1970S PENTHOUSE MAGAZINE SKIN

He had other things to pay for: his pampered mutts, his almost as cosseted dancer boyfriend, Kevin (who looked like a Ganymede come to life from a Renaissance painting), and French advertising posters from the early 1900s. Jim was not about to use his own expense account on anything so unnecessary as a meal (he ate almost nothing, getting through the day on three lunchtime vodka martinis). No one had clued me into what my responsibilities at Penthouse would be, but I quickly found out that the most important part of my job was taking Jim Goode to lunch, a chore I shared with the rest of the editorial staff.Ĭruising on Penthouse’s oceans of cash, all the editors, even the lowly, just-hired editorial assistant, enjoyed a generous expense account. “HAAAUUUBBNEER” he would boom out, summoning me from my lean-to in the back of the secretarial pool. (Wikimedia Commons)įrom that day forth, Jim never called me by my first name. “Get out of here, Haubner.” Three-martini lunch.

1970S PENTHOUSE MAGAZINE SKIN

If you took her arm,” here Jim grasped my wrist with his huge paw, “there would be deep indentations in her skin that lasted for days.” He released me with a shake. “She was pasty and white, like a loaf of bread dough.

As a reporter, Jim had covered the set of The Misfits for Life magazine, and I had been a fan of Marilyn since I was ten, when I saw Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on Saturday Night at the Movies. “Ah, I heard you met Marilyn Monroe?” I thought this was an excellent conversation starter. “Jim.” I took this as permission to approach. I was pretty sure any talent I had at being charming would fall on stony ground but I had to try I knew Jim had been fired at least once from both Penthouse and Playboy, so I was hoping for a sympathetic ear. Jim did not think this worthy of a reply but kept staring at me. “I’m Gay Haubner, ah, I was the assistant editor at Viva, and ah, Kathy Keeton thought I might fit in better at Penthouse.” I sidled into his office, hugging the wall. “What do you want?” rumbled forth like an early warning vibration from a thundercloud. Goode?” He looked up from the papers on his desk, fixing me with a blood-shot, Medusa glare. My first task at Penthouse was to introduce Jim Goode to his newest, and probably unwanted, staff member. Jim bore an unsettling resemblance to Lurch, the Addams Family butler, and laughed about as much, which was a good thing, as his gravely guffaw was blood-chilling, like the clanking of rusty chains. My new boss was Jim Goode, the executive editor, a scraggly 6’3” man with a bloodhound face who wore the same uniform of Levi’s, faded chambray shirt, and work boots every day, as if it were painted on him. I was now the editorial assistant at Penthouse magazine, foisted on their staff by my old boss Kathy Keeton.

I was no longer a Viva editor, but being fired for cursing out my boss taught me to keep my mouth shut in the face of stupidity, a skill which kept me employed for forty years. North Country Girl: Chapter 66 - “Dear Penthouse Forum…”įor more about Gay Haubner’s life in the North Country, read the other chapters in her serialized memoir.

1970s penthouse magazine