![]() ![]() Attorney General Edwin Meese’s Commission on Pornography issued a report attacking the adult entertainment industry. In 1985, Guccione had to pay $45 million in delinquent taxes. Among those who sued were televangelist Jerry Falwell, a California resort, a former Miss Wyoming and a Penthouse Pet who accused Guccione of forcing her to perform sexual favors for business colleagues. He never received a gambling license and construction of the casino stalled. Guccione also lost millions on a proposed Atlantic City casino. However, it eventually became General Media’s most popular DVD. Probably his best-known business failure was a $17.5 million investment in the 1979 production of the X-rated film “Caligula.” Malcolm McDowell was cast as the decadent emperor of the title, and the supporting cast included Helen Mirren, John Gielgud and Peter O’Toole.ĭistributors shunned the film, with its graphic scenes of lesbianism and incest. Guccione lost much of his personal fortune on bad investments and risky ventures. ![]() Keeton died of cancer in 1997 following surgery, but Guccione continued to list her on the Penthouse masthead as president. Guccione and longtime business collaborator Kathy Keeton, who later became his third wife, also published more mainstream fare, such as Omni magazine, which focused on science and science fiction, and Longevity, a health advice magazine. He also created Penthouse Forum, the pocket-size magazine that played off the success of the racy letters to the editor that began, “Dear Penthouse, I never thought I’d be writing you…” umbrella that included book publishing and merchandising divisions and Viva, a magazine featuring male nudes aimed at a female audience. Guccione built a corporate empire under the General Media Inc. He added that he attained a stylized eroticism in his photography by posing his models looking away from the camera. “We followed the philosophy of voyeurism,” Guccione told The Independent newspaper in London in 2004. Penthouse quickly posed a challenge to Hugh Hefner’s Playboy by offering a mix of tabloid journalism with provocative photos of nude women, dubbed Penthouse Pets. ![]() He introduced the magazine to the American public in 1969 at the height of the feminist movement and the sexual revolution. Williams, now a singer and actress, was forced to relinquish her crown after the release of the issue, which sold nearly 6 million copies and reportedly made $14 million.Ī frustrated artist who once attended a Catholic seminary, Guccione started Penthouse in 1965 in England to subsidize his art career and was the magazine’s first photographer. Penthouse reached the pinnacle of its popularity in September 1984, when it published nude pictures of Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America. His wife, April Dawn Warren Guccione, had said he had battled lung cancer for several years. He was 79.Ī statement issued by the Guccione family says he died at Plano Specialty Hospital in Plano. DALLAS - Bob Guccione, who founded Penthouse magazine and created an erotic corporate empire around it, only to see it crumble as his investments soured and the world of pornography turned toward video and the Internet, died Wednesday. ![]()
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