Roger Ebert’s Journal

In mid-October, he’d seen his beloved Charlie Rose interview Diane Lane and John Malkovich. Ever since that interview, he’d been carrying with him the notion that he would see this movie at his earliest opportunity. Never mind his preceding fondness for the racehorse and its moment in history–there was also *Diane Lane* to consider. (It turns out–and I never really knew this before–my grandfather has a major thing for Diane Lane.) And then there he was, stuck with cancer, stuck dying, stuck in movie limbo.

Hefner and Playboy have been around so long that not everyone remembers what America used to be like. It was sexually repressed and socially restrictive. Many people joined in the fight against that unhealthy society. Hefner was one of them, and a case can can be made that Playboy had a greater influence on our society in its first half-century than any other magazine.