Kathryn Keeton

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Notes:

Kathy Keeton Guccione, 58, President of Magazine Company
By ROBIN POGREBIN
Published: September 23, 1997

Kathy Keeton Guccione, who helped found Penthouse magazine in the United States with her husband, Bob Guccione, died on Friday at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. She was 58 years old and lived in New York.

The cause was complications from surgery to bypass an obstruction in her upper digestive tract, according to Jackie Markham, a spokeswoman for General Media, the magazine's publisher. Breast cancer was diagnosed in Ms. Keeton in 1995.

Ms. Keeton, who used her maiden name, was president and chief operating officer of General Media Communications Inc., which publishes several magazines and runs other media operations on the Internet. She was also vice chairman of General Media International, the holding company that oversees the publishing arm.

Raised on a farm in South Africa and trained as a ballet dancer in London, Ms. Keeton became at age 24 what The Associated Press called ''one of the highest-paid strippers in Europe.''

She met Mr. Guccione that year when he was starting Penthouse in London and she became one of the company's first employees, selling advertising. The two began living together two years later but did not marry until 1988.

In 1969, Ms. Keeton helped Mr. Guccione establish Penthouse in the United States and co-founded the science magazine Omni in 1979 and the health magazine Longevity in 1989, both of which are now published only on the Internet.

Ms. Keeton was the author of two books, ''Longevity: The Science of Staying Young,'' published in 1992, and ''Woman of Tomorrow,'' published in 1985.

She spent the last two and a half years of her life fighting to get what she considered a fair trial for the cancer drug, hydrazine sulfate, which Ms. Keeton credited with extending her life, according to Ms. Markham. Ms. Keeton also established the Kathy Keeton Cancer Research Foundation to encourage research in alternative and complementary cancer therapies.

In addition to her husband, Ms. Keeton is survived by five stepchildren; her brother, Keith Keeton of South Africa; her uncle, William Keeton of South Africa, and three cousins, also of South Africa.

Family/Spouse: Bob Guccione. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]