#CELEBRITIES IN PENTHOUSE MAGAZINE PROFESSIONAL#

Immediately upon filing, Cerberus Capital Management entered into a $5 million debtor-in-possession credit line with General Media to provide General Media working capital. On August 12, 2003, General Media, the parent company of the magazine, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. While these titles were successful, it is widely reported that the science and health magazines Omni and Longevity cost Penthouse almost $100 million, contributing to its eventual financial troubles.

In an effort to raise cash and to reduce debt, Penthouse sold its portfolio of several automotive magazine titles in 1999, for $33 million cash to Peterson Automotive, the national automotive-publishing group. 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.

In 1982, Guccione was listed in the Forbes 400 ranking of wealthiest people, with a reported $400 million net worth. However, managing director Kelly Holland quickly disavowed the decision and pledged to keep the print version of the magazine alive. On January 15, 2016, a press release emanating from then-owner FriendFinder Networks announced that Penthouse would shutter its print operations and move to all digital. In the late 1990s, the magazine began to show more 'fetish' content such as urination, bondage and ' facials'. In both cases, the photos were taken earlier in their careers and sold to Penthouse only after Madonna and Williams became famous. Penthouse has also, over the years, featured a number of authorized and unauthorized photos of celebrities such as Madonna and Vanessa Williams. The magazine's pictorials offered more sexually explicit content than was commonly seen in most openly sold men's magazines of the era it was the first to show female pubic hair, followed by full-frontal nudity and then the exposed vulva and anus. He reportedly once had his bodyguards eject a local radio personality who had been hired as a DJ and jumped into the swimming pool naked. 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. Guccione would sometimes take several days to complete a shoot.Īs 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 m 2).

#CELEBRITIES IN PENTHOUSE MAGAZINE PROFESSIONAL#

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. Due to Guccione's lack of resources, he personally photographed most of the models for the magazine's early issues. The magazine was founded on humble beginnings. Salisbury, Gail Sheehy, Robert Sherrill, Mickey Spillane, Ben Stein, Harry Stein, Tad Szulc, Jerry Tallmer, Studs Terkel, Nick Tosches, Gore Vidal, Irving Wallace, and Ruth Westheimer (Dr. Boyle, Alexander Cockburn, Harry Crews, Cameron Crowe, Don DeLillo, Alan Dershowitz, Edward Jay Epstein, Joe Flaherty, Chet Flippo, Albert Goldman, Anthony Haden-Guest, John Hawkes, Nat Hentoff, Warren Hinckle, Abbie Hoffman, Nicholas von Hoffman, Michael Korda, Paul Krassner, Michael Ledeen, Anthony Lewis, Peter Manso, Joyce Carol Oates, James Purdy, Philip Roth, Harrison E. Contributors to the magazine included such writers as Isaac Asimov, James Baldwin, Howard Blum, Victor Bockris, T.C.

Karpel, James Dale Davidson, and Ernest Volkman exposed numerous scandals and corruption at the highest levels of the United States Government. Guccione offered editorial content that was more sensational than that of Playboy, and the magazine's writing was far more investigative than Hefner's upscale emphasis, with stories about government cover-ups and scandals. Penthouse magazine began publication in 1965, in the UK and in North America in 1969, an attempt to compete with Hugh Hefner's Playboy. An April 2002 New York Times article reported Guccione as saying that Penthouse grossed $3.5 billion to $4 billion over the 30-year life of the company. In 1982 he was listed in the Forbes 400 ranking of wealthiest people. 5.2 Move from softcore to hardcore pictorials and backĪt the height of it's success, Guccione, who died in 2010, was considered one of the richest men in the United States.

Celebrities in penthouse magazine