DHAKA: International adult magazine 'Playboy' founder Hugh Hefner died at the age of 91, reports BBC.

Playboy Enterprises Inc said he passed away peacefully at home, from natural causes.

Hefner began publishing Playboy in 1953. It became the largest-selling men's magazine in the world, shifting seven million copies a month at its peak.

Cooper Hefner, his son, said he would be "greatly missed by many".

He paid tribute to his father's "exceptional and impactful life as a media and cultural pioneer," and called him an advocate for free speech, civil rights and sexual freedom.

Hefner's trailblazing magazine helped make nudity respectable in mainstream publications, despite emerging at a time when US states could legally ban contraceptives.

It also made him a multi-millionaire, spawning a business empire that included casinos and nightclubs.

The silk pyjama-clad mogul became famous for his hedonism, dating and marrying Playboy models. In his later years he threw decadent parties at his luxurious mansions in Chicago and Los Angeles.

He claimed to have slept with more than 1,000 women, and credited the impotence drug Viagra with maintaining his libido.

BDST: 1201 HRS, SEP 28, 2017
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