Press: Hefner's Grandchild

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Unlike Playboy, Oui will concentrate on young writers rather than big names. While Oui goes its less than weighty way, Playboy is undergoing some subtle changes, becoming both sexier and more serious. Its new executive editor, up from the ranks, is Arthur Kretchmer, 31. Though only three years older than Carroll, Kretchmer seems of another generation—lithe, clean-shaven and as elegantly tailored as the men in the Playboy clothing ads. "The magazine has grown up," said he. "We have a serious concern for the way the country is going, and a concern that we also entertain ourselves." Thus Playboy's August issue contains an uninhibited color act on the joys of sexual intercourse, and September's features a long section on the drug problem.

Hugh Hefner, now 46 and the boss of a pleasure-products empire that has made him a millionaire 120 times over, sees both Oui and the changes in Playboy as logical evolution: "Some of Playboy's strengths are also its weaknesses. Almost 20 years have gone by since we started Playboy. In that time, society has drastically changed—and continues to change. Playboy reflected something of that society and its stereotype of the male-female relationship. Oui won't be locked into those previous stereotypes."