The flamboyant publishing icon rose from a humble start to command a media empire.

More than 50 years ago, a struggling American painter living in London decided to compete with a popular American men’s magazine called Playboy.

His name was Robert Charles Joseph Edward Sabatini Guccione, and by the time his venture began to match his bold vision, he was on a fast track to becoming one of America’s richest men, with a taste for opulent living, priceless art, and beautiful women.

It was the early sixties, and Bob Guccione — Brooklyn-born son of first-generation Sicilian-American parents, raised in suburban New Jersey — had recently been hired by a little-known weekly newspaper, the London American. The paper had published some of his cartoons and humor pieces and thought enough of... Read More