Flynt, Larry Claxton, Jr.,
1942-2021, American magazine publisher, b. Lakeville, Ky. Flynt was the son
of a sharecropper, and dropped out of school at age 15 to enlist in the
Army; after his discharge, he joined the Navy as a radio operator. Moving to
Dayton, Ohio, in 1964, he opened a bar and subsequently a circuit of strip
clubs through the state that he called Hustler clubs. In 1974, he launched
Hustler magazine, featuring graphic nude photographs,
portrayals of fetishistic sexual acts, and political and social satire.
Flynt portrayed himself as a champion of free speech and press freedom, most
notably in defending the magazine against a $45 million libel suit brought
by the Rev. Jerry Falwell in
1983. Falwell objected to an article that satirized his conservative
beliefs. The jury rejected the libel charge, but did order that Flynn pay
Falwell for his emotional distress; this was subsequently overturned by the
Supreme Court in 1988, which ruled that parody was constitutionally
protected free speech. The magazine enjoyed its greatest success in the late
‘70s-mid-‘80s, when its circulation was estimated to be two
million, but dropped to 500,000 by 2015. Flynt was shot by a white
supremacist in 1978 while he was in court defending himself on an obscenity
charge, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. His controversial
stance on free speech was celebrated in the film The People vs.
Larry Flynt (1996; dir. Milos Forman), although some social
critics and feminists decried his work as violent and degrading to women.
See his autobiography (1996, with K. Ross); J. Brooker-Marks, Larry Flynt: The Right to
Be Left Alone (2007; documentary film).
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