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 became chairman of General Media International, Inc., which also published other adult magazines, licensed foreign editions, and produced videos. However, Penthouse's circulation declined in the late 1990s with the widespread availability of erotica on the Internet. By 2000 Guccione was in debt and seeking alternative sources of funding, including selling many pieces of his art collection. Then, in 2003, General Media International filed for bankruptcy and Guccione resigned as chairman. The following year Penthouse was sold to a group of private investors.

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 owned 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 also ventured into the Internet, running a subscription Web site.

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 had a collection of fine art, which included works by Botticelli, Modigliani, and Matisse, and some property holdings, but much of this wealth was lost to personal debt. In 1998 he suffered a health crisis with throat cancer but has survived with treatment.