Bob Guccione

[Alvin Lucifer]

I heard the rumor about the trailer park and I just don't believe it. I know the guy lost all his wealth, but was he such a prick he blew all his social capital too? I mean, didn't he have some posh friends he could shack up with or a PH-loving financier who would let him a wing in his mansion for a buck a month. Gooch? In a trailer park? Come on, really?

[AlanF]

I think Bob is more 'acceptable' than Hef, whos sole purpose these days is to look like a sleazy bastard with his latest wife.

[flyingtiger]

I am not sure how true this story is but, in the 70s Guccione want to build a casino in Atlantic City. He was connected to guy with connections. This guy wanted some money to bribe some politicians. This angered Guccione that he told the guy what he thought of this idea using a lot of obsenities. Later it was discoberied that this was some undercover operation runned by the FBI to uncover crooked politicians. Guccione was able to get a the tape copy of his outburst and play it back to friends. I like a guy who considers bribery to be obscene not blurry frontal nude photographs.

[FantasiaLeuven]

Hi Lawson
where did you get the info about Pia Sorensen and Bob Guccione?
where was Pia quoted? In Penthouse??

[Cheekymonkey]

Originally Posted by Alvin Lucifer

I heard the rumor about the trailer park and I just don't believe it. I know the guy lost all his wealth, but was he such a prick he blew all his social capital too? I mean, didn't he have some posh friends he could shack up with or a PH-loving financier who would let him a wing in his mansion for a buck a month. Gooch? In a trailer park? Come on, really?

I can only tell you that this is NOT a 'rumor'. I know this fact first-hand from immediate Guccione family members. As much as it doesn't make sense it actually happened, for whatever reason.
I thought everyone knew that when you got money you got lots of friends and when you lose it all those friends quickly desert you, like rats from a sinking ship

Actually, he did not end his life in the trailer park. After his ex-wife died he moved from trailer park into her house in New Jersey. He legally owned that house.....which leads to another tidbit - Bob never gave gifts freely! He would always put ' big gifts' in his own name - including his son's apartment and Porsche....and his ex-wife's house, which he could reclaim at any time, and very often did. What a guy! What a piece of work!

[FantasiaLeuven]

Originally Posted by Cheekymonkey

Here's just one example of the beautiful mind of Bob Guccione ........When he was young, before setting up Penthouse in US, he was living in UK plying his trade there. He had an art director that he wanted/ needed to take to US with him. The man did not want to leave his home and family, so the Gooch set him up, took compromising photos of the event, and blackmailed him. The guy enjoyed a good career with his boss in US.
Bob only ever played to win! In fact, he loved to play tennis. He would rally for hours, but never actually ever played a single game himself. Why? Because he could not stand the idea of ever getting beaten.
Once, some conversation got around to whether Bob Sr. might have been a Satanist as the magazines' themes had become darker. I thought the idea was just amusing until I picked up a copy after many years. Not only was I surprised to see the magazine feature extreme hardcore pornography, but when I turned the page my eyebrows raised as I glanced upon a naked male subject painted red head-to-toe with horns on his head etc. ravishing a virginal beauty, showing full unedited insertion. I thought that was most bizarre and it got me wondering........
Maybe his stratospheric success and wealth and ultimate loss of everything (even living in a trailer park with his girlfriend's mother at one point) and his slow and painful death was all a Faustian bargain?

Was it Derek Burton? He was PH UK art director in the 1970s .....

[FantasiaLeuven]

Originally Posted by lawson

He seemed to go out of his way to get Pia Sorensen and Joanne Latham for PH and both were quoted as saying how sexy he was (really?), I think there was some kind of bidding war to be the first to publish them nude. Jane Hargrave was obviously a fave of his too.

Interesting that you mentioned Pia Sorensen. She appeared as a PH Pet in PH UK in 1974. Although the fotos are not in Guccione's style, i have always wondered if they were really taken by Derek Burton who was PH UK art director at the time. Its the only PH pet fotos I have ever seen that were credited to him.

[FantasiaLeuven]

Originally Posted by Cheekymonkey

I know Bob Guccione is a hero to many for bringing us the Pets that were racier than the Bunnies, and for his battling to preserve First Amendment. Unlike Hef, the Gooch was VERY private, and for good reason. He had a dark side (not publicly known!) with a taste for under-age girls. One in particular he took away from her parents in Wales, UK, to make her famous (in a Ken Russell film about Moll Flanders that never got made), and after housing her and grooming her, sharing her with his common law wife (and who knows who else?), this poor wretch became an alcoholic, a drug abuser, suicidal and in and out of institutions her life. There are many other incidents, beyond his sexual deviancies, that were psychopathic, machiavellian, and heartless and left misery and self-destruction in his wake. To say he was evil incarnate would be an understatement.

I have noticed that during the 1970s many of the PH pets were from Scandinavia. Did Guccione have any specific connection with Denmark or Sweden...? or was it just a coincidence that many of his early models came from Scandinavia? In the 70s porn was much more available in Denmark and Sweden than Uk or US.

[Cheekymonkey]

Originally Posted by FantasiaLeuven

Was it Derek Burton? He was PH UK art director in the 1970s .....

I just had to go back to the source for this. It was his accountant, not art director (my mistake), called Gerald Kreditor. Kreditor's wife did not want to remain in USA and return to UK, so Bob decided it was best to get her out of the picture, to prevent his trusted accountant leaving him, so organized a little 'party' for Mr. Accountant featuring some nice girls and a little surreptitious photography of the event.

[Cheekymonkey]

Originally Posted by FantasiaLeuven

I have noticed that during the 1970s many of the PH pets were from Scandinavia. Did Guccione have any specific connection with Denmark or Sweden...? or was it just a coincidence that many of his early models came from Scandinavia? In the 70s porn was much more available in Denmark and Sweden than Uk or US.

I have absolutely no idea