Bob Guccione (pronounced "goo-chee-OAN-eh",^[1] December 17, 1930 – October 20, 2010) was the founder and publisher of the adult magazine Penthouse until his resignation in November 2003.

Early life[link]

Robert Charles Joseph Edward Sabatini Guccione was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Sicilian descent, and raised as a Roman Catholic in Bergenfield, New Jersey. His father Anthony was an accountant. His mother, Nina, was a house wife. He considered, but rejected, entering the priesthood.^[2] He attended high school at Blair Academy, a prep school in Blairstown, New Jersey.^[3]

Guccione married the first of his four wives,^[2] Lilyann Becker, before the age of 20, and had a daughter, Tonina. The marriage soon failed. He left his wife and child to go to Europe, where he wanted to be a painter. He eventually met an English woman, Muriel, moved to London with her, and married her. They had four children, Bob Jr. Nina, Tony, and Nicky. To support his family he managed a chain of laundromats, until he got work as a cartoonist on an American weekly newspaper, The London American, while Muriel started a business selling pinup posters. He occasionally created cartoons for Bill Box's humorous greeting card company, Box Cards.^[4][5][6]

Career[link]

Penthouse began publication in 1965 in England and in North America from 1969. The magazine was an attempt to compete with Hugh Hefner's Playboy on several levels. One approach Guccione took was offering editorial content that was more sensational than that of Playboy. The magazine's writing was far more investigative than Hefner's upscale emphasis, with stories about government cover-ups and scandals. Writers such as Craig S. Karpel, James Dale Davidson, and Ernest Volkman, as well as the critically acclaimed Seymour Hersh exposed numerous scandals and corruption at the highest levels of the United States Government. Due to his lack of resources, Guccione himself photographed most of the models for the magazine's early issues.^[4] Without professional training, Guccione applied his knowledge of painting to his photography, establishing the diffused, soft focus look that would become one of the trademarks of the magazine's pictorials. Guccione would sometimes take several days to complete a shoot.

As the magazine grew more successful, Guccione openly embraced a life of luxury; his former mansion is said to be the largest private residence in Manhattan at 22,000 square feet (2,000 m²). However, in contrast to Hugh Hefner (who threw wild parties at his Playboy Mansions), life at Guccione's mansion was remarkably sedate even during the hedonistic 1970s.^[4] He reportedly once had his bodyguards eject a local radio personality who had been hired as a DJ for jumping into the swimming pool naked.^[7]

The magazine's pictorials offered more sexually explicit content than was commonly seen in most openly sold men's magazines of the era, being the first to show female pubic hair, then full-frontal nudity, and then the exposed vulva and anus.^[4] Penthouse has also, over the years, featured a number of authorized and unauthorized photos of celebrities such as Madonna and Vanessa Lynn Williams. In both cases, the photos were taken earlier in their careers and sold to Penthouse only after Madonna and Williams became famous. In Williams' case, this led to her forced resignation as Miss America in 1984. The September 1984 issue in which Williams was first featured also included a layout featuring porn actress Traci Lords, who was only 15 when the photo shoot was taken and who was later revealed to be underage during most of her porn career. In the late 1990s, the magazine began to show more "fetish" content such as urination, bondage, and "facials".^[4]

In 1976, Guccione used about US $17.5 million of his personal fortune to finance the controversial historical epic pornographic film, Caligula, with Malcolm McDowell in the title role and a supporting cast including Helen Mirren, John Gielgud, and Peter O’Toole. The film, which was eventually released in late 1979, was produced in Italy (made at the legendary Dear Studios in Rome) and was directed by Tinto Brass. Guccione also created the magazines Omni, Viva, and Longevity.^[4] Later Guccione started Penthouse Forum which was more textual in content. In the early 2000s, Penthouse published a short-lived comic book spin-off entitled Penthouse Comix featuring sexually explicit stories.

In 1982 Guccione was listed in the Forbes 400 ranking of wealthiest people, with a $400 million net worth.^[8] An April 2002 New York Times article quoted Guccione as saying that Penthouse grossed $3.5 billion to $4 billion over the 30-year life of the company, with a net income of almost 500 million dollars.^[9]

Decline and resignation[link]

Several wildly unsuccessful investments by Guccione—including the Penthouse Boardwalk Hotel and Casino (which lost $160 million),^[4] and a (never-built) nuclear fusion power plant—added to his publishing empire's financial woes.^[10] Guccione's efforts to regain sales and notoriety, which included attempts to get Monica Lewinsky to pose for the magazine; (which was parodied in a sketch on Saturday Night Live in 1998,^[11]) and offering the Unabomber a free forum for his views, failed to increase readership. With the rise of online access to (often free) pornography in the late 1990s, Penthouse's circulation numbers began to suffer even more. In 2003, General Media, Penthouse's publisher, declared bankruptcy. Guccione resigned as chairman of the board and CEO of Penthouse International, Inc. The magazine as of 2010 was still in publication, and had an online presence; its circulation had fallen to about 463,000 in 2003.^[12]

Legal dispute[link]

In 2006, Guccione sued Penthouse Media Group for fraud, breach of contract, and conspiracy, among other charges. Some of the people named in the case included Marc Bell, Jason Galanis, Dr. Fernando Molina, Charles Samel, and Daniel C. Stanton.^[13]

Other work[link]

Guccione gave Anna Wintour her first job as a fashion editor for his magazine Viva. He was an investor in the films Chinatown and The Day of the Locust.^[14]

Personal life[link]

Family[link]

Guccione's English-reared son, Bob Guccione, Jr. (born 1956), was given editorship of Spin, but father and son soon fell out over editorial decisions, and Bob Jr. eventually found independent investors to continue the magazine. Father and son remained estranged for a long time, but reportedly reconciled before Bob Guccione, Sr.'s death in 2010.^[15] Nicky, Guccione's youngest child, retained some contact since Nicky gave Guccione his only grandchild, Benjamin.^[16]

Marriages[link]

He married his long-time companion, Kathy Keeton, a native of South Africa in 1988. In 1997 Keeton died of complications from surgery to remedy an obstruction in her digestive tract; she was 58.^[17] In her last few months, Keeton befriended an ex-model named April Dawn Warren. Gossip maintained that Warren was Keeton's hand-picked successor.^[16] After a long engagement, Guccione married Warren in 2006 and they remained together until his death.^[16] Guccione continued to list Keeton on the Penthouse masthead posthumously as President but later added Warren to the masthead after she spent 10 years as creative director of the magazine. She and Guccione were working on a book of reminiscences, Good to Know, until shortly before his death in late 2010.^[18]

Residence[link]

Guccione brought artisans in from France and Italy to build the largest private residence in Manhattan. As a tribute to Guccione the artisans carved both his and his wife's face into the marble columns near the entrance. According to New York magazine, "It's one of the biggest private houses in Manhattan, with 30 rooms, and it costs $5 million a year to maintain."^[19] In November 2003, the mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side was foreclosed on by Kennedy Funding of New Jersey,^[20] the mortgage holder along with an affiliate of multi billion-dollar hedge fund Elliot Associates of New Jersey. In January 2004, a group of investors came to Guccione’s aid during his Sheriff-enforced eviction. A London-based investor named Jason Galanis led an investment group that purchased the house for $26.5 million in cash.^[21][22][23] The house was purchased by NY Real Estate LLC, an entity set up to acquire the mansion. Galanis contributed $2.6 million, and two New York hedge funds, Laurus Funds and Alexandre Asset Management, made a mortgage loan of $24 million to NY Real Estate LLC, which was owned by Penthouse International, the parent and debtor-in-possession of General Media.

As a result of the continuing contentious bankruptcy which lasted over a year, the promissory notes due to Laurus were considered in technical breach of covenants which resulted in severe financial penalties in excess of $8 million. Penthouse International elected to forego refinancing the house due to the combination of the penalties and the unfavorable lifetime lease of $1.00/year that was granted to Guccione, which made the property unmarketable. Laurus sued Guccione to take possession of the house from the tenant.^[24] It was reportedly sold for $49 million, well below the asking price of $59 million, to Wall Street financier Philip Falcone.^[25]

Guccione also had to sell his country house in Staatsburg, New York. The estate was purchased by actress Uma Thurman and hotelier Andre Balazs.^[26]

Guccione also owned a 15-room, Baroque stucco mansion on a 75-acre property on the Hudson River, which was foreclosed upon and sold for $4 million.^[27]

Art collection[link]

Although Guccione was a talented painter, during his life he went unrecognized as a successful artist. He was also a world-renowned collector of fine art.^[28] Highlights of the Guccione collection included a portrait by Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) and a portrait of the artist's son, Paulo, by Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). He also owned paintings by Sandro Botticelli, Albrecht Dürer, El Greco, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico, Edgar Degas, Fernand Léger, Gilbert Stone, Henri Matisse, Jules Pascin, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Georges Henri Rouault, Chaïm Soutine, and Vincent van Gogh.

The Guccione art collection was sold at auction by Sotheby's in November 2002 to pay Guccione's personal debts originally incurred in the Atlantic City venture.^[29] The collection was appraised by Christie's at $59 million two years before. However, September 11, 2001 had depressed the art market and the Guccione collection failed to achieve its appraised price. The aggregate sale price was $19 million, which was used to pay Swiss Re, the lender. Swiss Re sued Guccione in New York State Court for a $4 million shortfall on the loan balance.^{[citation needed]}

Guccione had a history of leveraging his prized asset. He borrowed $20 million from AIG, the insurance company. Subsequently they refinanced with Swiss Re Insurance.^[30]

Illness and death[link]

By 2004 he had undergone surgery for throat cancer and stated: “My cancer was only a tiny tumor about the size of an almond at the base of my tongue. The cure is probably every bit as bad as the disease. It's affected my ability to swallow ... the mobility of my tongue ... it makes it very difficult for me to talk."^[19] He was later diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.^[31]

Guccione died of cancer on October 20, 2010, two months before his 80th birthday, at Plano Specialty Hospital in Plano, Texas, with his wife April at his side.^[2][31]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Penthouse magazine web site
• Bob Guccione biography from The Biography Channel
• Bob Guccione: Life in the Penthouse in LIFE
• Most Expensive Homes In America 2003 in Forbes
• Bob Guccione: Penthouse king laid low from BBC
• Bob Guccione at AllRovi
• Bob Guccione at the Internet Movie Database
• Bob Guccione at the Adult Film Database

Robert Charles Guccione, Jr. (born September 19, 1955, in New York, New York) is the eldest son of Penthouse founder Bob Guccione. He is best known for founding music magazine Spin.

Publishing career[link]

In 1978, after two attempts at going into the publishing business on his own, the young, London-raised Guccione, Jr. went to work for Penthouse publisher General Media International, a company owned by his father, Penthouse founder Bob Guccione. By the early 1980s, at which time he was running the marketing and circulation department, he left the company (and purported position as heir apparent) to once again attempt to establish his own brand.

[edit] Launching of Spin magazine (1985)

In 1985, with a loan from his father, he launched Spin. In 1987, his father abruptly shut down the magazine after General Media experienced a financial dip. These events resulted in an estrangement between the two which lasted until the elder Guccione's passing October 20, 2010. Guccione Jr. found new investors and relaunched Spin in late 1987. He managed to gather most of the magazine's old staff, and missed only one month of publication.

In 1996, Guccione and Spin were sued for sexual harassment and discrimination by Staci Bonner, a former fact-checker for the magazine. He was cleared of the harassment charges, but found liable for promoting a hostile work environment and not paying Bonner comparably to a man with a comparable job position.

Guccione Jr. sold Spin to Vibe in 1997, and shortly thereafter founded Gear, which published until 2003. In 2005, science magazine Discover was purchased from Disney Publishing, Guccione formed Discover Media, LLC to publish the magazine. In 2007, Guccione was ousted as CEO, in what was described by the New York Post as "a falling-out over philosophical differences with his financial backers about how to run the company." ^[1]

[edit] Gear Magazine (1998-2003)

Gear was launched in published in the United Kingdom devoted chiefly to revealing pictorials of popular singers, B-movie actresses, and models, along with articles on gadgets, cars, fashion, guy tales of sex, and sports.

Gear debuted in September 1998, with actress Peta Wilson on the cover. The magazine established itself with several publishing stunts such as publishing a nude photo of Women's football celebrity Brandi Chastain.

Jessica Biel controversy[link]

Gear reached its exposure apogee when it featured a nude pictorial of then 17-year-old actress Jessica Biel, who posed while appearing on the WB-TV family drama series 7th Heaven. A controversy arose when 7th Heaven castmate, actor Stephen Collins, who played her father on the series, described the pictures as "child pornography". Others praised it as a brave move.^[2] The publication, which reached a peak circulation of 500,000 copies sold in 2001, discontinued publication in 2003.

Personal life[link]

Guccione has dated several well-known and powerful women, which include journalist & Spin contributor Celia Farber, political commentator Ann Coulter, heiress Julianna Storne, and Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell. He has been married to the former Kimberlin Grace Brown since September 22, 2001.

Guccione was verbally attacked by Axl Rose in the Guns N' Roses song "Get in the Ring", along with a number of other people related to the music industry.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bob Guccione, Jr. at the Internet Movie Database

Kathryn "Kathy" Keeton (born February 17, 1939, South Africa – died September 19, 1997, New York, New York) was a magazine publisher along with her partner, and later husband, Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione. Her title was President/Chief Operating Officer of General Media Communications, Inc. She was also plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc..

Raised on a farm in South Africa and trained as a ballet dancer in London, Keeton became at age 24 what The Associated Press called 'one of the highest-paid strippers in Europe".^[1]

She founded the magazines Viva (1973), OMNI (1978), and Longevity (1989). She also published two books, Woman of Tomorrow (1986) and Longevity (1992).

Illness/death[link]

After her diagnosis with breast cancer, Keeton treated herself with hydrazine sulfate, after reading about it in Penthouse, one of her own publications. She claimed that she had ridden or shrunken almost all of the tumors and extended her life by several years, after being given a dire initial prognosis of only six weeks to live by her doctors.

Keeton died of complications during surgery for an intestinal obstruction, aged 58, in New York City.

References[link]

1. ^ Obituary in New York Times

External links[link]

• Keeton's proposed lawsuit against NCI; info regarding hydrazine sulfate
• Kathy Keeton at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

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Barry Michael Avrich (born May 9, 1963) is a Canadian film director, film producer, playwright, author, marketing executive and arts philanthropist. Avrich's film career has included critically acclaimed films about the entertainment business including The Last Mogul about film producer Lew Wasserman (2005), Glitter Palace about the Motion Picture Country Home (2005), and Guilty Pleasure about the Vanity Fair columnist and author Dominick Dunne (2004). Avrich also produced the Gemini-nominated television special Caesar and Cleopatra (2009) with Christopher Plummer.

Besides films, Avrich has also authored three books and one play and supported many leading cultural institutions including The Toronto International Film Festival and the Stratford Festival of Canada. Avrich was also responsible for creating the world's first state of the art movie theatre inside a children's hospital.^[where?] Avrich won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2008.

Early life[link]

Avrich was born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of Irving Avrich, a garment industry executive, and Faye Avrich, a housewife. His parents immersed him in the arts as a child. In school, Avrich produced talent shows and started experimenting with films. While attending Vanier College, he gravitated to the film program and while there, he produced many films. in 1980, he moved to Toronto where he continued to study film, art and theatre at both Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and the University of Toronto. While in school, Avrich started Rent-A-Fan Club, a company that offered "celebrity status" to people as a novelty by using his fellow acting students to create fan clubs. Soon after graduating, Avrich made two short films that would get him noticed: The King of Yorkville (1985) was a satirical parody of the 1980s dating scene that was picked up by local television stations in Canada, and The Madness of Method (1995), featuring M. Emmet Walsh, won a Gold Medal at the Bilbao International Festival of Documentary and Short Films.

Career[link]

Film[link]

Avrich created Melbar Entertainment Group in 1998 to produce documentary films. Along with producers Nat Brescia and Tori Hockin Laurence, Avrich has directed and produced many documentaries and television specials. His focus is generally on the entertainment industry and television specials including the music special, Bowfire for PBS (2008), One x One Gala (2007) for CTV and Caesar and Cleopatra (2009) for Bravo and CTV. Other films have chronicled defense attorney Edward Greenspan and the Rolling Stones promoter Michael Cohl. Recent projects have included films about Winston Churchill and David Steinberg. His 2010 film Unauthorized: The Harvey Weinstein Project went into limited release in February 2011. The Last Mogul (2005) is probably his best known film to date. The Variety critic Robert Koehler said of the documentary about Lew Wasserman, it "draws a full and balanced measure of the man, from his stratospheric rise to a remarkably humbling fall, and includes as thorough a study of the super-agent-turned-mogul's shady ties with organized crime as any feature docu could hope to muster."^[1]

Business[link]

Avrich began a marketing career in 1985 at Borden Advertising where he worked on national campaigns for the Canadian original production of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon. In 1989, Avrich joined Echo Advertising where he became partner and eventually CEO. While at Echo, Avrich and his staff developed award winning international campaigns for such clients such as the Toronto International Film Festival, the Rolling Stones, American Express, Sprint and for Broadway productions such as Ragtime, Show Boat, Fosse, Kiss of the Spider Woman and Canadian productions of The Phantom of the Opera, Cats and Les Misérables. Avrich left Echo in 2005 after it was sold to a UK based marketing firm and he started Endeavour, a boutique advertising agency. In 2009, Avrich won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award.

Personal life[link]

Barry Avrich married Melissa Manly in 1998 and they had a daughter in 2004.

Filmography[link]

• The King of Yorkville, 1987
• The Madness of Method, 1996
• Unforgettable: 100 years Remembered, 1998
• Glitter Palace, 2002
• Guilty Pleasure, 2002
• A Criminal Mind, 2005
• Satisfaction, 2006
• City Lights, 2002
• The Madness of King Richard, 2003
• The Last Mogul, 2005
• One x One Gala, 2007
• Bowfire, 2008
• Citizen Cohl, 2008
• The Ultimate Jew, 2009
• Caesar and Cleopatra, 2009
• Amerika Idol, 2009
• Unauthorized: The Harvey Weinstein Story, 2010
• The Tempest, 2010
• An Unlikely Obsession: Churchill and the Jews, 2011
• Limited Engagement: The Madness of David Steinberg, 2011

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Event and Entertainment Marketing, 1994, Probus Publishing
• Selling The Sizzle, 2002, Lester Publishing
• Selling The Sizzle 2, The Sequel, 2005, Lester Publishing
• The Madness of Method, 2001, Maxworks Publishing

External links[link]

• Barry Avrich at IMDB
• Barry Avrich's film reviews
• Barry Avrich's marketing career
• Barry Avrich's philanthropy
• Barry Avrich writes for Smithsonian Magazine
• Barry Avrich and The Toronto International Film Festival