R.I.P. Bob Guccione - An Afternoon in Caligula's Lair

The publishing world lost a giant today. I am proud that I met paesano Bob Guccione

It was 1991 and Discovery Channel was having continued success with our primetime Science block, and the strategy was to get away from one-off's and look for branded collaborators with pre-promoted appeal.  This led to exploratory sorties or projects with Disney-owned Discover Magazine, James Burke, Arthur C. Clarke, and other recognizables.  But the most fantastical of these discussions is the one that led Clark Bunting, Denise Baddour, Tim Cowling  and me to stroll one brisk autumn weekday afternoon up 67th street off the park in NYC and into the 22,000 sq. ft. Guccione manse for a meeting with Bob and his wife Kathy Keeton.

Bob had summoned us to discuss "putting Omni magazine on TV."

Once inside, we stepped up wide marble stairs, past enormous amphorae to a regal Great Hall: carpeted, gilded and decorated with enormous classical statues.  The home was populated by at least 4 very large, copper colored dogs of Great Dane dimension.  The dogs lounged with us.  Bob and Kathy sat in thrones, it seemed, and we reclined like Roman senators.  The only thing missing was a languid Penthouse Pet to feed me grapes from above....  Somehow in the smalltalk phase we identified that both his family and my mother's had emigrated to Joisey from southern Italy - mine from Naples and his from Sicily - and we talked about spectacular Greek ruins in Taormina, Agrigento, and Siracusa, spots I'd visited while living in Sicily years earlier.

Then we got down to brass knuckles and velvet gloves.  Bob was the consummate businessman: totally focused, impressively literate and knowledgeable on the wide range of scientific subjects covered in Omni, and a keen Discovery Channel viewer.  He was clear and deliberate about what he wanted, and understood that we'd want corresponding benefits. 

There was development follow-up with Omni super-editor Patty Adcroft, and a few more conversations, but the vines that we watered that day ultimately bore no fruit.  Bob was bold and genuine in his pitch; the timing just wasn't right for our budding little original production unit to engage on a large seven-figure commitment, or to properly promote the resulting series.  Like so many development discussions, it was great while it lasted, but the first flush of promise came to naught and the event exists as a bit of a one-afternoon stand.

I never had any dealings with Penthouse magazine - that is, no professional dealings - but did have an awkward moment in 1987 when Vestron Video, publisher of both the National Geographic's home video line and Penthouse Video, used a cut-rate duplication vendor who mixed up some tapes on the assembly line, resulting in one of our National Geographic customers opening a Nat Geo box, popping a tape into the VHS deck and getting an eyeful of Keisha Dominguez and Teri Weigel. Survival being of the fittest, in the end, we all survived.  And thrived.

Obituary:   The King is Dead - Long Live the King!