Christie Ann Hefner (born November 8, 1952, in Chicago, Illinois) is the chairman and chief executive officer of Playboy Enterprises Inc., the company created by her father Hugh Hefner. Under Ms. Hefner, Playboy has acquired business units such as Spice Network, <a class="externalLink" href="http://www.adult.com.">Adult.com</a>, and ClubJenna.

She is the daughter of Millie Williams and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.

Her parents had separated by the time she was two. When her mother remarried, she moved to Wilmette, Illinois. There she grew up in the suburbs and graduated from New Trier High School.

She was an English major at Brandeis University. In her junior year, she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and went on to graduate summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and American literature in 1974. She became a President's Councilor of her alma mater in 1978.

After college, she wanted to pursue journalism or law, but started working at Playboy as an intermediate step. After being with the company for five years, she moved up to the position of vice president, the same year that Hugh Hefner declared her the "heir apparent."

In 1982, she became president of Playboy Enterprises. Then in 1988 she was made chairman of the board and CEO for Playboy Enterprises, and still holds this position. She created the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in honor of her father. Winners previous to 2007 have included famed First Amendment lawyers, the political satirist and comedian Bill Maher, a high school student who successfully defended her right to form a gay/straight alliance at her Texas school, and the AP reporter who sued for the release of thousands of pages of Guantánamo Bay tribunal transcripts that revealed evidence of prisoner abuse.

Hefner helped raise $30 million to build the CORE Center in Chicago, the first outpatient facility in the Midwest for people living with AIDS.

She married former Illinois state senator William A. Marovitz, real estate developer and attorney, in 1995 and lives in Chicago. She supports the Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama.

In the television situation comedy Just Shoot Me!, the character portrayed by Laura San Giacomo (Maya) is allegedly modeled on Hefner. Also, since May 2005, she's been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.

*Playboy Enterprises

Reed, Cheryl, L. "Career built on guts, family ties -- and skin" 2004.

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