Here’s Ray Bradbury and Hugh Hefner discussing Fahrenheit 451 (which was serialized in Playboy). Hefner also mentions this interesting bit about Charles Beaumont, which I wasn’t aware of:
The first original story to appear in Playboy was by Charles Beaumont and it was called “Black Country,” and it was about a black musician, and a year after that he brought us a science fiction story that Esquire had rejected because of its controversy … the title of it was “The Crooked Man,” and it was the story of a future society in which gay was the way of things and heterosexual was the aberration, and was persecuted, and in the 1950s that was a very controversial notion, believe me … And I was very proud to have published it, and Charles Beaumont had a long and illustrious — until his untimely death — connection to us, and for his contribution, along with the many things Ray himself brought to us, I am forever grateful.
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