The Twilight of Bob Guccione. He rarely leaves The House, a vast, vine covered Upper East Side crypt that is the largest private residence in Manhattan. Confining himself to a modest suite of rooms on the mansions third floor a level from which he will sometimes not stir for weeks on end he sleeps by day and works by night, hunched over a light table in a chaotic, paper strewn office garret, poring over slides of naked young women. He is at once a public relations master and a recluse a street savvy cynic and a gullible optimist a tough guy heavy and a sensitive artist. At the pinnacle of his power, when he was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, he even dreamed of defying death. Today December 1. Obituary Penthouse Founder Bob Guccione Dies at 7. He is Robert Charles Joseph Edward Sabatini Guccione, creator of Penthouse, the greatest adult magazine in history. Unlike Playboys airbrushed, schoolboy take on boobs n buns, Gucciones Penthouse made sex look like something that happens between real adults who werent your parents. Mafia 2 Playboy Magazines Pictures' title='Mafia 2 Playboy Magazines Pictures' />Dark, decadent and more elegantly louche than Hugh Hefners magazine ever dreamed of being, Penthouse played bad boy Rolling Stones to Playboys perky Beatles. A prime artifact of the glamorously gritty Seventies, Penthouse was the adult magazine that wormed its way into the kinkier recesses of the libidinal subconscious and, arguably, did more to liberate puritan America from its deepest sexual taboos than any magazine before or since. And in its moody visual style and muckraking, conspiracy theory heavy journalism, Penthouse also happened to be a direct reflection of its complex, unsmiling and mysterious creator. Bobs a little an hedonic, says Dick Teresi, former editor of Omni, the science magazine that Guccione published from 1. Theres a satanic sense, a darkness even a Sicilian darkness that reminds me of all my Sicilian relatives. A paranoia. Playboy has fun loving girls. But with Penthouse theres a darkness. Well, thats Bob. This article appeared in the April 1, 2. Rolling Stone. The issue is available in the online archive. Mafia 2 Playboy Magazines Pictures' title='Mafia 2 Playboy Magazines Pictures' />He has always made it a point to leave visitors waiting. Today is no exception. As I wait in the second floor ballroom of his mansion, I have time to admire the white Icelandic goatskin rug underfoot, the hand carved tables and chairs, the gilded eighteenth century piano with ornate candelabras and the full size mosaic inlaid indoor swimming pool. Mafia 2 Playboy Magazines Pictures' title='Mafia 2 Playboy Magazines Pictures' />After forty minutes, Guccione finally makes his entrance, descending a curving marble staircase from his office and bedroom suite. Despite all he has been through lately and its enough to crush a lesser man he carries himself with an imperial swagger, shoulders back, head high a Roman ruler sauntering to the lip of a balcony to survey his subjects below. He gives very few interviews these days, most by fax, almost none in person. The reason is obvious the moment he speaks. Very nice to meet you, he says in a mushy half whisper that is almost indecipherable. The sad condition of Gucciones once famous baritone is the result of cancer that has claimed most of his tongue, soft palate and epiglottis. A liquid nutrient mixture, Boost administered by a tube attached to a peg implanted in his abdomen, is his sole means of sustenance now a cruel circumstance for a man whose taste for female flesh was rivaled only by his pleasures as a gourmand and amateur chef. Mafia 2 Playboy Magazines Pictures' title='Mafia 2 Playboy Magazines Pictures' />Rolling Stones Biggest Scoops, Exposs and Controversies This, he says with a smile, as he settles into a chair opposite me, is a time when you realize that food is even more important than sex. Except it comes out Thish ish a chime innoo reelyshe food ish even maw potent thin sesh. Otherwise, Guccione seems surprisingly well youthful, strong, like a man half his age. A face lift he had some years ago startles less in person than in photographs. His hairpiece is age appropriate a silver fox semipompadour. His lean, muscular body exudes more than a little of the old sexual threat the famous chest, sun lamped to a ruddy roast beef hue, is exposed to midabdomen by a Greek fishermans jersey, sleeves rolled high to expose powerful biceps. But reminders are everywhere of his diminishment. Gone from amid his graying chest hairs are the multiple gold chains and medallions that were his sartorial signature. He has been forced to edit his neckwear to a single gold strand. I was getting so many MRIs and tests, he explains, you have to take them on and off it got to be a pain in the ass after a while. Program Za Projektovanje Kuca on this page. Photos Big Names Show Some Skin on the Cover of Rolling Stone To the sounds of deeply muffled traffic from outside, we talk about Gucciones childhood, his peripatetic youth, the origins of Penthouse. Impeccably well mannered, he is gracious, cultured, amusing, a born raconteur and clearly enjoying himself. So it seems a jarring impertinence to interrupt his happier musings to ask him about his current problems. But to my surprise, Guccione is glad to discuss them. Over the course of four separate interviews, he never once goes off the record, and he talks with surprising candor about his fall. By turns rueful, sardonic, bitter and resigned, he blames much of his ruin on others the FBI, the Reagan administration, Atlantic City gaming officials, the zeitgeist itself. And there is much truth in Gucciones explanations. He is nothing if not the victim of cruel fates. But the ultimate reality is that his dramatic fall is chiefly his own doing, the inevitable result of the very confidence, grandiosity, fearlessness, suspicion and entrepreneurial braggadocio that allowed a middle class Jersey boy to build what was one of the most successful magazines in publishing history and become, for a time, one of the richest men in America. That optimism and disjuncture from reality gave him the capacity to get where he got, says a former business adviser. I mean, Bob was a guy who said, Lets compete with Playboy. Who in their right mind would do thatWell guess whatOn a recent Charlie Rose Show commemorating Playboys fiftieth anniversary, Hugh Hefner complained of not getting enough hugs as a child. Hustlers Larry Flynt grew up deprived in the South, his first sex partner a chicken. By contrast, Gucciones childhood was exceptional for its abundance of love and stability. Wasted money on unreliable and slow multihosters LinkSnappy is the only multihost that works. Download from ALL Filehosts as a premium user at incredibly fast speeds Allowed tags lta href title ltabbr title ltacronym title ltb ltblockquote cite ltcite ltcode ltdel datetime ltem lti ltq cite lts ltstrike ltstrong. Born in Brooklyn, he was raised in Bergen field, New Jersey. The eldest of three children and the only boy, he was doted on by his first generation Sicilian American parents. His father, Anthony, was an accountant for a neon light company owned by one of his wifes brothers. Guccione was devoted to both parents but especially his mother, Nina. The feeling was mutual. To her, says Gucciones eldest son, Bob Jr., my father could do no wrong. The confidence instilled in him by his worshipful mother manifested itself early. At school, my classmates would follow me, Guccione says. I would set the pace This is what were going to do. This is how were going to do it. At the same time, he demonstrated an early penchant for reclusiveness, sequestering himself for hours with pencil and paper. I wanted to be an artist, he says, first a cartoonist, then an animator and then a painter. But in his late teens, after graduating from high school at the private Blair Academy, Guccione briefly explored a different ambition the priesthood. He joined a seminary but lasted only a few months before he renounced the celibate life. Nikki Benz is a social media phenomenon and arguably the most famous Canadian pornstar of all time. With more than 117,000 followers on twitter and a.