What Esquire was to national magazines in the 1960s, Philadelphia magazine was to city publications in the 1970s: a magazine filled with invigorating, “new journalism” profiles, in-depth lifestyle features and hard-hitting investigative reports.
As editorial director and writer for the magazine for a decade starting in 1970, Marlton resident Maury Z. Levy was directly responsible for its distinctive, eye-opening content.
“I liked the idea of telling a story,” he explained, “and making people feel like they were there with me, giving all kinds of details about what the place was like and what the person was like.”
Levy was also responsible for creating Philadelphia magazine’s annual “Best of Philly” feature, a concept that has been copied by many publications since.
“The ‘Best of Philly’ became this giant thing every year, but it wasn’t meant to be a major feature,” he recalled. “It was something that we came up with fairly close to deadline. People were always asking us what’s the best restaurant, what’s the best this or best that, and I said, ‘Why don’t we put together a whole list of these things and people might like it.’
“It sort of blew me away,” Levy added, “because after the first weekend that it came out (in May 1974 with the title “The Best & Worst of Philly”), people came up to me and said, ‘I saw people walking around (with the issue) and checking off this place and that place, and they were using it as the ultimate guidebook to Philly.’
“I figured, ‘Huh – there must be something to this.'”
Mike Mallowe, author of “The Meatman,” wrote unflinching investigative reports on organized crime and other controversial topics for the magazine and worked alongside Levy during his tenure. He said Levy’s contributions to what was often called “Philly Mag” were revolutionary.
“Maury completely transformed the publication,” Mallowe noted. “He gave it a very biting, insightful humor, and he was able to work on the kinds of hip, young, urban profiles that other people didn’t even understand.
“Maury single-handedly invented things that city and regional magazines had never done before.”
Levy, who was born in South Philadelphia and grew up in the Northeast section of the city, left Philadelphia in 1980 to join Playboy magazine – what he described as “his dream job.”
“I’d been freelancing for Playboy for a number of years,” he recounted. “I had done interviews with Pete Rose and Terry Bradshaw, as well as some feature writing for them. Someone from Playboy called me one day and said there’s this great job open if you wanted to talk to them about it.
“I flew into Chicago,” Levy added, “and by the end of the day, I’d talked to everybody I needed to talk to. And it looked like, ‘I may get this job!'”
As director of new publications for Playboy Enterprises Inc., Levy spearheaded the creation of its guides to fashion, travel, electronic entertainment and cars. He also contributed interviews with such celebrities as Raquel Welch and Mike Wallace. He worked directly with Christie Hefner – founder Hugh Hefner’s daughter – out of Playboy’s offices in New York City.
And he also paid regular visits to “Hef,” as the pajama-clad Hefner was known, at the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles.
Levy stayed with Playboy for seven years, then became editor of Video Review magazine, still working out of Manhattan. During his time working at both publications, he commuted to New York and never left his South Jersey home. By the turn of the century, Levy was back working in the area as publisher and editor in chief of the now-defunct Business Philadelphia. He began creating and writing a column for SJ Magazine in 2000.
These days, Levy, 79, is enjoying his retirement. He’s an avid fan of films from the 1930s and 1940s, as well as fantasy football.
“I was still writing up until two years ago,” he pointed out, “but it’s like, ‘Enough already!’ After fifty years, it’s time to not have a deadline staring at me every month.”
