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Victor Aubrey Lownes III (born 17 April 1928 in Buffalo, NY, USA〔(The Genealogy of Richard L. Aronoff: LOWNES Family )〕) was an executive for HMH Publishing Company Inc. (later known as Playboy Enterprises) from 1955 through the early 1980s. After meeting Hugh Hefner in 1954 soon after Hefner had started of ''Playboy Magazine'', Lownes eventually joined his publishing company, serving in various capacities with the title of vice president. Lownes was a close confidant of Hefner, whose hedonistic lifestyle he matched. Lownes developed a reputation as serial philanderer and was known to date Playboy Playmates. Lownes headed Playboy Europe and the UK Playboy Clubs from the mid-sixties until his dismissal in the early eighties. He oversaw the most successful part of Hefner's attempt to diversify out of publishing and into motion pictures, hotels and casino gambling. During his time as head of Playboy Europe, he was Britain's highest paid executive, drawing a large salary and eventually becoming Playboy Enterprises's second biggest shareholder.〔(Bunny Redux - TIME )〕 Credited with creating Playboy Clubs in the United States, Lownes oversaw Playboy Enterprises's move into casino gambling in the UK in the 1960s, which became Playboy's most successful business other than its publishing until the advent of cable television. Eventually, he had to return to the United States in 1975 to help oversee the company. == Early life == Lownes was born to a wealthy family in Buffalo, New York that but that moved to Florida. At the age of 12, his father gave him a cigar to smoke as aversion therapy. The young Victor apparently asked for another. At the same age, he also accidentally shot and killed his best friend. This resulted in his forced enrollment at the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, where he met Nicky Hilton, Conrad Hilton's son. From there he went on to the University of Chicago where he obtained an MBA and met his first wife. Lownes got married at the age of 18 in 1946 and had two children. After several mundane jobs, he found employment at an industrial time lock firm. “I was promoted to manager within a few months,” he would later write, “due solely to hard work, conscientiousness and the fact that my grandfather owned the company.” He seemed to have everything a man could want – a beautiful, loving wife (Judith Downs), two fine children (Victor "Val" Aubrey Lownes IV and Meredith), a magnificent home, and a good job. However, following his father's death, after seven years of marriage he had what in an older man would be called a mid-life crisis. He realized he hated the smug respectability of the middle class American dream. He felt trapped by marriage and green-lawn suburbia. He abandoned his family. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Victor Lownes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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