Robert Charles Joseph Edward Sabatini Guccione (b. December 17, 1930 in Brooklyn, New York) is the founder of the adult magazine Penthouse and was, until his resignation in November 2003, its publisher.

Guccione was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Bergenfield, New Jersey. He attended high school at Blair Academy, a prep school in Blairstown, New Jersey. In his youth, he traveled widely, and had wild adventures with friends like William S. Burroughs in Tangier. He sometimes earned his living as an artist, creating cartoons in the 1950s for Bill Box's humorous greeting card company, Box Cards.

At the height of his success, Guccione was considered to be one of the richest men in the United States. He was once listed in the Forbes 400 ranking of wealthiest people ($400 million net worth in 1982). 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 half a billion dollars.

Career

Penthouse was started in 1965 in England and began to be published in America in 1969. Penthouse was an attempt to compete with Hugh Hefner's Playboy on several levels. One approach Guccione took was offering editorial content that was more sensationalistic than Playboy. The magazine's writing was aimed more at the middlebrow reader than Hefner's upscale emphasis, with stories about government cover-ups and scandals.

Due to his lack of money and other resources, Guccione himself photographed most of the models for the magazine's early issues. Lacking 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. Guccione would sometimes take several days to complete a shoot and, as this was during the sexual revolution, reportedly had sex with many of his models by his own admission.

As 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 . 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. Reportedly, Guccione once had a party guest thrown out simply for jumping into the swimming pool fully clothed.

The magazine's pictorials offered more sexually explicit content than was commonly seen in most openly sold men's magazines of the era, being the first to show female pubic hair and then full-frontal nudity. Penthouse has also, over the years, featured a number of authorized and unauthorized photos of celebrities such as Madonna and Vanessa Lynn Williams. In both cases, the photos were taken earlier in their careers and sold to Penthouse only after Madonna and Williams became famous. In Williams' case, this led to her resignation as Miss America in 1984; the issue in which Williams was first featured also included a layout featuring porn actress Traci Lords, who was later revealed to be underage during most of her porn career (including her Penthouse session). By the early 1990s, the magazine was showing sexual penetration in many of its photo layouts, something the American porn magazine industry did not adopt until later in the decade.

Guccione used some of his fortune to make a major movie (Caligula (1979) with Malcolm McDowell) and a supporting cast including Helen Mirren, John Gielgud, and Peter O’Toole. Guccione also created Omni, a magazine of science fiction and science fact. In the early 2000s, Penthouse published a short-lived comic book spin-off entitled Penthouse Comix featuring sexually explicit stories.

Decline and resignation

Numerous unsuccessful investments on Guccione's part, including a never-built nuclear power plant and casino (which all-told lost in excess of $100 million USD), added to his publishing empire's financial strain. Guccione's efforts to regain sales and notoriety, which included attempts to get Monica Lewinsky to pose for the magazine (which was parodied in a sketch on Saturday Night Live in 1998, but didn't have someone impersonating Guccione) and offering the Unabomber a free forum for his views, were not successful in reviving the magazine.

With the rise in online access to erotica and pornography in the 1990s, Penthouse's circulation numbers began to suffer even more. In 2003, General Media (the publishing company for Penthouse) declared bankruptcy, and Guccione himself resigned as chairman and CEO of Penthouse International, Inc. The magazine as of June 2006 was still in publication and had an online presence; its circulation was estimated at 500,000, roughly a tenth of what it was in at its peak.

Legal dispute

Currently Guccione is suing Penthouse Media Group for fraud, breach of contract, and conspiracy, among other charges. Some of the people named in the case include Jason Galanis, Charles Samel, Marc Bell, Dr. Fernando Molina, and Daniel C. Stanton. It was Jason Galanis and Charles Samel who were allegedly working with Guccione to keep his media empire.

Other work

Guccione can be credited with helping launch the careers of some notable media professionals. He gave Anna Wintour her first job as a fashion editor for his magazine Viva.

Guccione was an investor in the films Chinatown and The Day of the Locust.

Personal life

Family

Guccione's English-reared son, Bob Guccione, Jr. (b. 1956), was given editorship of Spin, but father and son soon fell out over editorial decisions, and Bob Jr. eventually found independent investors to continue the magazine. Father and son remained estranged despite the senior Guccione's health problems, but are reported to have recently reconciled.

Guccione married his long-time companion, Kathy Keeton, a native of South Africa. She died of cancer in 1997 following surgery, but Guccione continued to list her on the Penthouse masthead as President until he lost control of the magazine.

Residence

Guccione brought artisans in from France and Italy to build the largest private residence in Manhattan. As a tribute to Guccione the artisans carved both his and his wife's face into the marble columns near the entrance. According to The New Yorker, “It’s one of the biggest private houses in Manhattan, with 30 rooms, and it costs $5 million a year to maintain."

In November 2003, the mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side was foreclosed on by Kennedy Funding of New Jersey, the mortgage holder along with an affiliate of multi billion-dollar hedge fund Elliot Associates of New Jersey. In January 2004, a group of investors came to Guccione’s aid during his Sheriff-enforced eviction. A London-based investor named Jason Galanis lead an investment group that purchased the house for $26.5 million in cash.

The house was purchased by NY Real Estate LLC, an entity set up to acquire the mansion. Galanis contributed $2.6 million, and two New York hedge funds called Laurus Funds and Alexandre Asset management (today reportedly $1.6 and $4 billion respectively) made a mortgage loan of $24 million to NY Real Estate LLC, which was owned by Penthouse International, the parent and debtor-in-possession of General Media.

As a result of the continuing contentious bankruptcy which lasted over a year, the promissory notes due to Laurus were considered in technical breach of covenants which resulted in severe financial penalties in excess of $8 million. Penthouse International elected to forego refinancing the house due to the combination of the penalties and the unfavorable lifetime lease of $1.00/year that was granted to Guccione, which made the property unmarketable. Laurus sued Guccione to take possession of the house from the tenant. It was reportedly sold for $49 Million, well below the asking price of $59 million, to Wall Street financier Philip Falcone.

Guccione also had to sell his country house in Staatsburg, New York. The estate was purchased by actress Uma Thurman and hotelier Andre Balazs.

Art collection

While unsuccessful as a recognized artist, Guccione was a painter and a world-renowned collector of fine art. His art collection included extensive Impressionist Art. Highlights of the Guccione collection included a portrait by Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) and a portrait of the artist's son, Paulo, by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). He also owned paintings by: Sandro Botticelli, Albrecht Dürer, El Greco, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico, Edgar Degas, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Jules Pascin, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Georges Henri Rouault, Chaïm Soutine, and Vincent van Gogh.

The Guccione art collection was sold at auction by Sotheby's in November, 2002 to pay Guccione's personal debts originally incurred in the Atlantic City venture. The collection was appraised by Christie’s at $59 million two years before. However, September 11, 2001 had depressed the art market and the Guccione collection failed to achieve its appraised price. The aggregate sale price was $19 million, which was used to pay Swiss Re, the lender. Swiss Re sued Guccione in New York State Court for a $4 million shortfall on the loan balance.

Guccione had a history of leveraging his prized asset. He borrowed $20 million from AIG, the insurance company. Subsequently they refinanced with Swiss Re Insurance.