This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2009, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

When your husband, a respected historian, tells you his next project will be to visit the Playboy Mansion and write the definitive biography of Hugh Hefner, how would you respond? Perhaps differently than Patti Watts.

"I thought it was a great idea," said Watts, whose husband wrote Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream. "[Hefner] was quite a seminal figure -- no pun intended."

The pairing of Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine and the embodiment of the magazine's obsession with sex, materialism and excess, with Stephen Watts, a mild-mannered professor at the University of Missouri whose first book was titled The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790-1820, seems an unlikely one.

But the partnership has produced a nearly 550-page biography that Hefner termed the "closest, and the only book, that's been written about my life to this date that tells the story of my life in some context."

Choosing Hefner to profile was obvious, said Watts, whose most recent books had been about two other influential men of the 20th century, Henry Ford and Walt Disney. "I wanted to find a real cultural figure closer to the present," Watts said. "All three of these people have been important in shaping American values."

Hefner immediately responded to Watts' request for a meeting. "I was flattered," he said in a Tribune interview. "He had done two other books on the 20th century [about] the defining people of the 20th century. I thought it was good company and very complimentary."

But as soon as the two met, Watts made it clear that his aim wasn't to publish an altogether-flattering portrait of his subject. "This isn't really an authorized biography," Watts said. "[Hefner] didn't have editorial control. While he cooperated with me, the final product was mine."

Cooperation meant 40 hours of one-on-one interviews with Hefner, access to Hefner's never-finished autobiography and, most important, his 1,800-volume scrapbooks.

"He is very, almost obsessed with his own life," Watts said. "He's been keeping scrapbooks since high school. It's astonishing in its size."

One of the most interesting conclusions Watts comes to in the biography is his opinion about why Hefner appears to dominate women. Before Hefner married his first wife, she told him she had had an affair while he was away. Hefner admitted he was devastated, but still married her. (The unhappy marriage ended after a decade.)

"I reached that conclusion independently," Watts said. "He never knew if that was true, because he never looked at it like that. He thought there might be some truth to it."

"I agree with it, but I don't think it has to do with dominance," Hefner said. "Multiple girlfriends are a way of avoiding the hurt and betrayal by a single girlfriend, [putting] all of your eggs in one basket. There is a hope and an expectation in our society that if you are a romantic, that romantic intensity will last forever. And in most cases, it doesn't. I think the real question is: 'What if [my first wife] had not betrayed me? Would I have lived happily ever after in a monogamous marriage?' I doubt it."

Patti Watts must be an understanding wife, for her husband said that although he had only bought one copy of the magazine before starting the project -- and that was only to read an article, the infamous 1976 interview with Jimmy Carter -- he has since "seen about every copy" ever published.

The author's wife is also trusting -- though it should be said, when Watts attended the 2009 New Year's Eve party at the Playboy Mansion, she was his date.