A party at the Playboy Mansion

Here’s a bit of history for you.  This story will appear in my book-in-progress, which focuses on the lawsuit filed by my co-counsel and me in Chicago in February 1970.  Our lawsuit challenged the constitutionality of the regressive Illinois abortion statute, and we won a 2-to-1 decision in our favor from a three-judge court on January 29, 1971.  The ruling, Doe v. Scott, 321 F.Supp. 1385 (N.D. Ill. 1971), can be read online.

When my granddaughters learned that I had once attended a party at the notorious Playboy Mansion in Chicago, they were astounded and wanted to know how and why it happened.  This is what I can tell them, and you:

On a chilly evening in late December 1969, the Chicago ACLU sponsored a fund-raiser, including a lavish party for donors at the Playboy Mansion on North State Parkway.  The event was promoted as a celebration of the Bill of Rights.  Hugh Hefner, publisher of Playboy magazine, was not surprisingly an avid supporter of those rights, which enabled him to keep publishing his often lurid magazine largely without restrictions.  At that time, Hefner was living in his opulent Chicago mansion, and he opened its doors to partygoers that December night.

My co-counsel, Sybille Fritzsche, was an ACLU lawyer and my colleague in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Illinois abortion statute. As a lawyer with the Appellate and Test Case Division of the Chicago Legal Aid Bureau, I was representing low-income and minority women.

Sybille somehow wangled a non-donor invitation to the event for me.  I was delighted to be included, hoping to encounter some interesting people and get a good look inside the famed mansion.  I wore a glamorous new pantsuit in a beautiful indigo blue with rhinestone buttons, and I walked to the mansion from my nearby studio apartment. 

The atmosphere was raucous, featuring a large crowd of partygoers and extremely loud rock music.  I caught a glimpse of lavish furnishings and stunning artwork, but the crowds kept getting in the way.  I remember seeing celebrities like Peter Lawford acting inappropriately, and I also witnessed something a bit more startling.  I watched people (mostly young women) swimming in the nude in the mansion’s somewhat notorious pool. I descended to a lower level and sat facing the underwater window along one of the pool’s walls, allowing me and anyone else to watch the nude swimmers.

I soon ran into Sybille and her husband Hellmut, but we were barely able to communicate over the din. Sybille herself complained about the loud music that drowned out any conversation.  She was nearing the end of her fourth pregnancy.  (Her child was born the following February.)  But she didn’t let that stop her from having a great time at the party, where she undoubtedly recognized a lot of her colleagues and friends.

As for me, I chatted with some other partygoers, but I didn’t readily recognize any friends besides the Fritzsches, and the noise finally got to me.  So after roaming around the mansion a bit more, munching on food and imbibing liquid refreshment, I decided to walk home.  I lived only a few blocks away, and I distinctly recall running down those dark city blocks, attempting to avoid the many treacherous patches of ice on the sidewalk. 

I safely arrived at my studio apartment, certain that I would remember the event forever.  But, in truth, it was buried in the far corners of my mind until 2022, when it popped back into my consciousness while I was trying to recall any and all lawsuit-related events that took place from late 1969 through January 1973. 

I went on to wear my glamorous pantsuit on a host of other occasions. I later attempted to add it to my clothing collection from that era, a collection I donated to the Chicago History Museum just before I moved to San Francisco.  But the museum staff ultimately chose to reject it because the fragile fabric was too worn—proof of just how much wear I had given it.  It remains hanging in my closet as an artifact dating from that long-ago era–and a reminder of partying at Chicago’s Playboy Mansion in December 1969.