Dysfunctional Family Businesses: The Gucciones-Minyanville

Dysfunctional Family Businesses: The Gucciones

Nico Carbellano Jul 09, 2009 8:46 am

Dysfunctional Family Businesses: The Gucciones


		What will be the next masterwork to come out of the House of Gooch?

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Somehow, in between dating the daughter of Imelda Marcos, Candace Bushnell, and -- at least according to the Gooch himself -- both “Brooke Shields and her mother,” he found time to buy and helm Discover. Naysayers who said Guccione was ill-equipped to run a science glossy were, well, right: He found himself ousted by his financial backers in 2007, after less than 2 years at the company.

Despite the fact that Guccione père and fils had a decade-long falling-out after Gooch the Elder tried (and failed) to take over Spin, the 2 men’s careers are weirdly similar.

Penthouse tried to occupy a market niche between “highbrow” Playboy and the rabble at Hustler; while Gear tried to play middleman between the venerable Esquire and relentlessly laddish titles like Stuff and Maxim.

Of course, Gear folded, and Penthouse is no longer in Guccione hands (he resigned in 2004). And Gooch Junior’s botched Discover venture resembles nothing so much as the old man’s OMNI magazine. The latter, “an original if not controversial mixture of science fact, fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal” seemed to be the model for the unpopular changes Guccione Jr. instituted at Discover, which included stories on such scientific topics as stigmata and “wonderment.”

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Sadly, as Junior has been “between projects” since leaving Discover, we’ll have to wait for the next masterwork to come out of the House of Gooch.

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