The Essentials: The Playboy Interview

In mid-1962, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner was given a partial transcript of an interview with Miles Davis. It covered jazz, of course, but it also included Daviss ruminations on race, politics and culture. Fascinated, Hef sent the writer—future Pulitzer Prize–winning author Alex Haley, an unknown at the time—back to glean even more opinion and insight from Davis. The resulting exchange, published in the September 1962 issue, became the first official Playboy Interview and kicked off a remarkable run of public inquisition that continues today—and that has featured just about every cultural titan of the past half century.The Essentials is part of the 50 Years of the Playboy Interview e-book series, for which the magazine's editors have culled the most famous and infamous Playboy Interviews with men and women from the arts, business, entertainment, politics and sports. This is our collection of the 50 most essential interviews.