Who

Goldstein is the pioneering smut peddler best known for his porno mag, Screw, and his long-running cable access show, Midnight Blue.

Backstory

Raised in Brooklyn—he describes himself as a "a fat Jewish kid who jerked off daily just to make sure the pipes were working and dreamt about the world that existed over the Williamsburg Bridge"—Goldstein was a radio car driver, photographer for Pakistan International Airlines (he trailed Jackie Kennedy on her goodwill tour of Pakistan in 1962), industrial spy, and tabloid journalist before starting up Screw with $150 in 1968. One of the adult entertainment industry's modern day pioneers along with Larry Flynt and Hugh Hefner, Goldstein built the weekly rag (its motto: "The World's Greatest Newspaper") into a local media institution, developing a rep not only for exceedingly lurid content but also for his frequent First Amendment court battles and vicious attacks on his enemies. The '70s were Goldstein's heyday: Screw sold half a million copies when it featured nude photos of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1973. But it's been a slow, steady decline for Goldstein—both personally and professionally—ever since.

Of note

Goldstein once sat atop a multi-million dollar fortune, but his porn empire started to unravel as the adult newspaper industry went by the wayside in the '90s. The porn king's ultimate undoing, though, came in 2002, when he was convicted of harassing a former employee and landed in prison. Suffering from numerous health problems and with his empire in tatters, Goldstein's rag went belly-up a year later (Screw has since been re-launched under new management) and the down-on-his-luck adult impresario resorted to taking a job as a greeter at Second Avenue Deli. (He was fired after it was discovered he was homeless and sleeping in the restaurant's basement.) The publication of his 2006 memoir, I, Goldstein, earned him a few bucks, but he says he's still looking for full-time work. If you happen to have a job for a fat, Jewish, cigar smoking, ex-con, you can email him at alvingoldstein@gmail.com.

In person

The obese, bearded lifelong cigar smoker has suffered a variety of ailments in recent years, most of which are related to, well, a life spent eating and smoking cigars. Several years ago, he lost 150 pounds after a stomach-stapling operation.

Personal

Goldstein has been married five times. His first spouse was a woman named Lonnie, whom he has since praised for her "humongous tits"; his second wife was a flight attendant named Mary, who divorced him when he cheated on her. He was married to his third wife, Gina, for 14 years; wife number four was a woman named Patti whom Goldstein has since described as a "con-artist." Most recently he was hitched to a Trinidadian psychology student named Christine Ava Maharaj, 40 years his junior. (He's now on the hunt for wife No. 6 and says he's the perfect match for a woman who's looking for "a 72 year old bearded Jew whose cock still works and is the greatest pussy eater in the galaxy.") Goldstein had one son during his third marriage: Jordan is a Harvard Law grad who worked as an associate at the vaunted law firm of Wachtell, Lipton. Father and son have been estranged for more than a decade.

Habitat

Goldstein's financial woes forced him to sell his West 61st Street townhouse and his Pompano Beach, Florida mansion (along with the 11-foot-tall raised middle finger statue that sat in the backyard.) During his quasi-homeless period, at one point he slept in a borrowed car behind a Boston Market in Florida. He currently lives in a Staten Island apartment paid for by magician Penn Jillette.

No joke

Goldstein estimates that in his sexual career, he's slept with over 7000 women and "sucked about a half dozen cocks." He says "the few interludes with circus and farm animals number less than five."