Bob Guccione

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Robert Charles Joseph Edward Sabatini Guccione (b. 17 December 1930 in Brooklyn, New York) was founder and, until his resignation in November 2003, publisher of the adult magazine Penthouse.

Guccione was born in Brooklyn. he was raised in Bergenfield, New Jersey and attended high school at Blair Academy, a prep school in Blairstown, New Jersey.^[1]

In his youth he traveled widely, and he sometimes earned his living as an artist, creating cartoons in the 1950s for Bill Box's humorous greeting card company, Box Cards. Guccione was very close to both his parents, Anthony and Nina Guccione until their death in the mid '90's. He was equally close to his uncle, Edward Sabatini Sr., whom he was named after in part. Guccione would often offer up his Manhattan mansion to host bi-annual "Sabatini Family Reunions" which often involved up to 100 relatives.

Guccione married his long time companion, Kathy Keeton, a native of South Africa. He stood by her side during her battle with breast cancer until her death. He began a cancer research foundation in her honor. It is often said that her death was the beginning of his end. Guccione owned a pack of six Rhodesian Ridgeback dogs which had full run of his Manhattan mansion. Guccione now lives in Palm Springs where he enjoys his life-long passion of painting.

At the height of his success, Guccione was considered to be one of the richest men in the United States. He was once listed in the Forbes 400 ranking of wealthiest people ($400 million net worth in 1982). ^[2] 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 half a billion dollars. ^[3]

Contents 1 Penthouse creation 1.1 Art background 1.2 Reclusive lifestyle 1.3 Controversial use of photos 1.4 Penthouse Forum 1.5 Media spinoffs 1.6 Falling popularity 1.7 Excessive spending 1.8 Online challenges 1.9 Family 2 Guccione Mansion 3 Fabled art collection 4 References

[edit] Penthouse creation

Penthouse was started in 1965 in England and began to be published in America in 1969. Penthouse was an attempt to compete with Hugh Hefner's Playboy on several levels. One approach Guccione took was offering editorial content that was more sensationalistic than Playboy. The magazine's writing was aimed more at the middlebrow reader than Hefner's upscale emphasis, with stories about government cover-ups and scandals.

[edit] Art background

Due to his lack of money and other resources, Guccione himself photographed most of the models for the magazine's early issues. Lacking 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 and, as this was during the sexual revolution, had sex with many of his models.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Reclusive lifestyle

As the magazine grew more successful, Guccione openly embraced a life of luxury; his mansion is said to be the largest private residence in Manhattan. 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. Reportedly, Guccione once had a party guest thrown out simply for jumping into the swimming pool fully clothed.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Controversial use of photos

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 and then full-frontal nudity. 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 resignation as Miss America in 1984; the issue in which Williams was first featured also included a layout featuring porn actress Traci Lords, who was later revealed to be underage during most of her porn career (including her Penthouse session). By the early 1990s, the magazine was showing sexual penetration in many of its photo layouts, something the American porn magazine industry did not adopt until later in the decade (Playboy has yet to cross this line in its print publications).

[edit] Penthouse Forum

The famous Penthouse Forum column, consisting of letters from readers writing about their (alleged) sexual experiences, was and remains one of the most popular features of Penthouse, with several books of the letters in publication.

[edit] Media spinoffs

Penthouse enjoyed great success in the 1970s and 1980s, and Guccione used some of this fortune to make a major movie (Caligula (1979) with Malcolm McDowell) and to create Omni, a magazine of science fiction and science fact, and Spin, a music magazine intended to compete with Rolling Stone by being more “edgy”. In the early 2000s Penthouse published a short-lived comic book spin-off entitled Penthouse Comix featuring sexually explicit stories.

[edit] Falling popularity

Penthouse was eventually superseded in notoriety by Larry Flynt's Hustler, which went further with both pictorial and editorial content than Guccione was willing to go. Penthouse thus was placed in a niche between Playboy's upper-class pretensions and Larry Flynt's blue collar no-holds-barred approach, and began to lose the significance it once had.

[edit] Excessive spending

Numerous unsuccessful investments on Guccione's part, including a never-built nuclear power plant and casino (which all-told lost in excess of $100 million USD), added to his publishing empire's financial strain.^{[citation needed]} 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, ^[4] but didn't have someone impersonating Guccione) and offering the Unabomber a free forum for his views, were not successful in reviving the magazine.

[edit] Online challenges

With the rise in online access to erotica and pornography in the 1990s, Penthouse's circulation numbers began to suffer even more. In 2003, General Media (the publishing company for Penthouse) declared bankruptcy, and Guccione himself resigned as chairman and CEO of Penthouse International, Inc. The magazine as of June 2006 was still in publication and had an online presence; its circulation was estimated at 500,000, roughly a tenth of what it was in at its peak.

[edit] Family

Guccione's English-reared son, Bob Guccione Jr. (b. 1956), was given editorship of Spin, but father and son soon fell out^[5] over editorial decisions, and Bob Jr. eventually found independent investors to continue the magazine. Father and son remain estranged, despite the senior Guccione's recent health problems.^[6]

Guccione's long-time publisher, companion and wife, Kathy Keeton, died in 1997 following surgery. Guccione has in recent years been treated for throat cancer, and is now fed through a tube directly into his stomach.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Guccione Mansion

Guccione lived in the largest private residence in Manhattan. According to The New Yorker, “It’s one of the biggest private houses in Manhattan, with 30 rooms, and it costs $5 million a year to maintain." ^[7]

In November 2003, the mansion on the Manhattan’s Upper East Side was foreclosed on by Kennedy Funding of New Jersey, ^[8] 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 rescue during his Sheriff enforced eviction. A London based investor named Jason Galanis lead an investment group that purchased the house for $26.5 million in cash. ^[9][10][11]

The home 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 teamed called Laurus Funds and Alexandre Asset management (today reportedly $1.6 ^[12] and $4 billion respectively) 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.^[13] It remains on the market for $59 million with Brown Harris Stevens. ^[14]

[edit] Fabled art collection

While unsuccessful as a recognized artist, Guccione was a painter and a world renowned collector of fine art.^[15] His art collection included extensive Impressionist Art. The Guccione collection are highlighted by a fine portrait by Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) and a sweet portrait of the artist's son, Paulo, by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973).

The Guccione art collection was sold at auction by Sotheby's in November 2002 to pay his personal debts originally incurred in the Atlantic City venture. ^[16] 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 resued Guccione in New York State Court for a $4 million shortfall on the loan balance.

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.^[17]

[edit] References

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