Bob Guccione, Penthouse founder was 79

Guccione, the onetime New Jersey artist who gave the world Penthouse, the movie Caligula and the late Omni magazine, died Wednesday in Plano, Texas after a long battle with cancer. He founded Penthouse in London as a rival to Hugh Hefner's Playboy, and as the New York Times puts it, "by the early 1980s he was one of America’s richest men, king of a $300 million publishing empire, General Media, which owned Penthouse, with a monthly circulation of 4.7 million in 16 countries, and 15 other magazines, including Omni and Penthouse Forum as well as titles on bodybuilding, photography and computers, in addition to book, video and merchandising divisions." The empire crumbled with time, and after creditors foreclosed on the Guccione mansion, he moved out in 2006.

Guccione in "The Making of 'Caligula'"