Bob Guccione

Robert Charles Joseph Edward Sabatini Guccione (December 17, 1930 – October 20, 2010) was an American visual artist, photographer and publisher. He founded the adult magazine *Penthouse* in 1965, aiming to challenge *Playboy* by offering more explicit erotic imagery, a distinctive soft-focus photographic style, and serious investigative journalism focused on government corruption and the art world. By 1982, his success had placed him on the *Forbes* 400 wealth list, and he owned one of Manhattan’s largest private mansions. However, a series of extravagant investments failed, and the rise of free online pornography in the 1990s severely eroded his market. In 2003, his publishing company filed for bankruptcy, and Guccione resigned as chairman.

Born in Brooklyn to Italian-Sicilian parents and raised Catholic in Bergenfield, New Jersey, Guccione briefly considered the priesthood before attending Blair Academy. He married his first wife, Lilyann Becker, at age 22 in 1953, but left her and their daughter to pursue painting in Europe. He later settled in London with his second wife, Muriel Hudson, supporting his family by managing laundromats and working as a cartoonist for an American weekly newspaper while his wife sold pinup posters.

*Penthouse* launched in the United Kingdom in 1965 and reached North America in 1969. Unlike *Playboy*’s more mainstream consumerism, Guccione’s magazine featured sensational, investigative reporting on government cover-ups, written by journalists like Seymour Hersh, and focused on the art world rather than sports. Guccione personally photographed many early models due to limited resources. The magazine pioneered increasingly explicit content, first showing female pubic hair, then full-frontal nudity, and later exposed vulva and anus, pushing boundaries as legal restrictions on pornography were struck down. It also published unauthorized celebrity photos, including those of Madonna and Vanessa Lynn Williams, the latter leading to her resignation as Miss America 1984. In the late 1990s, the magazine incorporated fetish content. Guccione’s failed investments included the Haludovo Palace Hotel in Yugoslavia, a $45 million project that opened in 1972 with Penthouse Pets as staff but went bankrupt the following year.