U.S. hard-core porn pioneer Al Goldstein, who went from multimillionaire owner of Screw magazine to being homeless on the streets of Manhattan after his sleaze empire collapsed, is making a comeback.
Goldstein, 69, last employed as a greeter at a Kosher deli and as a wholesale bagel salesman working on commission, is back promoting smut, this time over the medium that helped push him from his porn pedestal -- the Internet.
Goldstein was named Monday as national marketing director for XonDemand, an Internet video-on-demand porn Web site. The site is an Internet version of the old-fashioned peep shows that populated the once-seedy stretch of 42nd Street west of Times Square. Customers can pay a per-minute charge for viewing a pornographic firm or order the whole movie.
Goldstein built an $11 million fortune off the now-defunct Screw, which he founded in 1968, and New York cable TV show ”Midnight Blue.” He went bankrupt more than a year ago, blaming his fall on the proliferation of porn on the Internet.
Legal problems have also plagued the former porn king, who was forced to sell his $2.5 million Florida mansion and New York townhouse to pay off debts.
Goldstein, who had taken to sleeping in Central Park and at homeless shelters, was charged with shoplifting from a Manhattan bookstore last year.
He was convicted in 2002 of harassing a former secretary, whom he accused of stealing, by disparaging her on his cable TV show, printing her home address in his magazine and threatening her over the telephone.