BEHIND THE LENS: PLAYBOYS #1 PHOTOGRAPHER: STEPHEN WAYDA - Celebrity Pictorials - Pamela Anderson & Anna Nicole and Much More!

Stephen Wayda: PLAYBOYS REVERED PHOTOGRAPHER for 30 YEARS

Internationallypublished photographer best known for his demonstrative images of celebrities, women. and lifestyles.  In his creation of entertaining and compelling images he is regarded as a master in the use of composition and light, both natural and artificial.

Wayda’s photographs of A-list celebrities, Pop Culture icons, supermodels, musicians and the “girl next door” are a depiction of personality and, most of all, attitude. He is known for his use of light and composition to create a mood of realism that captures the intimacy and openness of his subjects, bringing out those fleeing moments of their humanity and their sense of self.

At Playboy, where he photographed the most celebrities, covers, women and pictorials in the magazine’s history, he was joined by many of the world’s most influential, celebrated and noted photographers in creating iconic, controversial and celebrated images.

His photographs have been sold and exhibited at Christie’s, Art Basel, the Aspen Art Festival, Mutual Art, Boetto Auction House, Gallery M, Kavachnina Contemporary and currently PICKHOBI Gallery Istanbul.

As a contributing photographer for Playboy magazine, Playboy Publisher Hugh M. Hefner stated:

"For over 30 years Stephen Wayda has shared my dream and vision. From an inauspicious start at Playboy, he has become the most published photographer in the history of Playboy. His photographs have helped Playboy in changing the way the world looks at women, and changed the way women look at the world. His influence on photography cannot be overstated. His evolving styles, his sense of sexuality coupled with the personality of his photographic subjects brought the Playboy dream, from the fantasy of decadence and passion in Paris, to the charm of the girl next door in the wheat fields of Texas, to life."

We are so grateful for Stephen. For his insight, his history and his stories. Most of all we applaud Stephen for the epic photos he's captured for 30 + years. This was an incredibly fun and insighful interview, with a legend that we both had the honor of knowing and working with!

With Gratitude - Echo and Corinna

Follow Stephen:
IG: @stephenwayda

Transcript

[00:00:00] Echo Johnson: All right, welcome back to the show. Everybody. We are back in the studio with a super special guest. We have Mr. Steven Wayda joining us and Steven Wayda is the third and final photographer for us. That it was very essential that we got his interview on the show for multiple reasons. Steven is the most published photographer in Playboy's history.

He shot the most celebrity pictorials, most covers with the likes of Carmen Electra, Kim Kardashian, Jenna Jameson, Barbie Twins. He's worked with a plethora of celebrities, Denzel Washington, Travis Barker comes to mind, and the list goes on and we'll get into that in a second. Steven can tell us more about particular people that he worked with their favorite memories.

And I know that there's some funny stories that go along with being on a shoot or and hiccups that may have arrived. Also best known for his affiliation with Pamela [00:01:00] Anderson, all of the publications that Pamela was featured and were shot by Steven. And they had a very close working relationship and the best of the best was always.

Conceived together between Steven and Pamela, and it shows in the pictures. Real quickly, I want to read a letter that Hugh Hefner had written. It was a homage really to Stephen and so I'm going to read it and it was a you know, it speaks volumes in terms of what it says and about Stephen's character and his work.

So from Hugh Hefner, for over 30 years, Stephen Wayda has shared my dream and vision from an inauspicious start at Playboy. He has become the most published photographer in the history of Playboy, and that's a huge accolade. His photographs have have helped. Playboy and changing the way the world looks at women and change the way women look at the world.

His influence on photography cannot be overstated. His evolving styles, his sense of sexuality, coupled with the [00:02:00] personality of his photographic subjects brought the Playboy dream from the fantasy of decadence and passion in Paris to the charm of the girl next door in the wheat fields of Texas. All to life in his heart.
He is a cowboy whose job has brought him into contact with the world's most beautiful women. Playboy is read for its photographs and what the reader saw in his photographs for Playboy was the American dream made real. So we're going to start there. All right, thank you very much. You're yeah. Yeah, 

Stephen Wayda: very great.
You made very gracious. Thank you. 

Echo Johnson: Well, it's important in our audience loves to hear, you know, all the, all the back history and put it all into context. And I'm telling you, every time we do an interview, we just pull out this golden nugget of history that we didn't know about and just adds a lot of context to the show.

So we're going to start with your venture into Playboy and how you even ended up there. So Stephen, you were at Playboy from 1983 to [00:03:00] 2013, correct? 

Stephen Wayda: That's correct. Yes. That's the three years that have references. 
Echo Johnson: Okay. And tell us about, I know that you were plucked from obscurity and you shared that story with me, but share with, share with the audience cause it's really interesting.

Stephen Wayda: Well I never planned to be a photographer. And it happened very serendipitously. Out of college, I became a newspaper reporter. From there, I started doing pictures to go with my stories. I created a process where you could get. Photographs to reproduce and letterpress. Now you're all too young to know what letterpress is, but it was just something that was gray.

There was no whites. There was no darks or blacks. There was just gray, gray type, gray paper, gray, everything. So I created a process where a coat like this, you could see the lapels. And from there I started to do [00:04:00] fashion work for a local department store. Okay. And then I lost that job. And so I met Dwight Hooker, who was a Playboy photographer that was retiring.

He had come to Utah to be a to go to architectural school. So he was now doing building houses in Robert Redford's Sundance Ski Resort. And he wanted to keep his connection with Playboy, so he was doing What Sort of Man Reads Playboy, which is a service ad where our, our hero is good looking and gracious and he's doing all these adventurous things while his girl is with him, okay?

And so that's where it gets the What Sort of Man Reads Playboy. Right. So, I start showing him pictures, and he, He wasn't very encouraging.

At one point he's looking at the pictures and he's going, well, [00:05:00] good thing you have a day job because you're never going to be a Playboy photographer. 

Echo Johnson: Oh my gosh, what a statement. 

Stephen Wayda: Yes, you know, I've been told that more than once. So so I kept sending pictures in to Playboy. I get rejected, I get accepted, I get another job, da da da da, go back and forth.

Then Marilyn had me come down and I interviewed with her. Went back to Chicago because she was in a competition with Chicago. Heff told Chicago and Maryland to find the next centerfold photographer. And so, and Chicago didn't want to lose this because they had a very good relationship. Tough relationship with Marilyn, because she had access to have and she could do anything she wanted.

Echo Johnson: Yes, and I know that and let me actually tell the audience as well, because this was really [00:06:00] interesting background that you told me that Marilyn Grabowski was originally in the Chicago offices working as a secretary, right? 

Stephen Wayda: She was, yes, 

and Chicago said, 
Echo Johnson: Hey, do you guys want to go or anybody want to go to LA to open up a studio?

Stephen Wayda: And she did, you know, and Mario Casilli was the only photographer there. And from that, you know, she was essentially in a no, you know a job with, it was a no end job. Yeah, dead end. Yeah. I was, I was, I was another one that wasn't expected to do anything out of, you know, out of high school. I said, I'd be good at McDonald's.
So, so, so I, you know, both of us were kind of rejects trying to find our way, and Marilyn became one of the most important editors in magazine publishing. She was there with Anna Witnar of Vogue and Jules Campbell of Sports Illustrated. Yeah. Yeah. So, to get this competition going, okay, they had a meeting in the mansion, and Marilyn says, I want you guys to go on a competition.

Stephen Wayda: And so, she had a lot of other people to choose from before, whatever reason she chose me, because I didn't know much of anything. And Chicago chose David Meese. So they flew me back to Chicago to interview with everybody back there. And um, I walked to the studio and I looked at all the script and I said, I don't know how to use any of this.I don't know what I'm going to do. So, you know it was, it was just, yeah, you know, you're going to go with what you It's like I did on a lot of things. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll figure something out. 

Stephen Wayda: Yeah, so I gave Marilyn two women from Utah that she accepted and she wanted as playmates.

And she said she would let me photograph one and at the same time let me watch Ken Marcus, how he did his center, and I don't know if she was serious in it or she was just trying to get the girls. I think Dwight had told me that she wasn't ever going to accept me. You know, I'm a, I don't have the, I never went to photo school.

I never went to art school. All the other guys, Right. Did that so he told me she would never accept me. What do you think? 

Echo Johnson: Right and also tell us the story about Jeff Cohen because I thought that was fascinating when you shared with me so Jeff Cohen was an editor photographer out of Chicago I worked a ton with him and all the newsstand specials, but share with the audience what he told you as well So the second person to tell you you're not gonna be.

Stephen Wayda: well in a Marilyn wanted Chicago to give me an assignment.
Okay. Because, you know, I was looking to [00:09:00] make the cut. And so Chicago, Marilyn sent me to Alaska for Girls of Alaska. And I went and took a lot of pictures, went a lot of places, and when I got back, sent the, the film to Chicago wasn't anything on the film. The shutter on the, on the, on the lens had come apart.
It was a Nikon lens, so everything, oh my God, back. And back then it wasn't doing Polaroids because I didn't know anything about a Polaroid back or taking Polaroids to set up with. So went to Jeff because he did the girls of. And he looked at the pictures and said, you know, they're a disaster. You don't have anything here.

I'm going to send David Mecey, and I'm not going to send him to Alaska, I'm going to send him someplace else, give him a chance. So in our conversation, he said to me, it's unfortunate you don't have the talent to match your opportunities. [00:10:00] 
Echo Johnson: Wow. Wow. That's wild. 

Stephen Wayda: Yeah. So I, you know, Jeff won, you know, he was Marilyn's rival.
Okay. They fought, they fought tooth and nails and Marilyn wasn't going to let Chicago win. Win. Right. So, yeah. So after you know, I watched Ken Marcus, we then took my other girl, other woman from, uh, from Utah and we do the centerfold on her. And we did it on location in Utah and centerfolds are not good on location because there's a thing called the sun and it moves. So your light changes constant. Yeah, that's what you have to do in a studio. I mean, centerfolds 

Stephen Wayda: would take 5 to 10 days and they're a process of building. I sent you a. the Polaroids that I [00:11:00] have. And I'm the only one that has those Polaroids. I'm the only one that has the diagrams. And it was Jamie Bergman and the Polaroids, my bestie. I love Jamie. 

Stephen Wayda: So yeah, I mean, there's, there's multiples, but yeah, that's what I saw. But then now the original 8x10s Polaroids that, They look just like they did when I took them 40 years ago. I don't know how they've survived, but I keep them all still alive. Isn't that 

Echo Johnson: wild? Yeah. Yeah. 
Stephen Wayda: So they, I did this, my centerfold, and we did it in location.
Marilyn didn't like it because it was a little problematical, so we did it again in the studio. That was Susie Scott. So I sent Marilyn sent Susie Scott and Jeff sent Susie shot. I think her name was dark haired woman. That was David's last centerfold. He went on. Oh, yeah, he went on to [00:12:00] work the girls of and was Jeff's boy.
And I became most boy and okay. Okay. Because because she protected me. She had a vested interest in me because I was her choice and she could not lose to Chicago 
Echo Johnson: and so what year was that that you guys went off to L. A. To start the studio. 

Stephen Wayda: Well, she'd already had the studio. Going with Cassie Lee, and she had built up a relationship with half because he moved from Chicago out to Hominy Hills, so she had direct action access with him, which gave her a lot of power over Chicago You know the story of Anna Nicole Smith was that Chicago had never really seen her and they absolutely said no to her being

Echo Johnson: And why? Because she was big, and curvy, and bad boob job, and you didn't know how the hell you were gonna shoot her, and da da [00:13:00] da da 
da. 

Stephen Wayda: Well, because she was, in Gary Cole's words, she wasn't the type of woman they wanted as playboy of the year, because she was a stripper, she was a stripper, she was running around with a 90 year old millionaire, and it, you know, it wasn't the best backstory.

So, but Marilyn changed it, changed her name from her, she came to us as Vicki Smith. Right. And so, in Chicago, the only thing they saw were the pictures that I, that Marilyn sent that I had taken. They'd never met her before she was named Playmate of the Year. Oh, wow. They got it shoved down their throats by Marilyn going, going to, to death.
To have yeah, 
Echo Johnson: exactly. And then half obviously fell in love with the whole pictorial. I mean, [00:14:00] I mean, she was incredible in front of the camera. What a beautiful woman. And then 

Stephen Wayda: that's what I found that I had to do with her. Because if you look at the pictures I did of her, there's not a lot of nudity. You'd see nudity here.
Good system nudity there. What I worked with was. Her face at a magnificent face and her attitude and I just let her roll. Okay. I just let her go and she gave you such sexy pictures that you believe she was talking to you and not to the camera. And so she really knew how to work that camera. And that was from her days being a stripper.
So that's why I 
Echo Johnson: added some benefit to her becoming playmate of the year for being a stripper. You would have known. 
Stephen Wayda: Yeah, well, that's why Gary didn't want her. So, between Marshall, her boyfriend. 

Echo Johnson: Right, right, right, right. 

Stephen Wayda: She was married and she was [00:15:00] married at the time with a child while she was having the affair with Marshall.

Oh, that's right. She was not the image of what you normally think of for Playmate of the Year. But her pictures for guests were spectacular. And she became, on top of that, Claudia Schiffer, who I also photographed, was Marciano's girlfriend at the time. Oh, I 
Echo Johnson: didn't know that they were dating. I never knew that.

Stephen Wayda: Yeah, because she was the face of guests. Right, right. Very famous picture of her from the side for guests. But then when Anna came, Claudia, he said goodbye to Claudia and made Anna the girlfriend. 

Echo Johnson: Interesting. I love it. Spill the tea. 

And 

Stephen Wayda: that went for a while until the next girl came along and, you know, Anna was [00:16:00] difficult.

She drank a lot. She, she had a mood swings. You know, when I would photograph in her, she'd go in the studio. I mean, in the makeup, she'd just sit there. Nothing would come out of her. Nothing. And then, you know, you take her out on set. And still there was no communication or anything, and then you pick up the camera and it's boom, she's on.

So, and she goes just, you know, you let her run, and I move her this way, I move her that way, I show a little breast, you know, I show a little butt, you know, I show a little leg, but if you look at her shooting, she doesn't have a lot of movement. Because she was not like you or Karina or anybody else. She did not have a playboy body.

She was a plus size girl. And that's one of the things I get irritated about. Because fashion magazines are now saying, We're doing plus size. [00:17:00] We're doing a black girl. We did Anna Nicole Smith as a plus, you know, 40 years ago. And the first black girl that appeared in it. Playboy was about 5 or 10 years before it was in the early in the 70s somewhere and the, and the fashion, fashion magazines make a big deal of what they're doing, but they've been behind playboy playboy was the leading.

I mean, playboy was not part of the elites on the coast. Okay, Los Angeles, New York and that, but it. Dealt with the the rest of America. Okay, it talked like half sets. It's the girl's next door It's the girl that you might meet that you hope that if you have the chance you could possibly date Okay, not a supermodel, you know, she's not You know a celebrity in any sense, you know, we eventually worked our ways into [00:18:00] celebrities But at that time, it was all about this girl next door that could be somebody you would know, 
Echo Johnson: isn't that the truth, you know after I think it was at Anna Nicole's payment of the year party.

Yeah, it would have been I met Marciano there and then he wanted me to shoot for guests and I actually went and did like a whole. day with them shooting never signed anything never got paid and then they ran my my Images internationally. Yes, and I never got paid and I went to playboy and I was like, what the hell is this?

Like they're like, oh, it was just a test. I'm like it's published in vogue in like Italy like and and they did not want to intervene because they didn't want to step on marciano's toes because of that relationship that they had interesting 

Stephen Wayda: There is a number of girls that went from playboy to Marciano to guest.

I bet I can [00:19:00] think of two or three that I know. Sandy Taylor 
Echo Johnson: did you, did you ever shoot with Sandy Taylor? 
Stephen Wayda: I did the cover of her with all the fireworks behind with sparkles. Okay. Of the playboy. Yes. I did that. I, I took her to the Bahamas. Huh. And we we kind of had interesting times there, because you know Alexis, right?
Echo Johnson: Alexis Vogel, yes. 

Stephen Wayda: Mm hmm. So, Alexis had a way of doing makeup. And it was very specific. So I had Sandy in the, in the water, on the beach, wave hit her, and took off one of her eyelashes. So I, I, I talked, I tell Alexis, you got to put it back on. I can't, I don't have the glue. And I said, well, I got to shoot.

I can't give this up because we're, we only have so many days. So I had then went, walked up to [00:20:00] Sandy and took the other eyelash and ripped it off. 
Get 
Echo Johnson: rid of that one. 
Get 
Stephen Wayda: rid of that one. And, and Alexis left the set. She 
Echo Johnson: was not happy. She 
Stephen Wayda: was not happy because I had, you know, you know, ruined her makeup, you know, I didn't ruin it.

The wave did. So, but yeah, yeah, I did what you had to do to do. Yeah. 
Echo Johnson: Yeah, but I can totally see Alexis like responding like that because, and my God, the best makeup artist in the world. It's like, if you ever try to emulate her makeup, it's like, you can never even come close. So I bet she was like, my art, 
don't touch my art.

Echo Johnson: I can totally imagine. 

Stephen Wayda: Did she do yours or who did your makeup? 

Echo Johnson: Yeah, yeah. I always worked with Alexis. She was my favorite. 
Stephen Wayda: Yeah, she, she couldn't make, I mean, she just made you look great, you know, it was always, you didn't want to take their 

Echo Johnson: makeup off when you [00:21:00] went home. I always remember going to the mansion and I was like, wow, that's a bomb, so I always figure out something to do.

Well, okay, so let's get into Pamela Anderson. You spent 19 years photographing Pam and you said that she was so pleasant and fun to work with. She was 
Stephen Wayda: she was very genuine. She was always she had a good work ethic. Well, she, oh, I'm sorry, let one time in France, we were there to shoot and she had to go to Monaco or oh, Pam Montecarlo Mon Oh, Montecarlo. And they had a big fashion show and there was a top male model Shankenburg. 

So 

Echo Johnson: they were dating Marcus Hanenburg. Yeah. 
Stephen Wayda: Yeah, so she didn't come back for the shooting. She went to there to do an introduction, a [00:22:00] short thing, but she stayed and they had their affair.
And we had a, I think a 10 day stay there. And then Playboy didn't want to change our return. So we 10 days in France, in Saint Tropez, was a paid vacation. Exactly. Then she came back and I worked with her in Santa Barbara. But yeah, for the most part, she was always on. You know, she always knew how to work the camera.

She always knew what to give you. She always knew how she looked the best. And she was a joy to work with. Yeah, she was a joy to work with. You know, and then she, you know, she learned real quick. You know, she did a couple things for, for Playboy and then she got the TV show. She got, uh, Tool Time.

Became a, became a Tool Time girl. She first did that. Then she got on Baywatch, [00:23:00] okay? And when she got on Baywatch, she was portrayed as a Californian. Surf girl. Beach girl. Well, we took her to San Tropez because Marilyn thought she should look like, um, Bridgette Bardot. Bridgette Bardot. Bridgette Bardot.
So we were going to San Tropez. Now, I went with Alexis, okay? And the idea was to make her a diva, to make her get rid of the beach girl look. And make her into the style you saw that she carried on up to. I, the last time I photographed her, you know, she's changed the style a lot now, but Alexis always did her makeup for the whole time.
And 
you 
Stephen Wayda: know, and she became what, you know, the bigger hair, the heavy makeup she looked, she looked like a movie star now. Yeah, completely. And that was, you know, that was so I [00:24:00] changed lighting on her. I changed how she shot. Alexis changed her makeup. You know, that's 

Echo Johnson: that's that's actually like a good segue, because you had mentioned this before of, like, the difference between how Arnie Freytag and Ken Marcus you know, which shoot and it was.

my vote. They wanted girls pose and you're not a very different approach to taking photographs for playboy. That was unlike anything that the photographers have done. You know, and the one thing that you had said, you didn't see how posing and sexuality went together, posing to not make any sense. And you threw that out the window.
I got a lot more sexual out of the images, which when you look at them, you can see it's a vast difference from what the other photographers were shooting, in my opinion 

Stephen Wayda: It was. You can think, you can realize why Chicago was always unhappy with me. Sure. Because I was changing lighting. I was changing what was used.
I was changing sets. 

You know, when [00:25:00] they started, the set on Ken Marcus that I watched had probably seven or eight lights. Well, when I was doing centerfolds, I had 42 lights. I had a light everywhere. Wow, so yeah, so I wanted the lighting to look real not like it was an artificial light So it was very important to me that it was like how your eye sees things Not how the camera would say things and right like I said, like you just mentioned I looked at this and I said this doesn't make sense sex has movements as Spontaneity.
It has feelings to it. It had movement. And when they, and Marilyn and the other photographers, they fought over who was the best poser. Marilyn, or the photographer. Arnie used to fight with her, used to hate her coming on set, because she would change his [00:26:00] poses. Yeah. And they, they didn't get along very well.

But so when I came on, she, she let me run, you know, she gave me the opportunity to innovate and, you know, try different things sometimes fail, sometimes succeed, she always protected me, you know, because I got in trouble, I got in trouble with half a lot because it wasn't, you know, it wasn't what he was used to.

But he loved it. That's why he wrote what he wrote to me, because I was the only one that did it. Most photographers in the fashion world would either have movement or no movement. And I did both. I moved, I sat up, I still, you know, just, let's see what happens. And you know, if you look at, especially the pictures that don't get published, they're not explicit, but they're very sexy.

They just have a sexual feel to them. And, you know, that's more or less what I [00:27:00] became, why I kept my job, because there was always somebody out the door, a line of people out the door, willing to take my job. Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah. So, I was in trouble a lot, okay? And, you know, what Hef talks about, from an inauspicious start, that was an inauspicious start that, and he wrote that in the tribute, you know, that I went from that, where I was essentially fired.

Right, right. I mean, didn't, didn't he even tell you at one point, you know, I am the publisher and what I want gets published, like, didn't it come to that point? Yes. Because you had to shoot. Well, that was, that was over I, there was a celebrity. That was on the apprentice, and I photographed her and I was always conscious of doing what the girls, the women were going to feel comfortable with you know, and so [00:28:00] there was this one situation.

She was in a limousine. Her legs were open. She had underwear on and she was, you know, very, you know, enticing in the limousine. Sure. But, but when you looked at the film, and she's, she says, you know, I don't want, you know, have a any explicitness to it. I said, oh, it's not going to happen. You got underwear on, it's fine.

Yeah. So when the film came back, the light went through the underwear, and there was full explicitness. Okay. And that, that shot got into the magazine, into the layout. Hef doesn't see anything but the film. He sees the film. And the film has that little bit, it wasn't really explicit, but it was something I knew she wasn't going to be happy with.
So I had Ben, who was my assistant, and this was on the digital days, and I told him to make those panties opaque. Really? So I have got the So I have got the Yes, so when Hef got the [00:29:00] edition, he looked at that, looked at what the other one was, and called me up and said, you know, you gotta understand, I'm, I'm the publisher of this, you know, I'm not expecting to have things changed between the pictures and the publishing, you know, and, yes sir, okay, so.

Echo Johnson:That's wild. I mean, that's like, that's, that's bold, that's ballsy, I gotta say that 

Stephen Wayda: I was pretty ballsy. I was, you know, I, I, I could be very difficult. Okay. Because I wanted to do things my way. I wanted the equipment that I wanted. I mean, that's, you know, there was a stage there where, you know, they bought Arnie and I 32 strobe packs and heads and each pack was about 10, 000.

Holy moly. And then I went and I, I wanted this light that was 10, 000 and they got and 
Echo Johnson: you got it. Yeah. [00:30:00] You know, that's, that's something that that we have found out from conducting these interviews is that there was no expense spared whatsoever. What it, whatever it took to get the shot, you were going to do it, whether it was on location or reshooting a centerfold wardrobe, whatever you getting lighting.

And it's always so interesting to hear that. And then also Hef's keen eye, like he, he even knew the photographers that were taking the pictures of him all the time within the mansion, right. Documenting if there was one slide that was gone and it was like one of him looking down at a dog or something.

And I forget who, Larry Logan told us this story and Larry had taken the slide out because his eyes were closed or something and Hep was like, don't you ever take a side out. You leave all the film there. Like he knew exactly. So when he saw that what you had done, it was like, but, but the attention to detail and then that no cost was ever spared whatsoever and [00:31:00] achieving what the goal was.

And that was to get the perfect shot. And you can't find a company that you would work with in today's day and age that would remotely been close to what they did to achieve those results. 

Stephen Wayda: Yes, I'll tell you a little quick little story and then I'll make a comment on that. A lot of times studio would send me places and without asking me.

And my crews knew that when we got there don't unpack because he's going to change. We're going to go somewhere else. Right. I was sent, I was sent to St. Martins and we got a nice villa. It's up on the hill. The beach is crowded. It's a little tiny beach. It's full of. Of tourists. So I said, Oh, look, I need, I need to get to the Bahamas.

I know a place I can go there. I need a plane. So send a Learjet. 

Echo Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. 

Stephen Wayda: Yeah. That's, that's, [00:32:00] you know, so you know, as far as no expense, because people look at my photographs now and they say, Oh, I don't want to look like I, you know, I'm Like in Playboy, and you know, you know, I just, can you make me do the, you know, can you make me look like that?

You know, got 250, 000. I can do that. You know? Right. Right. But nobody realizes how complex, I mean, my shootings were very, very complex. Like they rebuilt a set in the studio and I'd have, you know, like say 42 lights plus some main lights and guys in the back that would be moving the flights. So the girls could vote, so yeah, you know, 
Echo Johnson: that that that's always something I like to talk about with the photographers because nobody understands how complex it was and what it took just to get your centerfold.

I mean, that was a grueling experience for us personally. I mean, 5 to 7 days and you know, in a pose that you cannot move out [00:33:00] of it was. It was brutal but there was so much that went into it, every, you know, finite detail and it's like, nobody would know that unless you were on set or a part of putting that all together, you know, you just get the picture.

That's what people see, but there's so much that went into it. 
Stephen Wayda: Well, in the Polaroids I sent you, there is an 8 by 10 progression of how it starts. You know, and that was like on Susie Scott. She's on the she's in Utah. She's on a porch. It's so cold. She's in a jacket and I'm trying to set up the lighting.

You know, because we have to get something because that's what we were committed to. Mm-Hmm. . But in the studio, the lighting is more controlled and you can, you keep adding, you keep adding, you make changes. So if you look at those Polaroids, the the pose is one thing. In the beginning, it's a different thing in the end.

Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. . But, and I would get in [00:34:00] trouble because. I couldn't come back to what I did the day before. I didn't know that concept. And so with the girl, it, she would have, you know, she would have some idea of what she was doing. And so we'd start there and each day became better. So Marilyn then didn't, did not insist that I hold that pose and some of the poses were so that the other guys didn't, I mean, they'd, they'd faint on set.

Both Annie and Ken had ladies that fainted, and I said, I said, I can't get a sexual expression. You know what Ken Marcus, Ken Marcus said to me, he says, You know, I make them do these these poses, and they can, they can't, when I'm finished with them, they can't get up because they can't walk. Yeah. And they hate, they hate me.
They hate me. And he says, and I do that [00:35:00] because the look of hate and love are the same, and they're not gonna love me. 

Echo Johnson: That's interesting. And that, that makes me think about my centerfold because I it was so hard for me. And I also, I don't know, I was 18. I don't know what the hell I was doing. I was just going into this whole new world, but every Polaroid that they would print out, I would look miserable.

I was crying. I looked pissed. So they kept drawing the devil horns on all my Polaroids. And I remember Marilyn coming in, probably towards the end of my shoot and was like, just give her a shot of tequila or something. And then somehow we were able to capture it. But I can tell when I look in my photo that I was in total pain and I was pissed.
Yeah, 

Stephen Wayda: I made, I made sure my girls were happy. Right. And that's the 
Echo Johnson: difference. That's really interesting. Yeah. Do you have do you have any like Stand out centerfolds that are your favorite that you [00:36:00] shot or you worked with that come to mind. 

Stephen Wayda: Well, not on the centerfolds, you know, Pam, Pam was great. Yeah.
I did a shooting with Edmondson. What's her? Oh, Donna. No her shooting, but no, this was We shot her in a, in a set that looked like we were in Paris. And she was fabulous, and the lighting was fabulous, and she just gave a lot of sexuality to it. I mean, for the most part, everybody gave great sexuality.

I mean, I can only think of one or two that I really struggled with. You know, but other than that, because I, I would sit and I would talk to him beforehand, ask what their expectations were. These are my expectations. This is what's going to be going on. You're going to go and do makeup. You're going to come out.

We're going to do this. So everybody went in knowing what the process was going to be. And there was never any, well, I'm going to pose you [00:37:00] and set you up. We're going to find something together. You feel comfortable with, gives me, and, you know, if you look at my stuff, the other guys had to have this curve in the waist and the hips out, you know, and the boobs in a certain direction.

And they, Marilyn, you know, felt she was, you know, the queen of posing and the guys, they were the best at it. But, you know, she let me run with not posing people. So every, every day on a centerfold was a little different than the day before. 

Echo Johnson: Right. And, and, and you also said that, that it was really important to you that when shooting the models that you were shooting for them, so they would be thrilled when they would see their images published versus what Arnie and the other photographers were doing is they were, you know, they were shooting for half and four playboy and you had a lot more.

Stephen Wayda: I didn't go to art school. I didn't go to photography [00:38:00] school. I didn't know how to work the equipment when I first got there. Okay. So my, my approach was just different because the other guys you know, I don't want to, you know, I guess I'm bad mouthing everybody, or I'm saying something. They were the photographer, and some of them said, these are not your pictures, these are my pictures.

Okay, right, right, and if somebody probably told you along the way that those were, you know, those were his pictures and he wants to do them this way and you need to go along. Mm hmm. Well, you know, my deal was these are not my pictures. Those are the woman's pictures. She needs to be happy with them. She needs to be, to come away saying this is the best, Experience I've ever had.

I'm just so happy that I, that I did this. So, and [00:39:00] that brought a lot more attitude, because I was always looking for attitude. It had to have attitude to it. Yeah, because in posing, I'd never, I don't see how anybody got. Attitude, it had to be created. I don't know, you know, your, your experience you shot with Arnie, probably 
Echo Johnson: Arnie.
It was different, 

Echo Johnson: it was 
Echo Johnson: different, but, you know, my God, at the end of the day, my, my photographs are absolutely gorgeous. And I was told I top 3 most published playmates of all time. And I thought that was amazing. I know that I'm in all the playmates. Playboy books. I did 10 covers. You shot the, the Seinfeld cover with the group of us in the, in the phone booth.

Yeah. Yeah. That was a super fun. You 
Stephen Wayda: had 10, 10 us or or 10. 

Echo Johnson: So two, two us. And then [00:40:00] seven of the newsstand specials and then two one German and one, I want to say Norway, which just came out like, or the Netherlands, which just came out, I don't know, maybe six years ago, a fan sent it to me. And it was from a photo shoot that David and I had done for the newsstand specials in Austin for wet and wild.

Just picture me coming out of a pool and they put that on the cover and I was like, cool, here's my 10th cover. So, yeah, 
Stephen Wayda: congratulations. 

Echo Johnson: That was always funny. Cause you know, some, you know, I actually shot all my covers. That was just the one time that they reused another image, but they would do that quite often as they would go into the archives and pull images and run it as a cover and you have, would have no idea.

And it'd come out and you'd be like, Oh, I'm on a cover. Who knew? 
Stephen Wayda: Yeah. I I was not a fan. I mean, I was not a fan. Jeff. Why would you say this? You know, Jeff didn't care for me. Yeah, I was like a child. He's [00:41:00] very gracious, gracious at the end, but at that time, you know, I was Marilyn's boy. Yeah. And so I was, I was Marilyn's boy to such an extent.

That when they did, when they did the girls next door, Marilyn didn't think it was going to go anywhere. And so, there was a request that I do the shooting. Marilyn said, no, I got things for him to do, I'm not going to let him do it, and it's not going to go anywhere. So, she gave it to Arnie. And Arnie got tons of pictures, lots of publicity, you know, and did a great job with it.

But Marilyn was so possessive, she wasn't going to have me do something that wasn't going to work in her mind. 

Echo Johnson: Right, right, right. 

Stephen Wayda: And she was wrong, because it became a big hit. 

Echo Johnson: I love that. I love that. I the history with you in Maryland. I didn't realize it was, you know, extensive and profound and you credit Maryland with your success as a photographer, you know, and then [00:42:00] goes into the project you're working on, which we'll get into in a minute nugget of history that we pulled out from you.
Tell me about the photo shoot that you did with Pam and Tommy Lee. 

Stephen Wayda: That was a picture for a swimsuit company. And so Pam, Pam and the crew went down to Cancun. Pam had just met Tommy at one of the, I think it was the bar. She, she was a partner in.

Echo Johnson: Wait, you wait, you guys, the reason why she was down in Cancun was because you guys were shooting for the swimsuit company.

And then Tommy said, I'm coming down. Oh, cool. Okay. 
Stephen Wayda: Yeah. Pam said, no, don't come down. So he did. He came down, he's in the bar. He calls. She says, No, I, you know, I can't because I'm working and he's very [00:43:00] persistent. Okay. And she's a little stressed out from the persistence. I don't know who Tommy Lee is. I don't listen to glam rock, you know, I mean, you know, I'm a country fan, you know, and on my sets, it was probably, it was probably Disco, because that got everybody up and it was a dance situation.

It wasn't glam rock. So I didn't know who he was. I was going to talk to management about having him thrown out or have him deported. Oh my gosh, 
Echo Johnson: how funny. 

Stephen Wayda: And she says, no, no, no, let it be. And so she then goes out with him and Alexis goes and Jennifer goes and he had two of his friends there. And so they'd party all night long.

There's a lot of So and Pam had told Tommy he wasn't going to have, she was, she was not going to have sex with him. You know, he was a wild man, and he [00:44:00] wasn't, and she, and he was intent on, well, to, not, I don't think it was just to have have sex with her, but it was to have a connection, to be with her.
Echo Johnson: Mm hmm. 

Stephen Wayda: So, they had that one night together. And I came in in the morning and he was just leaving and his clothes, some of his clothes, underwear, there's some clothes were still there and she'd been up all night having sex, drinking, and I got a camera and I just started taking pictures. I took pictures after pictures and she was you know, she was very animated.

And so I took the pictures back to when I got him, got him. I processed, I took them over to Playboy. I said, would you like to publish these? And Av said, no, what I'd like to do is put them in the safe [00:45:00] and you can have them when you leave. Really? So they were in the safe for 18 years. 

Echo Johnson: Interesting
. 
Stephen Wayda: Hef did not feel that she portrayed the image.
She was a, to him, she was the DNA of Playboy. Oh, and 

Echo Johnson: that just went against the grain completely. Yeah. It changed, 
Stephen Wayda: changed her image because she was a little drunk, a little tired, a little, Yeah, having sex. Yeah. So they  went  into the the safe and I didn't get him until I retired in 2013. 

Echo Johnson: That's wild. I love that story.

I love that. He gave him back to you, but I could. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense now that he is like, no, this is not going to go in line with, with what we portray of Pamela. Interesting. There's a backstory on 
Stephen Wayda: everything. 

Echo Johnson: Yeah, yeah, there's a backstory and everything. So I recently was talking to [00:46:00] Sia or Shane Barbie trying to get her to come on the interview, the interview with Greg Gorman, who was the photographer that discovered me, right?
And that's how my career started with the way and he had worked a lot with them. But Shane share some funny stories. With me of shooting with you and you know, her and her sister were out of their fucking minds because they were so sick from their eating disorder and they were total divas. And she says that she's like, she's like, when we finally got well, like, we made our amends and we called half and we called Greg Gorman and whoever else and just apologize profusely.

Cause. They were just a nightmare to work with. But apparently, so she was telling me that they had gone down there and it's one of their worst, like engine sessions. And so they kept pushing back the shoot. Is that right? And then they were trying to get out of there and you told them, Oh, we have a private jet coming just in order to capture the pictures you needed to on the beach.

Do you remember that? 

Stephen Wayda: She, she was difficult, but very gracious at the same [00:47:00] time. And, you know, she always loved the pictures that we got, and so I shot her on the beach with her sister and again, you just let them go, okay? Because they will work. I mean, the picture that I have the portfolio is that Shane is having her butt, her hand on the butt of Sia, and they will, the connection that was going on between them.

Again, you can't, you can't pose that. You can't, all you can do is be spontaneous and take the picture when it happens. 

Echo Johnson: Absolutely, especially in photography. I mean, that's when you get the best pictures, in my opinion. 

Stephen Wayda: At least I do. So what, what about, what about what? 
Echo Johnson: Tell us about Jenna Jameson and Tito Ortiz and what happened there because that's a good story.

Stephen Wayda: Yes we had gone down again to Mexico. We were on an eco resort. Okay, now [00:48:00] this eco resort had one time Too much wine, too much drugs, and too many candles, and they burnt half the place down. So we went back to this place, and they rebuilt it, and it was very remote. One dirt road came into it, it went over a couple streams, and it's very, very remote.

And it's all kind of wood or bamboo. It's not concrete, it's not fire resistance or or wind resistance. So a hurricane comes up the coast from the south. It's a category four. It stops right off the coast from the resort and spins there. Oh my god. And so if it had come on shore, we couldn't get out. The roads were they were flooded from the rains.
So there was no way out. We were stuck there. So, everybody [00:49:00] thought they were going to die, and Stephen Wayda: so they drank a lot you know, they had no phones, no cell service, no way to talk to anybody, to call your loved one before you go into a whirlwind of a hurricane, but anyway, so it, it, it, it, 

Stephen Wayda: it, it, it, it's, you know, everybody was scared, they were really scared, and so they, It wasn't that far offshore, and it just had to come in, or the outside of it, you know, the winds would have got us.

But then it went up the coast and got to the lower part of Mexico, and then went across Mexico and went into, I think, either Arizona or New Mexico. So it was a big storm that lasted for a long time. But when we shot, you know, we started to shoot the next day. We tried to shoot at the beach. The water is brown because so much mud has [00:50:00] gone into the water.

And things are a little muddy and a little But the sun came out and we got beautiful pictures. 

Echo Johnson: What a photo shoot were you on where the DEA? 

Stephen Wayda: Oh that yeah, that was okay. We were in Mexico There were five models from Germany. I had assistant second assistant Makeup hair stylist. Okay. So the place was a place called Correa's at that time They had five old hotel that the owner had bought along with four bungalows You Okay, and now it's one of the most expensive places in the world to go and buy a house and and you know It's it's hugely successful, but at the time it was just a little place So to get in privacy, I went asked, you know, where can [00:51:00] I go?

Where's a beach? And so they send me, we go down, we go on our bus, five girls, five naked girls the bus is stuck in the sand, so one of the assistants says, I gotta go find somebody to get us out, so he goes, and he finds, he finds a farmer. The farmer comes, comes driving up in his tractor, big tractor, turns it, turns it around, hooks up a chain, pulls this out, and he's looking, he doesn't speak English, okay, just speaks Spanish, and he's looking at this, you know, this, what's five naked girls and this crew doing out 
Echo Johnson: on the 

Stephen Wayda: beach?

After we go back to shooting, then all of a sudden, the federales. Show up and they are, you know, in the half trucks, you know, he likes the trucks with the machine guns on top all carrying [00:52:00] automatic weapons. They don't speak English, we don't speak Spanish, and we can't explain what's going on. So we had to go in to the jail, and they then called the DEA in Guadalajara.

And Guadalajara was the center of the drug Mexican drug industry at that time. And so the place we were, we were in was the state of Jalisco. Now go to at least go now, because we used to go to Puerto Vallarta and just drive down for three hours to get to this hotel because it was so remote. Now if you did that you'd probably be either killed, captured held for ransom or put into sex trafficking.

We would just go back and forth in the car. We'd get a Jeep with no top on it and be cruising down for three hours through the Mexican countryside, [00:53:00] carefree. But, you know, they don't speak Spanish, they didn't speak English, so we had to, they had to. Find out what we were doing. 
Echo Johnson: They finally like realized the DEA was like, Oh, no, this is playboy and like, let him go.

Stephen Wayda: Well, you could talk to somebody in English now. Okay. We could explain what was going on. No, right, right, right. So you were able to explain 
Echo Johnson: for like, okay, talk about this project that you're working on. It's an episodic TV series called shooting sex. And why don't you tell us what it's about? And it's brilliant.

And I'm so excited that you are doing this surrounding you and Marilyn Grabowski. 
Stephen Wayda: Well, it's a fictionalized account of Playboy from 1983 to 1999. Okay, because that was the kind of the heyday that I felt was digital didn't start till [00:54:00] 1997. So There are a lot of stories, and being fictionalized, I can pull things in that maybe happened before, or I wasn't necessarily that much of a part of, and they have a front end story, back end story, and then, you know, the shooting.

And it deals with, Marilyn and I, I've tried to make it female friendly. I've tried to make it aspirational and inspirational because both Marilyn and I were, you know, we were told we weren't going anywhere and we came to the top of the pyramid. And then with all the women that came through, some Went back to what they were doing.

Some became stars. Some got married. There's, there's always a story, you know rainy day. Jordan was a great story because she had never been out of Texas and she came and she was so [00:55:00] great in her posing and everything. And then she got hooked up with the, you know, the mansion. And she went to a couple of parties and, you know, she was faced with a big change in her lifestyle because she had a husband and a child back back in West Texas.

And so she came and she had the opportunity. And she went back on her second trip, and her daughter, she had a little daughter, and her daughter had seen her on the first trip. On the second trip, she was all kind of made up and dressed up, and she says, Mama, I look just like you. And that was, that was enough to go, no.

You know, it's, it's not all that it's made out to be too many temptations, too many things, you know, some of the women never go to the mansion. Some do, [00:56:00] but everybody, you know, they're, they have their aspirations. That's why they're there. Wants something to come of this. So it's an aspirational, inspirational story of not so much Marilyn and I are the Storytellers.

Okay. It's about all the people, you know, the covers that I shot, Pictorials, the Centerfolds. It's about the models. It's behind the scenes. It's not Alexis. It's about my assistants. Okay. You know, I, I had the opportunity. Judith Reagan offered to do a book on me and it was she did the Jenna Jameson how to have sex like a porn star.
Okay. She did the did a couple others the Howard Stern, I think, but she insisted that it be a true story. 

Echo Johnson: And. 

Stephen Wayda: I'm not going to do it because I don't want to be telling [00:57:00] all the secrets of my staff, my crews, and everything that went on. So to protect my crews. I passed on it. And it probably was a, you know, wasn't maybe the best decision.
But, you know, I had to be true to, cause we were like family. My crews were like family, and they said that, because I took care of them I didn't treat them like assistants. When I was shooting, I told them to sit on my shoulder, tell me what they see, what they think, what they suggest. I might use it, I might not use it, I might use it later.
Interesting. You're part of the, you're part of the shooting. And you have another set of eyes. So, everybody on the set was to give me input if they had it. I love that. I couldn't, I couldn't betray them. Right, right. Because they all had their own, they all had their own stories. Of course. 

Echo Johnson: Yeah, yeah. I mean, everybody had their own vantage point and your own [00:58:00] personal experience, and they're all going to vary from person to person, you know, even if you're working together.

If Stephen Wayda: I was to fictionalize, I would do the people that I photographed, like the celebrities in that, a great story on Belushi, but so I can use Belushi's name, I can use De Niro's name, and I don't want to use, you know, Alexis's name, I'll make her, she has a, Made up name, Maryland has a made up name, I have a made up name, but my lifestyle, how I did this, how I was in Utah, how I lived on ranches in Utah and California, how I had horses all the time.

Right. How I didn't know what I was doing, how, how things progressed. That's all in there. And then the stories behind that we're talking about, like Jenna Jameson or the girls of Mexico. So everybody had a story. 

Echo Johnson: Awesome. Well, I, I, I really believe that's going to be [00:59:00] very well received and being spearheaded by an Academy Award winning producer.
Stephen Wayda: It's not about the mansion. Right about half. Okay, it's good 
Echo Johnson: too much out there. That's all focused on the on the mansion and on half 
Stephen Wayda: Yeah, there's a number of women that are you know, jumping on the bandwagon if you say something nasty you can make money from it I mean Crystal was a big disappointment to me because I was friends with her.

I shot all of her pictures She didn't need to do that. She 10 million dollars when I know he died You He left out, she left out a lot of things that paint a different picture. 
Echo Johnson: Oh, completely. I listened to her whole book and I was like, what the hell is she saying? Like, this is not, this 

Stephen Wayda: is, well, her mom lived at the mansion.
I know. I know. And she said she had nobody 

Echo Johnson: there. I know. She had 

Stephen Wayda: nobody there and she was so traumatically affected by it. And Holly [01:00:00] Madison is. Course. Holly Madison, she, she got the opportunity to be a, an editor Hef Right. Gave her a job to be an editor. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that they didn't have the talent to be an editor.

So that, it's unfortunate that these, these women have decided to trash Hef and the mansion. Mm-Hmm. , there's a lot of things that went on. Mm-Hmm. . There's no question about that. Mm-Hmm. , there's a lot of people you know, and have sex. Life was. Was his business, but I'll tell you something. Yeah, 
Echo Johnson: exactly. 
Stephen Wayda: I'll tell you there's a documentary.
Okay. I don't think many people know about on half and there were 2 people assigned to it. This woman and this man, different sources and they were given it. They both had the operator. They both said you're going to do this. And they both didn't want to. And the woman talked to her husband and said I can't do this.

I don't want to be [01:01:00] around Hugh Hefner. Really? He said, you're just starting out. You need to do this because they're gonna give it to somebody else. Mm hmm. The man, he went to his pastor. He got the exact same answer. Somebody else is going to do this. You need to do this interview. So they approached it from, it's a nice interview, because they, it's a documentary.

So they approached it from not half what he did, but why he did it. So they went back into his childhood. They talked about his relationship with his mom. They talked about this stuffed animal that got their mom, his mom burned, you know, a dog they got from a pound that died right away. The tree felt unloved.

Okay, and growing up, he carried that with him, and that's one of the things he and I [01:02:00] would, you know, I didn't know about his childhood, and he never knew about mine, but we pretty much had a very similar childhood. I felt I was unloved. I was always looking for love. Before I was a playboy, in my 20s, I was married three times, okay?

Echo Johnson: Three times? Dang! Wow. Yeah, in my 

Stephen Wayda: 20s. In your 20s? I wasn't sure if I chose or Interesting. But, you didn't At the end of the documentary, when it was finished, they said, they were so positive about Hef. They said, he did all these things. Hef. You know, the magazine with clubs, everything was so he would be loved because he never really found the love.
And then he's the final portrayal is crystal. The worst, 

Echo Johnson: the worst, you know, I mean, it's it's. It's after having many conversations, [01:03:00] especially with his closest friends and asking them, you know, what was that like for you to watch what was going on from the time that like the girls next door came in till, you know, crystal, I mean, that's when Playboy went downhill when it was sold, it was over like Playboys, we knew it was over the caliber of the girls.
And then yeah, Holly stepping in as an editor, give me a fucking break. That woman had no idea what she was doing. But it's very apparent to, to me now, and I would say Corinne and a couple other of us that from talking to his closest confidants that were there through it all, you know, they all said, you know, he made horrible decisions at the end of his life, but he, he, he was getting older.

We all will get older. Our mind will go, you know, and when the vision goes, the vision goes right. And. You know, he, he really felt that these women loved him. I mean, he really did. And he had no idea that Crystal would come and do what the hell she [01:04:00] did. Like he would have never, he would have never gone into that or he would have never made her the president of the foundation, whatever.

And it's just so sad because he was completely taken advantage of. And Pemberley Hefner, I had a conversation with her. Direct quote from her. She said, the only thing I will say is that what happened is 1000 percent elder abuse. And I was like, I can't agree with you more. 

Stephen Wayda: Yeah, I don't think Crystal, well, there's mixed things.
You know, she left. Him on the altar at one point, right? You know why how that happened and why she came back That's not in the book. I'm sure 
Echo Johnson: oh it is in the book, but her version is makes no fucking sense So no, tell me why because it's not fair 

Stephen Wayda: well, she did a a music demo with a guy named Blakey, okay big music producer And she sounded great, and she listened to this, and she thought [01:05:00] she was going to be a new rock star.

And so she could see that as a vehicle to, Leave half because she's gonna have her own money. She's gonna have her own fame. She took up an affair with Dr. Phil's son. Okay, so she was having an affair with dr. Phil's son, right now She talks about that and then what happened is that in leaving half have said well I'm going to pay for your music career.

And when she met with Blakey, he said, you know, you can't sing. This was done on the computer. So she now had nowhere to go. So she went back to Hef. And I do think that she had really strong affections for him because I watched her and then interact a lot. And you know, like I said, I shot all of her pictures.

So I, I [01:06:00] think it was just somebody talked her into if you're going to write a book and you're going to make all this money, you got to trash the situation. Yeah, and strike while the iron's hot, because Holly Madison is out there producing, you know, the Playboy murder show, affiliating all these tragic incidents that have happened to women that were either in Playboy or Playmates that had nothing to do with them.
Echo Johnson: Playboy did not murder them, right? So she's got that show plus her book. And so of course, like, you know, Crystal jumped on the bandwagon and it's just, it's like, you can see straight through it. We can see straight through it, but general public believes everything that these girls are saying. And so thank God again, that we have like this platform and we can have these real authentic conversations with people that were there.

That got to see firsthand, you know, and there's, there's two versions to the story and it's not just one side. Kimberly was married to have for 21 years. He had two kids. It wasn't the, you know, the easiest of relationships. [01:07:00] But she was there, you know, and she's, you know, she's, she wrote a little piece to say that everything these women are doing was not really the norm because there's 700, 800 playmates.
Stephen Wayda: Sorry. How many have complained? Yeah. How many have complained? None. None. It's all these girlfriends. 2, 2, 3. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Thank God. I'm, I've I've been grateful to be able to talk to Kimberly and I've invited her on the show. She's hesitant to do anything, but I think at some point she will come on.

Echo Johnson: But again, it's just her, her complete and utter respect and love and affinity for heft. Stands and will always be there. And she, you know, if anybody was going to say something about a bad experience, it would be somebody who was married him for 21 years. She has nothing to say. That's negative. These girls, it's a money grab.
Obviously, 

Stephen Wayda: I don't, I really don't [01:08:00] believe that what's in the crystals book. She really feels a hundred percent on it. I feel she, she did it for, you know, there's a big payday at the end of it. 

Echo Johnson: She didn't even write the book. She had a, she had a ghost writer, so it's not even her. Yeah, it's a ghost writer.

Yeah. So yes, we're in agreement on that. So anyway. Well, cool. I'm glad that you actually brought that up. And the people from Playboy that you know can have a different vantage point. And we're able to share it. Yeah, you know, 
Stephen Wayda: my, my, my TV shows to be very positive. It's behind the scenes, right? A lot of crazy things went on behind the scenes.

And it doesn't mean that everybody was having sex left and right, but just exactly personalities, you know, and the situations, you know, my life, my, my life is crazy. Yeah. Lex's life was crazy. Jennifer Tudor had a very stable life, you know, a loving [01:09:00] husband, still married, still doing great. John Crannon had a very tragic end to his life.
Um, there was another stylist that committed suicide. She was with involved with an actor. And he went, there's back to his wife, he went back to, he went back to his wife and she was so distraught. She got into the bathtub and cut her wrist. Fortunately, you know, 

Echo Johnson: there's, there are those stories, but it's not like a direct, I don't know, it's not like Playboy did it to them.

You know? It's just, it's, it's not that Playboy did 

Stephen Wayda: it. No. Yeah. Playboy was a, for, for 98 percent of the women, it was, it was a positive experience. Yeah. Absolutely. That were photographed and that were playmates and were really playboy. Like I said, the girlfriends, Holly and the other two, they were never to be playmates.

They could not be playmates. No, never. And that's, and the same thing, [01:10:00] well, with Crystal, she was a playmate. But 

Echo Johnson: yeah, that's because she married. Yeah, half was like, okay, you're going to run away from me. You're going to come back. Then whatever make you play me and put you on the cover. So anyway, do you know, do you do you recall the name of that documentary that you're just telling you about about the man and woman that interviewed have been had great things to say when they were all done 
Stephen Wayda: and send you the.

The tape. Yes. Cool. It would be, I think, a great guest for you because Yeah, they're very positive. They're very positive about Hef, very positive. And, and their 
Echo Johnson: ha their hesitation initially to not wanna do it and then to do it, it wasn't come out, wasn't 

Stephen Wayda: No, it was, no, we don't, it was like hard. 
Echo Johnson: No. Yeah, exactly.

And Stephen Wayda: they, it was, and if you want, you want a career, you gotta go do it. Yeah, exactly. And they were very surprised. By him and the humility and his caring about people, all the charitable things that he was involved in. He doesn't get credit for that.

 [01:11:00] He doesn't 
Echo Johnson: talk about it all the time on here because again, I didn't even know half the stuff that he was involved in and his philanthropic endeavors are vast and many and it does not get discussed enough.

I mean, it really needs to be known forever. And there's, I'm sorry, at the end of the day, people are just going to try to, you know. Decimate the history of Playboy and of Hugh Hefner. Well, it's not going to happen. It's history. It's it's it's part of America. It's American culture. You know, what would America be without Playboy?
It'd be very different.

 I think Stephen Wayda: no, no, it wouldn't be a probably. Okay. Yeah. Playboy set. Outside of New York and Los Angeles, Playboy sent, set style, sent was an arbiter of what was beautiful and what was sexual. And Marilyn Grabowski was the biggest arbiter of all on what was sexy. Because she made the decision on [01:12:00] who was to get in, and, How it would, it would go, you know, and and, you know, and her best decision was hiring me.
Yay, 
Echo Johnson: I concur. That's excellent. That's a perfect way to end the show. I love that. So, okay, before we leave at the end of each interview, we ask our guests. Two questions. Okay. So first question, three words that define Hugh Hefner to you. 
Stephen Wayda: A creative genius. 

Echo Johnson: Perfect. Three words. A creative genius. Okay. And had you had the chance to say anything to Hef before he passed or in memoriam, what would you say?
Stephen Wayda: In a letter that I wrote him before he died, it was a big thank you that he gave me an opportunity that I would not have had. And I'm glad that I was able [01:13:00] to live up to the expectations. 

Echo Johnson: That's the general answer from everybody is just thank you. Thank you for including me on this journey. Thank you for the opportunity.

So I love that. Thank you, Stephen. Okay. Awesome. Well, that was a wonderful show. Thank you so much for tuning in to our audience around the world. Thank you for your love and your support. Please follow us at the Bunny Chronicles podcast or Bunny Chronicles podcast on Instagram. We also have our Facebook page, Bunny Chronicles podcast, our YouTube channel.

Please like, subscribe and share. And if you want to support the show, you can support us at Patreon. Thank you so much to the audience. We appreciate you, Stephen. I appreciate the opportunity. Wonderful. Thank you.