NEW YORK, NY — Sometimes it’s not funny when the rabbit — or one of its friends — dies. Such is certainly the case in the recent passing of Playboy magazine cartoon editor, Michelle Urry.Bucking the stereotypes about women involved with adult and Playboy especially, the 66-year-old Urry was known for her wicked sense of humor, her ability to work with temperamental artists, and her staunch feminism.
While the former often made its way into the comics she selected for the venerable men’s magazine, the second rubbed fellow feminists the wrong way. This was especially true during the 1970s, when she insisted that the magazine did not contribute to the disempowerment of women and, in fact, was a part of their liberation; something she felt was demonstrated by the publication’s endorsement of women’s rights.
Possessing what she called an “inordinately dirty mind,” Urry started her career within Playboy as a telephone operator, after leaving his job as a dress shop owner. In time she was able to get work with the magazine as a cartoonist and, ultimately, as the cartoon editor.
Until her death from ocular melanoma this past Sunday in her Manhattan home at the age of 66, Urry would sort through easily 1,000 cartoons during a week before selecting the dozen she felt should be published if Hugh Hefner agreed.
Urry’s love for cartoons began young and was nurtured by an affection for comic books, a love for the history of cartoons, and her work as a fashion designer.
According to Brian Walker, curator of a Playboy carton exhibition at the Museum of Cartoon Art in Rye Brook, NY in 1984, “Playboy has been the only publication to maintain excellence in the field” other than possibly The New Yorker.
Praised by Hefner for her skills with artists and her ability to convince him to change his mind, Urry is survived by her son, Caleb Urry, and her second husband, screenwriter Alan R. Trustman. Sculptor Steven Urry, her first husband, passed away in 1993.
