Stephen Randall, the newly appointed executive editor of Playboy magazine and a part-time magazine-writing instructor at the University of Southern California, says his job isn’t quite as sexy as it sounds.
“I’m not in the room with the nudes,” says Randall, who until recently was articles editor at the magazine. “My wife is a sculptor and painter and she does a lot of work with nudes. In terms of (my) family, they’ve been more scandalized by her.”
Randall’s passion for journalism began when he was very young. The man who has met Gore Vidal, Edward Albee and even played backgammon with Lucille Ball might never have gone into the business if he hadn’t had an unusual field trip in the sixth grade.
He remembers the exact moment when his career was decided. “We went on a field trip at the Santa Monica Evening Outlook and they took us to the wire room,” he remembers. “They told us when the bells ring, it means a big story is coming in.” When the rest of the class left the room to continue the tour, Randall stayed behind in the wire room. “Suddenly all the bells started ringing. It was a big story. Benny Paret, the famous boxer, had died.”
Randall was captured by the excitement. Now he says of that moment, “Knowing things first has always been important to me.”
After graduating from USC in 1972 with a degree in journalism, Randall took various reporting positions around the city. While acting as articles editor at Los Angeles magazine, he heard about a job opening at Playboy for a West Coast editor. “I thought I would be right for the job and so did my friends, so I wrote (editorial director) Arthur Kretchmer a letter, totally cold.” He got the job and has been with the magazine for 17 years.
Although Playboy is headquartered in Chicago, it has two executive editors who work under Kretchmer Randall in Beverly Hills and Kevin Buckley in New York.
As executive editor, Randall joins the small leadership team that runs the magazine. Although he says that his job changes from day to day, he is primarily responsible for choosing what articles will be printed and deciding whom the next Playboy interview subject will be.
“We’re looking for people who are very interesting at that moment,” he said. “There was a moment to do Rush Limbaugh, and we did.”
Lauren Hollingsworth
