Guccione, Bob (1930- )

US publisher and editor-in-chief of Penthouse magazine. After an early career as a painter, Guccione founded Penthouse in London in 1965, to compete with US publisher Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine. In 1969 he gave up his painting ambitions and moved to New York to publish the US edition of Penthouse, which became his flagship magazine. He is chairman of General Media International, Inc., which publishes four other adult publications, licenses foreign editions of its magazines in 15 countries (including the UK edition of Penthouse to English publisher Richard Desmond in 1983), and produces videos.

When the first edition of Penthouse was published in 1965, Guccione was served with an indecency writ and had to appear in court, although the event gave him considerable publicity. General Media International also owns a comic-book division, four specialist motor magazines (which he sold to EMAP in the UK for £21.9 million in 1999), and the Saturday Review. The company has also ventured into the Internet, running a subscription Web site. Penthouse's circulation declined in the late 1990s, with the widespread availability of erotica on the Internet, and in 2000 General Media was reported to be seeking alternative sources of funding.

Guccione was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of an accountant of Sicilian descent. A former altar boy, he briefly joined a seminary before deciding to become an artist, and spent time travelling in France, Italy, and Morocco, making a living by drawing pencil sketches of tourists. He moved to London in 1953 and ran a dry-cleaning company while continuing to paint, reportedly exhibiting his work in Italian restaurants.

In 1976 Guccione produced the controversial film Caligula, which was seized in the USA on suspicion of breaking obscenity laws, impounded by UK customs in 1980, and eventually broadcast in the UK in 1999.

With his wife, South African-born publisher Kathy Keeton Guccione, he co-founded a consumer publication, Omni, in 1979, and a monthly magazine called Longevity, dedicated to the art of staying young. Guccione has a collection of fine art, which includes works by Botticelli, Modigliani, and Matisse, and some property holdings.