Papers of Gloria Leonard, 1940-2015

Feminist, publisher, pornographic film star, and free speech advocate, Gloria Leonard was born Gale Sandra Klinetsky, in the Bronx, New York, on August 28, 1940, the daughter of Russian immigrants Louis and Frances "Fanny" Klinetsky. Leonard had one older brother Harry and two older sisters Miriam and Lila. Leonard's first marriage was to Chick (Charles) Leonardi, a hairdresser. They had one daughter Robin, in 1963, and the marriage ended in divorce in 1967. In 1975 Leonard married and then soon divorced Ronald Kaplan, an economist. Leonard was separated from her third husband, adult film director and magazine publisher Bobby Hollander, when he died in 2002.

After high school, Leonard worked various jobs, including as a secretary; Wall Street broker; writer of liner notes for Elektra Records; as a publicist, including at General Artists Corporation (1957) and Gene Schoor Associates Public Relations (1958); and as a ghost writer for Dr. Joyce Brothers (early 1960s). In the early 1970s Leonard was living in Puerto Rico and working for a film company as a production manager. She returned to New York interested in pursuing film production work. While working as a secretary in an accounting firm she met the filmmaker Radley Metzger, who was interested in Leonard not as a production assistant but as an actress in his new adult film project, The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976). This film launched her adult film career. Through the mid-1980s she appeared in or directed 30 adult films, including Odyssey: The Ultimate Trip (1977) and All About Gloria Leonard (1978), which she also directed. In 1977 she was hired by Carl Ruderman, an owner of High Society men's magazine, to be the magazine's publisher. She worked at the magazine until 1991, working on all aspects of the day-to-day operations of the magazine. Leonard became well-known for publishing topless photographs of celebrities in the magazine's feature, "Celebrity Skin." The photographs, which were largely lifted from film stills, were of popular actresses of the 1970s, including Goldie Hawn, Suzanne Somers, and Barbra Streisand. In 1983 Leonard also started the magazine's Living Centerfold Telephone Service, one of the first phone-sex lines. The phone sex line began as the "Gloria Leonard Hotline," where callers would hear a two-minute recorded message of Gloria's voice presenting a preview of the next issue of High Society. The popularity of this scheme inspired the magazine to expand the offering. Renamed the "Living Centerfold Telephone Service," the phone sex lines attracted over 500,000 callers each day who paid to listen to recorded sexual messages.

In addition to Leonard's film work and publishing, she hosted her own television programs, including The Leonard Report: For Adults Only, a talk show format where Leonard interviewed celebrities and personalities in the pornography industry, and Gloria Leonard's Hot Shopper Hour, a home shopping program where Leonard and her co-host, Mike Eagan, sold sex toys, lingerie, and other sexually explicit items to viewers. In 1984 Leonard founded one of the industry's first adult actress support groups, Club 90, whose members included popular adult film actresses like Veronica Vera, Veronica Hart, Annie Sprinkle, and Candida Royalle. Leonard also served as administrative director of the Adult Film and Video Association of America (1989-1992) until that organization merged with the Free Speech Coalition, a pornography industry trade group. In 1998 she became president of the Free Speech Coalition.

Throughout her career Leonard defended the pornography industry and her participation in it, appearing on talk shows and in debates on college campuses with anti-pornography activists, including Dolores Alexander, the president and founder of Women Against Pornography. She considered herself a feminist and disagreed with mainstream feminism's rejection of pornography, insisting that feminism means that women should be able to pursue whatever career they choose. A strong advocate for free speech, Leonard faced multiple lawsuits challenging her actions while at the helm of High Society. In the 1980s the federal government charged that the phone sex lines violated the free speech guarantees of the Constitution. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1989 that the messages were sexually explicit but not obscene and were therefore protected by the First Amendment. Actress Ann Margret sued the magazine for publishing a semi-nude portrait of herself from the film Magic in 1980. The Manhattan Federal Court judge who heard the case dismissed Margret's claim that High Society violated her right to privacy since she was a public figure who knowingly posed partially nude for the film. In 1979 Barbra Streisand sued the magazine for publishing a topless image of herself, which was cut from the final version of the film The Owl and The Pussycat (1970). Streisand requested an injunction to halt the magazine's publication. Although Streisand won her case, the magazine had already gone to press. Leonard recalled any issues not yet shipped and sent telegrams to the magazine distributors who may have received the magazine to remove the offending pages.

After her career at High Society magazine, Leonard continued to speak publicly defending the pornography industry and as an advocate for free speech. Leonard was living in Hawaii at the time of her death from a stroke on February 3, 2014.