The founder of 'Penthouse' has died aged 79. Andy McSmith tells the story of the man who brought pornography to the masses

At one stage he seemed destined for the priesthood – which may explain why Bob Guccione later poured $17.5m of his pornography-generated fortune into surely the only X-rated film in history that started with a quotation from the Bible. But there were no decorous adornments to Penthouse, his defining contribution to western sexual liberation in the second half of the 20th century. Pubic hair, full-frontal female and male nudes, close-ups of the clitoris, lesbian scenes, urination, fetishism fantasies and much, much more – all appeared for the first time at your friendly neighbourhood newsstand in the men's magazine he launched in 1965, and in Viva, a counterpart of Penthouse for women that followed a few years later.

When Hugh Hefner announced back in the early sixties that his Playboy bunnies were coming to London, there were howls of derision from some detractors who prophesied that Britain would never fall for the fluffy-tailed hostesses in the way that America had.

When the advertising salesman Kody Brown, his wife Meri, and his three other wives, Janelle, Christine and Robyn, decided to invite a film crew into the home they share with no less than 16 children, they presumed that a life of reality TV stardom would beckon.

You may not even know it – but if you are a male of a certain age, you have become the latest target in the battle of the sexes. Enough, says Michael Bywater. It’s time to fight back

A new English translation of the novel that scandalised 19th-century France has inspired October's 'Playmate of the Month' spread – and reignited debate about Flaubert's creation. John Lichfield reports

Playboy has launched a new, non-nude website that it described as being safe-for-work and a "satirical antidote to the drudgery of the work day."

A hugely muscled barbarian brandishes a broadsword, defending an impossibly nubile maiden from some hideous enemy: Frank Frazetta's cover paintings for the paperback editions of Conan the Barbarian captured the essence of heroic fantasy, and were credited with turning Robert E Howard's pulp magazine stories into a best-selling franchise that eventually spawned the Arnold Schwarzenegger films.

The parent company of Penthouse magazine yesterday tabled a bid to acquire its rival Playboy for $210m (£138m), trumping an $184m offer from the Playboy empire's octogenerian founder Hugh Hefner.

Hugh Hefner believes a buyout can revitalise the iconic but troubled brand

Hugh Hefner, the famous lothario and founder of Playboy magazine, was last night fighting to keep control of the business empire he created more than five decades ago.

It's now 50 years since the first Playboy Bunnies donned their tails, waggled their ears and performed the strange contortion known as the Bunny Dip to serve drinks to their suit-and-tie-wearing customers. When the original Playboy Club opened in Chicago in 1960, the ideal customer was "somebody with money and taste", as Hugh Hefner, the brand's now 84-year-old founder, tells me raspingly from his LA mansion. And he got such beaux sabreurs in droves to the Chicago, New York, London and myriad other Playboy establishments that were to follow. The Bunnies and what he calls their "clean, healthy, girl-next-door beauty" were, of course, the come-on – and, according to Hefner, the most crucial decision he made was to add collars and cuffs to their uniform: "Before that," he declares, "it looked like a bathing suit; they gave it elegance."

The Hollywood sign, a beacon to stars and star-struck alike, has been saved from urban sprawl under a land conservation pact announced after a donation by the Playboy founder Hugh Hefner capped a multimillion-dollar fundraising drive.

The Hollywood sign has been spared from urban sprawl and will stand unobscured to welcome future actors, writers and Austrian bodybuilders, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said.