Bob Guccione’s death might not seem like the most likely topic on which I might alight. But nearly thirty years ago, I shared a meal with Guccione and his wife and co-publisher, Kathy Keeton, at their townhouse on East 67th Street. His death last week brought that memory so vividly back to me, and with it came a few things to consider.

While the worlds of magazine publishing and advertising are much aligned for me, I had few reasons to be hobnobbing with the publishers of centerfold magazines on behalf of clients or the agency. But through friends in Los Angeles, I came to know the family of Frederic Mullally – the wacky, witty creator of Oh Wicked Wanda, Penthouse’s answer to Playboy’s adult comic-strip, Little Annie Fannie.

While Annie was less a libertine than a loopy, good-natured victim, Wanda was always in command. Her whip and her whims struck images of the powerful and mighty, from Kissinger and Nixon to Teddy Kennedy, Mohammad Ali and Frank Sinatra. It might be said that Annie’s positioning defined misogynistic humor, aspiring to nothing more, while Freddy Mullally, a British journalist and novelist of proven wit and intellect, fully intended to poke fun at the political and corporate empire of the United States; and used, with great style, a sexy dominatrix hell-bent on world domination, as his barb.

And so it came to be, as they used to say in bible stories, that Mr. Mullally, from his home in Gibraltar, and a team of producers in Hollywood, wanted to create a movie based on Wanda. It made sense in the moment of Myra Breckenridge and Superman. It might even make sense today.

At their request, I found Freddy an entertainment lawyer in New York, the marvelous (and now much missed), Michael Collyer. And because there was no representative of the family in New York, the Mullallys asked me to tag along with Michael to a few meetings, and to report back to their side of the table. I was only too happy to get an insider’s look at the goings-on behind the scenes of movie politics. Getting Mr. Guccione’s permissions on ownership of Wanda was only part of the tasks at hand. But Bob Guccione wanted to do this in person, and off we toddled to one of the great homes in New York. This was the neighborhood in which I’d grown up, but I had no idea that there were houses sheltering grotto-like swimming pools, plunge-perfect, off their entrance foyers. Needless to say, Madison Avenue poodles notwithstanding, I had no idea that there were homes filled with Pets, either.

On the evening we were summoned to chez Guccione, a magazine event was just breaking up, and the pool, garden and staircase were lavishly draped with said Penthouse Pets wearing togas of a translucent sleeze that reminded me of the sheer under-curtains in motels. While their nearly undressed breasts were much in evidence, they wore pantyhose with reinforced toes and tacky, high-heeled sandals. It was almost too much to take in. In this glorious home, with a pool designed for a Roman emperor, there was a chorus line of girls, decked-out like participants of a Halloween party in a trailer park. I must have looked shocked, and Michael took my arm, protectively, as though I were an innocent child or an old auntie.

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