HOLLY MADISON : HUGH HEFNER'S HAREM BUNNY FAVORITE : MISTRESS OF THE MONTH

UPDATES
E-ONLINE: DIVORCE HOLLY MADISON FILES with PASQUELLE ROTELLA 

E-ONLINE : DIVORCE FINALIZED HOLLY MADISON and PASQUELLE ROTELLA
NY TIMES OBIT FOR HUGH HEFNER - SEPTEMBER 2017

HOLLY MADISON

SEVEN YEARS  * OF HER LIFE WAS SPENT IN HUGH HEFNER's

 GO NOWHERE - TRAVELING HAREM

Today she's married to Pasquelle Rotella and is a mother and entertainer... I'm just recently familiar with HOLLY MADISON.

You may have heard about HOLLY MADISON's expose memoir, Down the Rabbit Hole, which is about living at the Playboy Mansion as one of Hugh Hefner's live in "girlfriends" since there has been a lot of public relations happening in conjunction with this book that came out last year. You may also know Holly from watching reality television (The Girls Next Door) or perhaps saw her striptease show in Vegas called Peepshow at Crazy Horse Paris.  Since I've never watched a reality television show but just recently heard of the sale of the Playboy Mansion (with a guarantee that Hugh Hefner be able to live there, in the 20,000 plus square foot home, for the rest of his life), it was the real estate deal that brought my interest around to reading  Holly's book.

In her book she makes the case that while she did live to regret living at the Playboy Mansion with Hugh Hefner as one of the girlfriends her biggest fear was that forever more, after she left, she would be made to pay the price. As much as she says she made peace with it, you get the feeling she's still in process. She'd even suffered a severe depression, saw a psychiatrist against Hef's wishes, and went on a psyche med to endure her life there as a very Kept woman (my words not hers.)  Yet, while most girlfriends lasted six months if that, and many more women were brought in for a night of adventure and left, Holly kept on, thinking she loved the man old enough to be her grandfather, Hef.  She wanted to marry him and have children with him, all the while hoping to become a centerfold model.  She says, "Foolishly, I'd long believed that becoming a Playboy Centerfold was the fast track to fame and fortune.  Boy, was I wrong.  There have been more than 720 Playmates in Playboy's history.  How many of them can you name?  (Page 116)

Make no mistake about it though, that is 20 20 hindsight. Holly had the goal of becoming a Playmate of the Month when she was just a teenager. She doesn't seem to have been overly shy, though claiming she was terrified at first about posing nude, or at all concerned about morality, or what it might all mean for her sexually, though she admits early on that the other girlfriends lied to her at first, claiming they did not actually have sex with Hugh Hefner as part of their live-in girlfriend deal. Once she was presented to Hugh, she did have sex with him and, it goes unsaid, some of them, even if they were supposed to be secretive about that. 

This story is about PLAYBOY but don't expect any sex scenes in the book. You'll get the idea that twice a week all the girlfriends went into Hugh's bedroom after going out to clubs, that he proffered Qualudes which he called "thigh openers" (which she didn't take) and that some of them were using Cocaine (which she didn't take) and drinking (which she did).  Then they danced for him, or stripped for him, or whatever, maybe with each other, for his entertainment. Considering that these women were often Mean Girls who otherwise made each other's lives miserable, that must have been some acting!

In Holly's  book she uses the terms harem, traveling harem, Mistress, and Concubine.  She does not use the term Kept, but I will, and later in the month give you a list of the financial incentives or pay, while I wonder if somehow Playboy Enterprises made the Girlfriends tax deductions.

How does a small town girl go from there to here?

Playboy magazines could be found in the home she grew up in, and when the magazine went looking for possible playmates for their "Millennium Playmates" auditions all over the United States, she was one of the young women who showed up when the bus came to Portland.  She bought a silver bikini and had herself photographed.  Nothing came of it.  A whole hell of a lot of young beautiful women had the goal of being a Playmate back in 1999, and many of them had some idea of how to please; look like Pamela Anderson, or maybe Jenny McCarthy, or best - Marilyn Monroe, who had been on the first cover of the magazine in the 1950's.

Holly was so sure that she had to be in Los Angeles, that she changed from an Oregon state to private college so that she could live near Hollywood and Playboy, and double majored, with a strong interest in acting.  She was also so sure that she needed larger breasts that she forked over three charge cards to pay about $7,000 for the cosmetic surgery.  So, with D cups, she easily got a job at the Hooters Restaurant, said to be a great place for a waitress to get tips, what with those tiny shorts riding up. She was also a Hawaiian Tropics Girl as a sort of spokesmodel who showed up at events in swimwear.  She was invited to the Playboy mansion party after a man who was Hugh Hefner's private physician, and familiar with his taste in women, saw her at a Hawaiian Tropic Bikini Contest in Beverly Hills. Hefner's Midsummer Night's Dream Party required sleepwear.  She showed up in a black Frederick's of Hollywood lingerie set.  She was a woman who had the intelligence for college but who seems to be set on making it based on looks.

To her credit, Holly had been working hard - college, extra shifts at Hooters restuarant, and she got an acting agent and went on auditions and had a few bit parts.  She wasn't lazy, and she took risks and had goals.  Still, she needed a lucky break.

In debt, she'd been living in a hotel room with another student who was leaving. She would have been homeless with $100 left in her pocket, and she faced having to go home to her small Oregon town.  Or, she could manage to get invited to live at the Playboy Mansion as a girlfriend.  She was never happy there, she says with hindsight, and maybe the worst of it was learning that not only did other girlfriends manage to have outside boyfriends, but some of them were working as high priced escorts for a local Madam, and one of them tried to recruit her.

Please readers, don't think I'm putting Holly way down. It's just that her book left me so very many questions, and the idea that she had kind of co-signed what we politely call B.S. for so many years, even when she was no longer naïve about what was going on, makes me wonder if she understands how severely abused she let herself be. Is the fact that she is one Playboy Bunny who has managed to get other work, to make a few million on her own, enough to compensate for the years she spent being only a Girlfriend?

You decide! 

 

I was thinking a bit about a previous Mistress of the Month, Jillian Lauren, who became part of the Harem of the Sultan of Brunei.  She was specifically recruited for a harem and while maybe none of us can know for sure ahead of time if we'd like it, she seemed to have known what she was getting into.

UPDATE

Hugh Hefner really did have a harem, as I see it, though the situations are not identical because Hefner didn't have the near unlimited funds that the Sultan of Brunei did.  Man sharing is something we look at here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, and the women in a harem do share a man, and he does the choosing of which women get to stay, and for how long, though the question of leaving when a woman wants to may not be as clear. 

Jillian had been as escort before she got her invitation to travel across the world and stay as the  willing captive who was sometimes rewarded  very well financially, who also felt competitive with the other women and wanted to be the favorite. Today this lifestyle seems to be so much more based on sexuality than a Classic Mistress situation in which a woman is like a second wife to a man, however it seems to me that women, whatever their status, but for those in religious sisterhoods or monasteries or who are self supporting and celibate, are expected to be sexual as a condition of their being in this world, and that certainly includes wives.

If interested in the Harem lifestyle you may want to search herein for

Jillian Lauren - June 2013

Lord Bath and his 75 Wifelets - May 2012

China's Empress Dowager Cixi - September 2015

(* Holly spent time at the Mansion before being invited to be a girlfriend, and continued to have business and friendships that kept her involvement going.  She was a girlfriend from bout 2001 to 2008... Her last party at the Mansion was Halloween 2008.

BARBARA PAYTON - A TRAGIC LIFE THAT INCLUDED BOB HOPE? CAN'T STICK A MISTRESS LABEL ON HER!

BARARA PAYTON wrote this book, which I was unable to get a copy of and read, so what I'm about to tell you comes from reading multiple web sites that portray Payton as a film noir actress with a sordid life, beginning with being raped at 15. (And when a woman becomes a sex symbol in adult life, such horrible beginnings sexually are rarely identified as rape.) It's a matter of record that she eventually was arrested for prostitution and died young, about age 39, from the consequences of abusing her body with alcohol and drugs.   She wasn't found for a couple days, and she had lost teeth and grown obese and so she was found unrecognizable.

This was one woman who had a life too difficult to cope with, and though she has been linked with Bob Hope, it seems that she has been linked with so very many men that the label Mistress is very difficult to stick on her. at least not by me.

***
Barbara Lee Redfield
November 16, 1927 in Minnesota - May 8th 1967 San Diego

***

Like Marilyn Maxwell, and Marilyn Monroe,  Barbara grew up to become beautiful, had an early marriage that didn't last long, went from being a small town girl to Hollywood, and attempted to make a career in film. Unlike them, and unlike Bob Hope's wife Dolores DeFina Hope, she was considered trashy from the very beginning, and went downhill. She did not seem to have the penchant for raising herself up out of her circumstances that Monroe, who took classes and became an enthusiastic reader did, and I have yet to meet anyone who would deny that Dolores Hope became a terrific hostess and classy, sophisticated woman.

But an important aspect of defining a woman as a Mistress is her own intentions.  For instance, when in June 2013, I featured JILLIAN LAUREN : FROM NEW JERSEY TO THE SULTANS HAREM TO LITERARY SUCCESS : as MISTRESS OF THE MONTH, it wasn't that she had been a stripper, or had worked as an escort, but that when she got to the Harem it was her ambition to be the best, most wanted woman there, to elevate herself to being a mistress.  She was the mistress of Jefri Bolkiah and then his brother Hassanal Bolkaih, one man at a time.  She says she rose up in the ranks to be the #2 Girl.

Therefore, no matter how many men Barbara Payton had, be they husbands, affairs, or tricks, if she had a Relationship with Bob Hope and the ambition to be his Mistress, then maybe that label can stick after all.

JILLIAN LAUREN'S NEW BOOK - A NOVEL

JILLIAN LAUREN READS ABOUT HER BUSINESS TRIP WITH THE PRINCE

  Hers is an interesting story, and if you listen to the end, you may find her conclusions surprising.

SOME GIRLS MY LIFE IN A HAREM BY JILLIAN LAUREN

SOME GIRLS - MY LIFE IN A HAREM - PROMO

JILLIAN LAUREN : FROM NEW JERSEY TO THE SULTANS HAREM TO LITERARY SUCCESS : MISTRESS OF THE MONTH

I heard JILLIAN LAUREN speak at a literary event, and I knew that one day I would elect her to be Mistress of the Month.  She is the author of "Some Girls" and also "Pretty."

Jillian was 18 years old when she became the first American woman to become a member of the Sultan of Brunei's harem, which was comprised of about 40 women from all over the world at the time.  She was the mistress of Jefri Bolkiah and then his brother Hassanal Bolkaih, one man at a time.  She says she rose up in the ranks to be the #2 Girl.

Although Jillian now identifies herself as having then been a prostitute, she was as far from being a street walker with a pimp, or even a legal prostitute in a Nevada brothel, as can be.  She became the temporary companion to two of the richest men in the world in Brunei, the Sultan and his brother, where rich men having harems is tradition.  She was treated to plane tickets, shopping trips, and a luxury lifestyle which she became a bit addicted to, though she left out of boredom and then returned. She was not paid by the hour.  After about 18 months (with a trip back to New York in there) she came away with about $300,000 dollars.

Jillian was up for an adventure in those days.  She was self supporting in New York City, a very expensive town, and working as an escort and a stripper.  She got to the palace and realized things had changed. 

She was living in the present as she quickly assessed her surroundings which were at first a mystery to her and realized that she had an unusual opportunity and wanted to be the best that she could be.  Eventually, after being with the Sultan, he passed her onto his brother, which in that culture, is considered a compliment to the woman.

It's easy for us to imagine women of the distant past being in a harem.  The present?

By my way of thinking Jillian was one of many mistresses of two of the richest men in the world.  When you see how beautiful she is, you don't wonder why, but it took more than that.  It also took brains and daring. 

Today Jillian is married to a Rocker from the band Weezer and is a mother.  She has published her book, faced the media, and come to terms with her past.  Jillian has an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch and besides books she has published in a number of magazines. She has appeared on The View and a number of other talk shows speaking of her experiences.  She says that, while her family is upset with her, many women do relate to her experiences.

C Mistress Manifesto / Missy Rapport 2013 All Rights Reserved