Hugh Hefner’s bevy of Bunnies through the years revealed
By ANIMonday, June 29, 2009
WASHINGTON - Popular as the world’s most legendary bachelor, Hugh Hefner has had a long string of girlfriends, who have not only bared it all on Playboy pages, but have also added glamour to the raunchiest of parties at the mansion.
Fox News has now named some of the women the 83-year-old Playboy boss has wooed over the years.
These women are:
Barbi Benton
In 1968, a teenage extra named Barbara Klein was acting as 42-year-old Hefner’s girlfriend in the series ‘Playboy After Dark’, only to end up as his real-life ladylove, reports Fox News.
She changed her name to Barbi Benton, and went on to become ’70s pop-culture icon, who went on to star in such B-movies as ‘The Third Girl from the Left’ and ‘Deathstalker’.
But contrary to popular belief, she was never a Playboy Playmate or Bunny, despite being featured in pictorials and on the magazine’s cover. She helped Hugh go house hunting and find the not-so-little property that would become the Playboy Mansion.
But, when she finally figured out Hefner wasn’t going to settle down and start a family, she left the man and the mansion and married real estate developer George Gradow.
Sondra Theodore
Sonda Theodore was a Sunday school teacher turned Playmate of the Month. She lived with Hef in the late ’70s and was a member of the ‘Singing Playmates’.
But her real claim to fame is that she’s one of the lovely ladies (the other is Patti McGuire) portrayed with Hef on the 1978 Playboy pinball machine.
Shannon Tweed
A Canadian TV series called ‘Thrill of a Lifetime’ helped make Shannon Tweed’s dreams of Playboy stardom come true, as the show arranged for her to pose for the famous men’s magazine, and she became Miss November 1981. Her then-boyfriend, Hugh Hefner, also dubbed her 1982’s Playmate of the Year.
Shannon left Hefner to pursue her acting career, and has been living with Gene Simmons in unwedded bliss since 1985.
Carrie Leigh
Playboy Playmate Carrie Leigh was 19 years old when she moved into the Playboy Mansion to live with boyfriend Hugh Hefner (who was then 56). Their roller-coaster romance lasted five years and suffered a string of dark times.
Carrie dumped the millionaire over the phone and then slapped him with a 35 million dollars palimony suit, but eventually dropped the litigation.
Kimberly Conrad
Kimberly Conrad, the former Miss January 1988 was named Playmate of the Year in 1989 and she ended Hugh Hefner’s 35-year bachelor spree by marrying the ultimate playboy.
They were together for nine years and had two sons (Marston and Cooper) before splitting. But they have not divorced and have been living in separate side-by-side houses, until now.
Brande Broderick
Hugh Hefner met actress Brande Broderick at L.A. hot spot the Opium Den, and she quickly became his number one girlfriend. Brande was named Playmate in April 2000, but she still wanted to act. So she left the mansion to join the cast of a way-more-sophisticated production ‘Baywatch’. In 2001 she was the first of her beach bunny co-stars to be named Playmate of the Year.
Tina Jordan
Hugh Hefner moved the single mother Tina Jordan into his Bel Air palace and made her Playmate of the Month in March 2002. Since splitting with Hef, she’s appeared on ‘The Surreal Life’, had her own radio show, and shot a pictorial for the paintball magazine ‘Splat’.
Holly Madison, Hugh Hefner, and Bridget Marquardt
Holly Madison had been going to parties at the Playboy Mansion for a year when Hugh Hefner finally asked her out on a date, and ultimately, invited her to be his number one girlfriend. Bridget Marquardt had a couple of failed test shoots for a Playmate slot and was rejected from the mag but welcomed into Hef’s house. Kendra Wilkinson met Hef when she was a body-painted model at his 78th birthday party (she was 18). The love quadrangle broke up in 2008.
Holly is busy with her stint in the topless Vegas review ‘Peepshow’, while Bridget is jaunting around the world’s beaches and Kendra has married her football star fiance, Hank Bassett, this weekend, and is due to have his baby on Christmas Day. (ANI)