Penthouse founder Guccione dead at 79
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Bob Guccione, the man who founded Penthouse and brought full frontal nudity close to the mainstream, if not firmly into it, has died at the age of 79.
Guccione lost a long fight with cancer yesterday, Adult Video News reports, and died at the Plano Specialty Hospital in Texas.
AVN recounts that the American-born Guccione was running a chain of self-service laundries in England, and struggling as an artist in his spare time, when he decided to fill the niches passed over by Hugh Hefner's Playboy empire.
Essentially this meant more graphic nudity and readers' filthy letters, a contrast to the mix of all-American nudity and high-brow features of Playboy. Presumably his time in the launderette industry had made him aware of the benefits of the self-service model.
The magazine took off, and quickly transferred to the States, becoming even more hardcore in time.
Guccione moved into film production, famously roping in the likes of Sir John Gielgud, Helen Mirren and Malcolm McDowell to star in Caligula - a no-holds barred look at the decadence of the Roman Empire or a soft porn epic padded out with bemused looking thesps, depending on your point of view.
However, as with many media empires Guccione was sideswiped by new technology and bad investment decisions. With the growth of the web free porn proliferated and a Penthouse-branded casino venture failed. Guccione's firm, General Media filed for bankruptcy in 2003.
AP has a bio of Guccione here. ®
COMMENTS
Farewell then...
Guccione was also responsible for an outstanding magazine called Omni in the late 70s and early 80s. There was no t&a, just world-leading science fiction, superb artwork and photography, some of it commissioned specially, and high quality news and interviews with scientists and innovators.
The magazine lost its direction in the 80s and eventually became a not very interesting website. But I'll always be grateful to Omni for introducing me to a much wider and more interesting world, and for daring to try something different.
Perhaps we owe Bob Guccione a depth of gratitude more than we realise.
Perhaps we owe Bob Guccione a depth of gratitude more than we realise.
With the way the world is going over security, surveillance of ordinary citizens going about their normal business and the piece by piece erosion of our Western democracies, if it wasn't for Guccione we may well by now have returned to the very depths of 19th Century wowserism.
Dear Penthouse
I never thought it would happen to me, but I'm dead.
-- Bob Guccione
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