Hugh Hefner was a TV pioneer in the way he put black artists on TV in the fifties

The Daily Beast

As Keli Goff notes, the Playboy founder “put black artists front and center on his television programs, first on Playboy’s Penthouse in 1959, which would feature the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Nat King Cole, in a party setting with Hefner and his white (and often female) friends. This fact would scandalize the program and its host in the eyes of certain white viewers and the show was short-lived.” Additionally, Dick Gregory credited Hefner with giving him his big break in 1961, paving the way for his future TV appearances.

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