The one-time New Jersey resident, whose magazine's explicit nudity served as a dirtier rival to the more high-brow Playboy, was also a painter whose works were featured in museums such as the Nassau County Museum of Art in New York.

Guccione claimed Penthouse earned $4 billion during his reign as publisher, and he was listed in the Forbes 400 ranking of wealthiest people with a net worth of about $400 million in 1982.

The skin magazine brought down a religious icon and a beauty queen during the 1980s. It published nude photos of Miss America Vanessa Williams, which cost her the crown. It also featured sexually explicit tales of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart that toppled his ministry in 1988 and 1989...