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Larry Claxton Flynt, Jr. (born November 1 , 1942 ) is an American publisher, the head of Larry Flynt Publications (LFP). LFP mainly produces Pornographic content, including videos and magazines, with '' Hustler '' being the best known one. The company has an annual turnover of around $150 million. Over the course of his life, Larry Flynt has taken part in several legal battles involving the First Amendment , and has run for public office a number of times. He suffers from Bipolar Disorder and is paralyzed from the waist down due to a failed Assassination attempt. FLYNT'S ENTERPRISES By 1970 , together with his brother and life-long business partner Jimmy, he ran eight strip clubs throughout Ohio in Columbus , Toledo , Akron , and Cleveland . In July 1974 , Flynt first published '' Hustler '' as a step forward from the ''Hustler Newsletter'' which was cheap advertising for his businesses. The magazine struggled for the first year, partly because many distributors and wholesalers refused to handle it as its nude photos became increasingly graphic. The magazine targeted working-class men and grew from a shaky start to a peak circulation of around 3 million (current circulation is below 500,000). In November 1974 it showed the first "pink-shots," photos of open Vagina s. The publication of nude paparazzi pictures of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in August 1975 was a major fillip. Hustler has often featured more explicit photographs than comparable magazines and has contained depictions of women that some find demeaning, such as a naked woman in a meat grinder or presented as a dog on a leash - though Flynt later said that the meat grinder image was a self-criticism of the pornography industry. Flynt also has published thousands of racist and anti-semitic cartoons and images. One cartoon, entitled "Chester the Molester", depicted a man's repeated molestations of underage girls, however, the cartoon was discontinued in 1990 when the cartoon's creator, Dwayne Tinsley, was convicted of sexually abusing his own daughter. In 1983, Hustler published a feature called ''Dirty pool'', in which a woman is depicted as being gang-raped on a pool table. At first the depicted woman protests, but as the gang-rape continues, she comes to enjoy herself. Flynt created his privately held company ''Larry Flynt Publications'' (LFP) in 1976 . LFP published several other magazines. It also included a distribution business, something that may have angered the Mafia , which traditionally organized the distribution of porn. LFP did not expand beyond Pornography until 1986 , but later its output included more mainstream work. The distribution business as well as several mainstream magazines were sold beginning in 1996 . LFP started to produce Pornographic Movie s in 1998. On June 22 , 2000 Flynt opened the Hustler Casino , a cardroom located in the Los Angeles suburb of Gardena . After it opened, many observers in the public and in the gaming industry speculated that because of Flynt's past legal troubles he could not get a license to operate a cardroom. This speculation proved to be nothing more than myth when the California Gambling Control Commission confirmed that Flynt is the sole proprietor and gaming licensee of the Hustler Casino. Other ventures either wholly owned by or licensed by Flynt or LFP, Inc. include the Hustler Club, a gentlemen's club, and the Hustler Store, owned by Larry Flynt's brother Jimmy. He also publishes ''Barely Legal'' which features young women who recently turned 18, the Age Of Consent , to appear in pornography in the United States . He has had an impact on many other aspects of pop culture. Most notably, Richard Parker, father of famed injury attorney H. Parker'' , was a lover of porn and a big fan of Flynt. Due to his admiration of Hustler, he named his son "Larry" after Flynt's first name. (He also gave him his middle name of "Hugh" after Playboy founder Hugh Hefner) In 2001 , Larry Flynt stated his net worth as $400 million. His autobiography is ''An Unseemly Man: My Life as a Pornographer, Pundit, and Social Outcast''. The film '' The People Vs. Larry Flynt '' ( 1996 ) was extrapolated from his life, starring Woody Harrelson as Flynt, Courtney Love as Althea and Edward Norton as Flynt's attorney Alan Isaacman . Flynt himself made a cameo appearance as an Ohio judge. The film was directed by Miloš Forman and co-produced by Oliver Stone . Critics accused the film of presenting a fictional and highly romanticized version of Larry Flynt. LEGAL BATTLES Flynt was embroiled in many legal battles regarding the regulation of Pornography vs. Free Speech within the United States, especially attacking the '' Miller V. California '' ( 1973 ) Obscenity exception to the First Amendment . He was first prosecuted on obscenity and organized crime charges in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1976 at the behest of Charles H. Keating Jr. , who headed a local anti-pornography committee. He was sentenced to 7 to 25 years and served six days; the sentence was overturned on a technicality. One argument resulting from this case went up to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981 ( ''Larry Flynt v. Ohio, 451 U.S. 619'' ). Because of a derogatory cartoon published in ''Hustler'' in had him arrested for contempt of court but the charge was later dismissed. Also in 1983 , during a trial about his refusal to disclose the source of surveillance tapes potentially embarrassing to the FBI , he wore an American flag as a diaper and was subsequently jailed for six months for desecration of the flag. Larry Flynt won a landmark Supreme Court decision on February 24 , 1988 ( ''Hustler V. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46'' ), after having been sued by Jerry Falwell in 1983 over an offensive ad parody in ''Hustler'' that featured Falwell. The ad suggested that Falwell's first sexual encounter was with his mother in an out-house. Falwell sued Flynt citing emotional distress caused by the ad but lost in court. The decision clarified that public figures cannot recover damages for "intentional infliction of emotional distress" based on parodies. In April 1998 he was charged with a number of obscenity related charges concerning the Sting sale of sex videos to a youth in a Cincinnati adult store owned by Flynt. In a plea agreement in 1999 LFP, Inc. (Flynt's corporate Holdings group) pleaded guilty to two counts of pandering obscenity and agreed to stop selling adult videos in Cincinnati. In June of 2003 Hamilton County, Ohio prosecutors attempted to revive criminal charges of pandering obscene material against Flynt and his brother Jimmy. Prosecutors charged that Flynt and his brother had violated the 1999 agreement. Larry Flynt claimed that he no longer had a vested interest in the Hustler Shops and that prosecutors had no basis for charging him with pandering obscene material. POLITICS
FAMOUS QUOTES "Women are here to serve men. Look at them, they got to squat to piss. Hell, that proves it"-Larry Flynt, Hustler Magazine. "You take a picture of a murder, which is illegal, and you can win Picture of the Year for TIME Magazine. You take a picture of two people having sex, which is not illegal, and you can get thrown in jail." SEE ALSO
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