![]() Guccione's family said in a statement that he died at Plano Specialty Hospital in Plano. His company, his world-class art collection, his huge Manhattan mansion - all of it, sold off. Williams, who went on to fame as a singer and actress, was forced to relinquish her crown after the release of the issue, which sold nearly 6 million copies and reportedly made $14 million.īut Guccione's empire fell apart thanks to several bad investments and changes in the pornography industry, which became flooded with competition as it migrated from print to video and the Internet. In 1984 it was the magazine that took down Miss America, publishing nude pictures of Vanessa Williams, the first black woman to hold the title. He was listed in the Forbes 400 ranking of wealthiest people with a net worth of about $400 million in 1982. He estimated that Penthouse earned $4 billion during his reign as publisher. It worked for decades for Guccione, who died yesterday in Texas at the age of 79. Even more sensational letters that began, "Dear Penthouse, I never thought I'd be writing you." Where Hefner's Playboy magazine strove to surround its pinups with an upscale image, Guccione aimed for something a little more direct with Penthouse. “You see a cockiness in their style, like, ‘Yeah, I’m John Lennon.BOB Guccione had tried the seminary and spent years trying to make it as an artist before he found the niche that Hugh Hefner left for him in the late 1960s. The shirt Lennon wore (“a little yellow now”) has toured the world, and a day rarely goes by when Gruen doesn’t spot someone walking around in a T-shirt with his photo on it. And New York loved him back.” From that day on, the photo became “so popular there was no way to stop it,” says Gruen. ![]() He was very vocal about his love for New York. “Because John had fought to stay here and had been killed here. Gruen picked the now famous shot, which suddenly had “a poignancy no one could have imagined,” says Pang. Promoter Ron Delsener was drafted to organize a vigil in Central Park, and it was he who asked Gruen to choose a centerpiece image. In the days following his death, Ono was looking for a way for millions of fans to grieve. On December 8, 1980, 30 years ago next week, Lennon was assassinated by Mark David Chapman. The iconic image was instead one of the T-shirt shots taken on that sunny rooftop in 1974. “I thought that was a more important photo, but …” “The government was trying to put Lennon out,” says Gruen. In October, Gruen took Lennon-still a target of FBI surveillance and in the midst of a prolonged immigration battle-to the base of the Statue of Liberty, where the former Beatle flashed a V-for-victory sign. “John was self-conscious about the cutoff sleeves, but I assured him it was fine.” “He was becoming a New Yorker.” One of the shots captures Lennon pale and unsmiling, his arms folded across his stomach. It seemed right: “John had been in the city awhile,” says Gruen. “John smoked his French Gauloises and drank lots of strong coffee.” Gruen asked Lennon to put on a T-shirt he’d bought on the sidewalk for $5-white with NEW YORK CITY in bold black type, the black sleeves cut off with a buck knife for a tougher effect. “It was a beautiful, sunny day,” says May Pang, Lennon’s companion at the time. He’d worked with Gruen and knew he would shoot fast. Lennon needed a cover image and press photos for the new album, but he also wanted to get back to the studio. ![]() He loved it when people treated him like a normal person rather than a Beatle, and that could happen here.” “John was back in New York, sobering up, cleaning his life up. “It was kind of the Sunday night after Lennon’s ‘Lost Weekend,’ ” remembers photographer Bob Gruen, then 29. He was also recovering from his year and a half of carousing, most notoriously in Hollywood, while estranged from his wife, Yoko Ono. He had been at the Record Plant all week, mixing Walls and Bridges, his fifth solo album, and generally struggling to correct course after his first commercial failure (1972’s collection of mostly protest songs, Some Time in New York City). It was August 29, 1974, midday, and John Lennon, nearly 34 at the time, was up on the roof of his rented East 52nd Street penthouse. Bob Gruen's famous 1974 shot, left, with two outtakes.
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