Penthouse magazine founder Bob Guccione dies at 79

[CreekDog]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Bob Guccione had tried the seminary and spent years trying to make it as an artist before he found the niche that Hugh Hefner left for him in the late 1960s. Where Hefner's Playboy magazine strove to surround its pinups with an upscale image, Guccione aimed for something a little more direct with Penthouse.

More explicit nudes. Sensational stories. Even more sensational letters that began, "Dear Penthouse, I never thought I'd be writing you..."

It worked for decades for Guccione, who died Wednesday in Texas at the age of 79. He estimated that Penthouse earned $4 billion during his reign as publisher. He was listed in the Forbes 400 ranking of wealthiest people with a net worth of about $400 million in 1982.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/10/20/national/a183506D62.DTL&tsp=1

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Without him, we'd never get to read about how some dude did it with the cashier at the record store.

In excruciating detail. :eyes:

[edbermac]

1. Penthouse Letters were masterpieces of fiction.

Anyway RIP Mr Guccione.

[CreekDog]

9. those weren't real?

well what's so great about a pilot doing it with a stewardess if it's just made-up? :wtf:

(hey, they weren't using "flight attendant" when print porn was in vogue) :hide:

[Blue_Tires]

15. those beautiful stories were just as truthful as I wanted them to be...

:evilgrin:

[Drunken Irishman]

2. My first porno mag was my dad's Penthouse...

I stole it and kept it under my bed until it wore out its use. :D

[bertman]

3. $400 million. WHEW!! I sure helped him along the way in my younger years.

[The abyss]

4. RIP Bob

You shook things up far beyond Hefner!

<>

[mitchum]

6. Indeed; Hefner just reduced naked women to modern furniture and a big lawyer stereo...

shiny consumer objects for the post-war corporate drone.

[CreekDog]

8. but Guccione, he had the genius to see that porn could be dirty

what insight! :rofl:

[mitchum]

16. That's because Bob was a classicist

a painter versus the ad man Hefner

[mitchum]

5. RIP...the pornographer of choice for we dirty-minded humanities majors

[guitar man]

7. RIP Bob

Thanks for the mammaries...

:)

[Arctic Dave]

10. I've spent many a cold winter night "reading" your literature Bob.

Thanks you and the ladies for all that you do/did.

[madmax]

RIP Bob

My husband sold him furniture a few times and said he was funny and the nicest guy. He wrote a complimentary letter to the Corp HQ where my husband worked and also sent him a personal letter. Nice gesture from a guy who really didn't have to give a rats ass about a furniture salesman.

[madmax]

11. dupe

[John Kerry VonErich]

12. And then there's Caligula

RIP

[HughBeaumont]

13. RIP. Thanks for the . . .

. . . reading material :evilgrin: Oh, and the articles.

Dad gave me a ton of old Penthouses from his collection. Just weird looking at all the 70s-early 80s ads for things, and all the interviews and articles back when journalism was, you know, journalism.

Oh yeah, and progressives (and their progressive wives) watch and read porn and erotica. It doesn't make any of us any less progressive no matter what anyone says. GTFOI.

[iverglas]

20. GTFOI?

No clue what that is, but I promise to take it under advisement.

I'm a progressive. I was an adult in the 70s-80s.

I and progressives of that day, male and female, had no problem calling Guccione and his ilk the scum they were and are.

And sorry to say, I don't have and have never had a wife. Just born hetero, I guess.


Ha hah hah. How the little mindsets do ooze out, don't they?


"progressives (and their progressive wives)"

Christ, "X and his wife" was banished by major publishers back in the SIXTIES for the sexist burble it is.

[AndrewP]

14. $4 Billion! Wow. n/t

[Yeahyeah]

17. Where are they going to spread the ashes?

[Cirque du So-What]

18. Dear Penthouse Forum...

I never thought I'd be writing to you, but the wild experience that started about 2:00 AM this morning is the sort of thing I thought only happened to rock stars...etc., etc., etc....

In my youth, I found the photos in Penthouse a tasteful 'middle ground' between the airbrushed-to-perfection impossibilities in Playboy and the graphic depictions of 'a day in the life of a gynecologist' in the upstart Hustler.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Frank Cannon]

21. I'll always be grateful to him for giving us this...

It was great while it lasted.

RIP, Bob.

[iverglas]

22. Apparently

the fact that I was attacked here for voicing my opinion of Guccione and the comments in this thread meant that I should not voice my opinion.

Guccione was scum.

Good riddance.