relationship Television drama about the impact of sexual and social liberation in 1970s American suburban households, with story arcs involving open marriages and key party....
     the characters visit the Playboy Club.


Current locations

  • The Playboy Club
    Playboy Club (Las Vegas)

    The Playboy Club is a nightclub located on the 52nd floor of the Fantasy Tower at the The Palms in , which is located in Clark County, Nevada....
     in Las Vegas, Nevada
    Las Vegas, Nevada

    Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada, the seat of Clark County, Nevada, and an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and entertainment....


Former locations


North America
  • Atlanta, Georgia
    Atlanta, Georgia

    Atlanta is the Capital and most populous city in Georgia , as well as the 33rd largest city in the United States of America with a population of 519,145....
  • Atlantic City, New Jersey
    Atlantic City, New Jersey

    Atlantic City is a City in Atlantic County, New Jersey, New Jersey, United States. Famous for its boardwalk, casino, sandy beaches, shopping centers, spectacular view of the Atlantic Ocean, and as the inspiration for the board game Monopoly , Atlantic City is a resort community located on Absecon Island on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean....
  • Baltimore, Maryland
    Baltimore, Maryland

    Baltimore is an independent city and the largest city in the U.S. state of Maryland in the United States. Baltimore is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay....
  • Boston, Massachusetts
    Boston, Massachusetts

    Boston is the State capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is considered the economic and cultural center of the region, and is sometimes regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England." Boston city proper had a 2007 est...
  • Buffalo, New York
    Buffalo, New York

    Buffalo , is the second largest city in the state of New York. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River, Buffalo is the principal city of the Buffalo-Niagara Falls metropolitan area and the county seat of Erie County, New York....
  • Chicago, Illinois
  • Cincinnati, Ohio
    Cincinnati, Ohio

    Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County, Ohio. The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio and is situated on the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border....
  • Columbus, Ohio
    Columbus, Ohio

    Columbus is the Capital , the largest, and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Ohio. Located near the Geographic centers of the United States, Columbus is the county seat of Franklin County, Ohio, although parts of the city also extend into Delaware County, Ohio and Fairfield County, Ohio counties....
  • Dallas, Texas
    Dallas, Texas

    Dallas is the third largest city in the state of Texas and the List of United States cities by population in the United States.The city, with a population of over 1.3 million, is the main economic center of the 12-county Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex which contains 6.1 million people, and is the fourth-largest United States metropolitan area...
  • Denver, Colorado
    Denver, Colorado

    Denver is the Capital and the Colorado municipalities of the state of Colorado, in the United States. Denver is a consolidated city-county located in the South Platte River on the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains....
  • Des Moines, Iowa
    Des Moines, Iowa

    Des Moines , is the Capital and the most populous city in the United States U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County, Iowa....
  • Detroit, Michigan
    Detroit, Michigan

    Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Wayne County, Michigan. Detroit is a major port city on the Detroit River, in the Midwestern United States of the United States....
  • Kansas City, Missouri
    Kansas City, Missouri

    Kansas City is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson County, Missouri, Clay County, Missouri, Cass County, Missouri, and Platte County, Missouri counties....
  • Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
    Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

    Lake Geneva is a city in Walworth County, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 7,148 at the 2000 census. A resort city located on Geneva Lake, it is southwest of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and popular with tourists from metropolitan Chicago and Milwaukee....
  • Lansing, Michigan
    Lansing, Michigan

    Lansing is the List of U.S. state capitals of the U.S. state of Michigan, and the state's sixth largest city. It is located about 80 miles west-northwest of Detroit, Michigan and is mostly in Ingham County, Michigan, although small portions of the city extend into Eaton County, Michigan....
  • Los Angeles, California
    Los Angeles, California

    Los Angeles is the largest city in the U.S. state of California and the List of United States cities by population in the United States. Often abbreviated as L.A. and nicknamed The City of Angels, Los Angeles is rated as a beta global city, has an estimated population of 3.8 million and spans over in Southern California....
  • Miami, Florida
    Miami, Florida

    Miami is a global city in southeastern Florida, in the United States. Miami is the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, the most populous county in Florida....
  • Montreal, Quebec
  • Nassau, Bahamas
    Nassau, Bahamas

    Nassau is the Capital , largest city, and commercial centre of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. The city has a population of 260,000 , nearly 80 percent of the entire population of The Bahamas ....
  • New Orleans, Louisiana
    New Orleans, Louisiana

    New Orleans is a major United States port city and the largest city in Louisiana. New Orleans is the center of the New Orleans metropolitan area metropolitan area, the largest metro area in the state....
  • New York, New York
  • Omaha, Nebraska
    Omaha, Nebraska

    Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County, Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River....
  • Phoenix, Arizona
    Phoenix, Arizona

    Phoenix is the capital and largest city in the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the fifth most populous city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,552,259 residents, and is the anchor of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area with 4,179,427 residents....
  • Quebec City, Quebec
    Quebec City

    Qu?bec or Quebec, also Quebec City or Qu?bec City , is the Capital of the Canada Provinces and territories of Canada of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region....
  • St. Louis, Missouri
    St. Louis, Missouri

    St. Louis is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri, located near the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Missouri River. St....
  • St. Petersburg, Florida
    St. Petersburg, Florida

    St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. The city is known as a vacation destination for North American and European vacationers, as well as a politically important swing state in U.S....
  • San Diego, California
    San Diego, California

    San Diego is the second largest city in California and the List of United States cities by population, located along the Pacific Ocean on the West Coast of the United States of the Western United States....
  • San Francisco, California
    San Francisco, California

    The City and County of San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the List of United States cities by population in the United States, with a 2007 estimated population of 799,183....
  • Vernon, New Jersey
  • Eau Claire, Wisconsin
    Eau Claire, Wisconsin

    Eau Claire is a city located in the west-central part of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 61,704 as of the United States Census, 2000....


Europe
  • London
    London

    London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
    , England
    England

    native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
  • Manchester
    Manchester

    Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. Manchester was granted City status in the United Kingdom in 1853....
    , England
  • Portsmouth
    Portsmouth

    Portsmouth city status in the United Kingdom located in the Counties of England of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is the UK's only island city and is located on Portsea Island....
    , England


Asia
  • Manila
    Manila

    The 'City of Manila' , or simply 'Manila', is the Capital of the Philippines and one of the 17 cities and municipalities that make up Metro Manila....
    , Philippines
    Philippines

    The Philippines, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
  • Nagoya, Japan
  • Osaka
    Osaka

    is a Cities of Japan in Japan, located at the mouth of the Yodo River on Osaka Bay, in the Kansai region of the main island of Honshu.Osaka is a City designated by government ordinance under the Local Autonomy Law and the capital city of Osaka Prefecture....
    , Japan
  • Sapporo, Japan
  • Tokyo
    Tokyo

    , officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan of Japan and located on the eastern side of the main island Honshu. The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, cover the area that was once the Tokyo City in the eastern part of the prefecture, and total over 8 million people....
    , Japan


Playboy also owned resorts in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and Ocho Rios, Jamaica.

External links