Bob Guccione - Career

Career

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. 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. 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.

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. 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".

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. 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. 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.