Word: hustler
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Market Appeal. Champions of free speech spoke up vigorously for Larry Flynt, but it was not easy; what he publishes is in its fashion as outrageous as last week's verdict. Hustler has printed photos of a brunette being ravished by a snake, a pictorial feature of a nude woman 8½ months pregnant, and gruesome illustrations of various genital and gynecological oddities. The cartoons seek sick snickers in such topics as castration, excrement, bestiality and, in one memorably tasteless panel, Betty Ford's breast cancer. Every issue features photographs sent in by readers, displaying the private parts...
Apparently so. Hustler's circulation has climbed in 32 months to nearly 2 million, behind only Penthouse (4.6 million) and Playboy (5.7 million). Nearly all copies of Hustler are offered on newsstands, and most of its advertising is for Flynt-marketed dildos, vibrators and other such recreational equipment. The publisher, who owns his magazine outright, claims he netted $20 million last year, two-thirds of it from Hustler, the rest from his sexual devices and from Chic, a slightly flossier Los Angeles-based sibling magazine he launched last summer...
...away from his old Kentucky home at age 14, Flynt joined the Army, then the Navy, worked the night shift at a General Motors assembly plant and, at the advanced age of 21, went bankrupt. He moved to Columbus, and a few years later, was the proprietor of eight Hustler Club bars. He eventually sold the chain, but not before turning its four-page newsletter into Hustler...
...flag pin on the jacket of his colorful leisure suits, Flynt today commands an enterprise that occupies parts of two Columbus office buildings and has more than 150 employees. Associate publisher and chief aide is Althea Leasure, 23, whose prior publishing experience consisted of posing nude for an early Hustler. Larry and Althea, who were married last August, occupy a 27-room Columbus mansion in which they have installed a swimming pool, gold plumbing fixtures, a heart-shaped bathtub and three servants...
Flynt remains a puritan about his work. He puts in 18-hour days, personally approves all Hustler and Chic photo layouts and edits many manuscripts himself. "When I see a long word that I don't know, I take it out," he says. Lately Flynt has hired experienced editors to help him, waged a high-minded campaign against smoking and scored a minor coup by signing Norman Mailer to do an interview with John Ehrlichman-for $12,500. Untaken offers include $1 million each to Gloria Steinem, Raquel Welch, Julie Nixon Eisenhower and Barbara Walters, among others, to pose...