Playboy's Annual Awards
January, 1980
Each year, the staffs of the Editorial, Art and Photography departments choose the articles, artwork and photos to be singled out in January for special praise. It's a given, of course, that everything we publish is mighty fine. Arguments occur only when we try to separate what's terrific from what's merely great. No, there aren't gunshots in the halls and nobody has had his car tires slashed. The whole process, in fact, is a joy, because we feel that writers, artists and photographers do not get anywhere near the recognition and praise that their often underfed egos need and deserve. (Their bank balances often need to be fed, too.) Besides, they do make the world a better place. So here are our picks for the best of the best that has appeared in Playboy's pages during the past 12 months. Along with this mention, each winner receives a $1000 check and an award medallion to look at after the money is gone. Our congratulations to all.
Writing
Norman Mailer is accustomed to producing masterpieces. (He has previously won two Playboy writing awards, one for Best Nonfiction, the other for Best Major Work: Fiction.) This year he did it again, with The Executioner's Song (October, November, December), a stunning three-part excerpt from his current best seller on the life and death of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore. Mailer's narration, told through the reminiscences of those whose paths had crossed Gilmore's, is more than just a peek at the demise of a born loser; it's also a tome on criminal pathology that is destined to become a classic.
Paul Theroux, author of travel journals about Asia and South America, took us to darkest Africa with his award-winning story White Lies (May). This thoroughly chilling tale, about a deceitful man who gets his due, truly made our skin crawl. A prolific writer, Theroux has won two previous Playboy prizes for fiction.
Lynda Leidiger snares the honors in this category for Snake Head (October), a bizarre story about a young woman who dons a snake mask for a Halloween party and then can't bear to take it off. Leidiger was an unpublished author until she sold this extraordinary tale to Playboy. She lives in North Hollywood.
Tony Hendra, Christopher Cerf and Peter Elbling brought together a talented group of New York writers who split our sides with And That's the Way it was, 1980-1989 (October). Cerf and Hendra are National Lampoon magazine refugees; Elbling is a California actor/director who thought of the idea.
Asa Baber takes the best Nonfiction award for The Condominium Conspiracy (November). A no-nonsense investigative reporter, Baber picked up the same prize in 1977 for a hard look at the commodities market. This time, a fellow journalist warned him that he'd be "creamed" if he dug too deeply into condos. Tough job; tough guy.
Richard Price is our pick for his profile of college football's major institution in Bear Bryant's Miracles (October). Price, one of America's brightest young novelists, took his biases as a New York street kid south to 'Bama and came back with the most balanced account of the Crimson Tide's coach we've yet read.
Illustration
Marshall Arisman, who won many awards with his macabre illustration for Mr. Death in Playboy several years ago, is this year's recipient for his chilling depiction of Gary Gilmore in December, third in the three-part masterpiece The Executioner's Song, by Norman Mailer. Arisman unforgettably illustrated the entire series.
Roger Brown, a Chicago artist who's shown in virtually every major museum in this country, wins with his illustration of a strange landscape for Used in Evidence (December), a Frederick Forsyth murder mystery. Brown used curious gridlike cloud formations to create a feeling of terminal loneliness and impending danger.
Martin Hoffman's versatility is truly astounding; the same man who produces super-realistic paintings can also create stylish Thirties-type fashion illustrations, such as the ones we ran last January in our annual designer feature. (They're in this issue, too.) Hoffman's work is also featured in Playboy's traveling art exhibit.
Photography
Mario Casilli, who previously has won two awards, walks away again a winner for his coverage (or perhaps we should say uncover-age) of Playmate Lee Ann Michelle in February. The fact that most of the shooting was done in chilly old England didn't faze Casilli; his use of the location, as usual, was superb.
Arny Freytag shares our Best Pictorial Essay award with Richard Fegley. Freytag's contribution: Another Loving Look (August), in which he not only recaptured Candy Loving's exceptional charms but also showed the Chicago Playboy Mansion in an architecturally brilliant manner. Our eyes were on Candy.
Richard Fegley has a rough life. Not only does he get paid to photograph beautiful naked ladies but he wins awards, too. This one is for the Bond beauties in our July "Moonraker" feature. It was a very difficult assignment, Fegley reported, "because I was competing with Roger Moore." Somehow, he survived.
Special Award
Lawrence Grobel, who previously had interviewed Dolly Parton, Henry Winkler and Barbra Streisand for us, thought he was committing journalistic hara-kiri by accepting our assignment to interview Marlon Brando (January). The elusive superstar had never agreed to an in-depth interview, often choosing to seclude himself on his private Tahitian island, Tetiaroa, for indefinite periods. After many months of dealing with Brando's secretary, Grobel felt his luck suddenly change when Superman's Grobel felt his luck suddenly change when Superman's own dad picked up the phone and invited him to the South Seas. No less challenging was the reclusive actor Al Pacino in last month's issue.
Special Award
Shel Silverstein's long association with Playboy has yielded countless forays into iconoclastic humor. For over 20 years, Silverstein's pen and wit have given birth to such satirical gems as Teevee Jeebies, Silverstein Around the World and his redoubtable History of Playboy. Lately, he's kept our pages buzzing with a series of irreverent poems about life on the new frontier--sex and drugs. Last year, his poem The Smoke Off was runner-up in the humor category. When he's not poking fun at American foible in drawings, Silverstein turns his attention to songwriting and singing. You may recall his bromidic fighting man's song, A Boy Named Sue, recorded by Johnny Cash. This year, our Renaissance man provided us with a very special book, Different Dances, a collection of his cartoons (see page 202) that we've been excerpting in recent months.
Special Award
David Chan weighs only 120 pounds soaking wet. But when he flies into a strange city and places an ad in the newspaper for local females to test for a future Girls of feature, many think that he's the most powerful man in town. Chan's most recent accomplishment was Girls/Women of the Ivy League (September), in which he was confronted by hostile college administrators and women's rights groups. Undaunted, he returned with superb shots-as he's done for The Girls of Washington, The Girls of the New South, Girls of the Big Ten, Girls of the Pac 10, all the while calmly handling hundreds of reporters, TV interviews and other hassles. Chan's latest assignment? A soon-to-be-published Girls of Canada that brought some lovely creatures out from behind the maple leaves. With talented Chan behind the lens, you won't be disappointed, Charlie.
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