Jack Nicholson, Kirk Douglas, Warren Beatty and James Caan could come and go as they pleased, without anyone knowing

Apr 1, 2015 14:18 GMT  ·  By
Blueprints hint that Hugh Hefner built secret tunnels for celebrities to arrive at the Mansion undisturbed
   Blueprints hint that Hugh Hefner built secret tunnels for celebrities to arrive at the Mansion undisturbed

Back in the day when adult content wasn’t so easily available and when celebrities couldn’t attend decadent parties without there being hell to pay in their career, the Playboy Mansion was perceived as off-limits by most respectable gents and ladies.

That doesn’t mean that they didn’t go there, though. Playboy editors claim to have uncovered actual proof of the existence of underground secret tunnels linking the famous Mansion to the homes that once belonged to the biggest stars in film in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

A secret world lying underground

Hugh Hefner’s birthday is coming up and editors at the Playboy magazine went looking for old photos for a material to mark this special occasion. They stumbled across Polaroids from 1977 that showed some excavation work at the Mansion, long after it’d been build.

It made no sense. The explanation provided by the general manager at the Mansion made even less sense: “that’s probably when they built the tunnels in the 70s.” Obviously, there was a mystery there, because no one knew of the existence of said tunnels. More importantly, what was their purpose? Where did they lead to?

According to the magazine, after more research in the basements of the Mansion, through a trove of blueprints and documents, the mystery was solved: the tunnels connected the Mansion to the homes of some of the biggest stars in film of that decade.

“According this blueprint, tunnels were built to the homes of ‘Mr. J. Nicholson,’ ‘Mr. W. Beatty,’ ‘Mr. K. Douglas’ and ‘Mr. J. Caan.’ We’ll go ahead and assume they’re talking about Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, Kirk Douglas and James Caan - all of whom lived near the Playboy Mansion during the late 1970s and early 1980s,” Playboy claims.

The purpose is obvious, assuming the tunnels were ever constructed (and an insider says they were, but they were eventually closed in 1989): all these famous men could go to and come back from the Mansion, party for nights on end and no one would be the wiser for it. Their reputation would have still been intact.

Take it with a grain of salt

The theory is very interesting, further adding to this image of the Mansion as some kind of magical, decadent place where never-ending parties take place and every man has at least 2 gorgeous blonde women on his arm.

However, we should probably pay attention to the date: Playboy ran the story on March 30, but it’s just now that it’s being picked up, getting attention from both the media and the fans.

It could be that this is just some April Fools joke and that Hefner never built secret tunnels to allow celebrities access to the Mansion, hidden from the prying eyes of the world. Many celebrity pundits incline to believe that this is the case.