Image collection
Larry Flynt (1942-2021)
US publisher Larry Flynt is dead, according to consistent media reports. The founder of the erotic magazine "Hustler" died on Wednesday in Los Angeles at the age of 78, as the newspaper "Washington Post" and the TV channel NBC reported with reference to his brother Jimmy and his daughter Theresa. The cause of death initially remained unclear. The publisher was controversial throughout his life: He and his magazines were repeatedly accused of vile and obscene behaviour. Flynt grew up in poor circumstances in rural Kentucky and Indiana. As a teenager he joined the military before founding his first Hustler strip club at the age of 22. He spiced up a small advertising pamphlet with news about his growing business into the first "Hustler" issue in 1974. Hustler" set itself apart from glossy men's magazines like "Playboy" and "Penthouse" with smut deep below the belt. The magazine made headlines time and again. In 1975, for example, Flynt published nude photos of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis taken by paparazzi. The fight against censorship and for freedom of expression was always on Flynt's agenda. He was tried countless times and even briefly went to prison. In 1977, he was sentenced to a quarter of a century behind bars for distributing pornography, but an appeals court overturned the sentence. After a court appearance in the US state of Georgia, Flynt was shot from ambush in March 1978. Since the assassination, he had been paralysed from the waist down; on special occasions, Flynt drove up in a gold-plated wheelchair. The shooter was a fanatic who later admitted to the shooting when he was already in prison for other crimes. (Keystone-SDA)