Jerry Bruckheimer's work is inescapable. Try watching network TV almost any weeknight without catching the lightning-flash logo that reads "Jerry Bruckheimer Television" at the tail end of CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Without a Trace and Cold Case--critically acclaimed, top-20 most-watched shows--as well as other favorites such as E-Ring, Close to Home and The Amazing Race. With Bruckheimer as executive producer of seven series currently running on one network alone, no wonder Leslie Moonves, the president and CEO of CBS Corporation, says, "I sometimes think the 'B' in CBS means Bruckheimer." You can hardly ignore the producer's presence on syndicated TV, either, where several seasons' worth of CSI and The Amazing Race play in heavy rerun rotation to big audiences.

On movie screens Bruckheimer's mark is even more indelible. His films have grossed well in excess of $13 billion worldwide, making him the most successful producer in history. This month brings the release of his Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, starring Johnny Depp. It's a sequel to 2003's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which grabbed more than $654 million at theaters worldwide and $360 million in DVD sales. Arriving later this year will be the Bruckheimer crime thriller Déjà Vu, starring Denzel Washington and directed by Tony Scott. Those are just the latest in a more than 25-year-long string of Bruckheimer juggernauts that began with the high-concept 1980s smashes Flashdance, Beverly Hills Cop, Beverly Hills Cop II and Top Gun, and continued with Bad Boys, Crimson Tide and The Rock, all co-produced with brash, hard-partying bad boy Don Simpson, co-founder, in 1982, of Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Productions.

Simpson's freewheeling and at times self-destructive behavior prompted Bruckheimer to sever their partnership at the end of 1995. Less than a month later Simpson was dead at the age of 52, reportedly from natural causes. Without his more colorful, talented partner Bruckheimer was widely considered over and done with, but he has since flown even higher with hits like Armageddon, Remember the Titans, Black Hawk Down and National Treasure--movies notable for their big budgets, high testosterone counts, explosions, rock anthems and stars such as Tom Cruise, Will Smith and Nicolas Cage. Even disappointments on the big screen (Kangaroo Jack, King Arthur) and the small (Skin, Fearless) haven't dented Bruckheimer's hit rate. With 15 Oscar nominations, two Oscars for best song, four Grammys and three Golden Globes, he ranked higher on Premiere magazine's most recent power list than Cruise, Tom Hanks, George Lucas and Adam Sandler.

Bruckheimer's fingerprints are all over pop culture, but little is known about him personally. Jerome Bruckheimer was born in 1945 in Detroit, Michigan to German immigrant parents; his father was a clothing retailer, his mother a bookkeeper and housewife. An indifferent student, he graduated with a psychology degree from the University of Arizona. Actualizing a lifelong talent for photography, he landed work with a Detroit advertising agency, where he began producing award-winning commercials. A bigger ad agency lured him to New York when he was 23. He produced commercials there for four years before moving to Hollywood, where he scored a stylish hit in 1980 with American Gigolo and again, two years later, with Cat People. But Bruckheimer and Simpson's unlikely pairing defined 1980s Hollywood excess and success. Neither Hollywood nor pop culture has been the same since.

Playboy sent Contributing Editor Stephen Rebello, who most recently interviewed Pierce Brosnan for the magazine, to meet with the producer. "Despite the explosive movies he's best known for," Rebello reports, "Jerry Bruckheimer is smart, restrained, tightly coiled and meticulously groomed and dresses in gray, black and brown--the antithesis of the clichéd, showy Hollywood producer. In the brick-and-exposed-beam office of his Santa Monica-based production company, even the napkins that accompany the glass beverage tumblers--no cans or bottles allowed--are black. He smiles sparingly, speaks so softly you have to lean forward to hear him and can be cagey about divulging personal information. But when he showed scenes from his upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, he beamed when I laughed out loud at Johnny Depp's performance, as if he were already anticipating the ticket sales."

Playboy: Audiences and critics describe such movies of yours as Top Gun, Con Air, Bad Boys and Armageddon as adrenaline rushes. When was your last adrenaline rush?

Bruckheimer: Last night when I played hockey. I've been playing here in Los Angeles for 12 years and do so a couple of times a week whenever I'm in town. Hockey is violent, graceful and very trying physically, and it takes enormous coordination to be good at it. There are brilliant athletes in all sports, of course, but hockey players aren't even on their own feet. They're on quarter-inch blades. So for me, seeing someone able to skate and have that energy, high skill and athleticism is phenomenal. When you're not a gifted athlete--which I'm not, but I'm a really good player--and you've got these guys coming at you on the ice who are incredible, you just try to stay out of their way and survive. I can't think about anything else but pure survival and making it off the ice without breaking something or getting killed.

Playboy: Famous guys have played hockey with you--Kiefer Sutherland, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Tom Cruise, for instance.

Bruckheimer: The guys I play with are all from different parts of Los Angeles. They don't care that I'm a producer. Some are in the music or entertainment business--like Cuba Gooding Jr.--but one guy rents motorcycles, one guy is a club promoter. I want to organize things. I organized a baseball team when I was seven or eight. I was never good enough to play on someone else's team, so I put one together and got to play on it. For the same reason, when I was 11 or 12, I got a bunch of neighborhood kids together to make a hockey team. The wonderful thing about hockey or baseball is the locker room.You talk there; you get to know each other. So over the years I've been playing hockey here, we've all become friends.