Jimmy Flynt | |
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Jimmy Flynt is Co-Founder of Hustler Magazine
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Born |
Jimmy Ray Flynt June 20, 1948 Salyersville, Magoffin County, Kentucky, USA |
Occupation | Owner, Flynt Sexy Gifts |
Children | Dustin Flynt Jimmy Flynt II |
Jimmy Ray Flynt (born June 20, 1948) is the co-founder of Hustler. Flynt has been tried alongside his brother Larry Flynt in many battles involving the First Amendment − most notably in 1977 for obscenity charges in Cincinnati, Ohio. Larry was convicted; Jimmy was acquitted. The conviction was overturned.
Jimmy Flynt was born on Lakeville Road, Salyersville, Magoffin County, Kentucky, the youngest of three children to Larry Claxton Flynt, Sr. (August 16, 1919 – July 1, 2005), a sharecropper and a World War II veteran, and Edith Arnett (August 13, 1925 – March 29, 1982), a homemaker. He had two older siblings; sister Judy (1947–1951) and brother Larry Claxton Flynt (born November 1, 1942). His father served in the United States Army in the Pacific theatre of World War II.
The Hustler Club originated in Dayton, Ohio in 1967. Brothers Larry Flynt and Jimmy Flynt envisioned a chain of semi-private nightclubs which soon became a reality with the opening of the Hustler Clubs in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, in January 1970 and July 1971 respectively. The Hustler Club chain expanded into Toledo, Akron, and Cleveland, Ohio during the period between June 1972 and May 1973. Mini Clubs of America developed its own Magazine titled Hustler which began as a newsletter in January 1972. The monthly newsletter soon developed into a full-scale magazine sold on newsstands across the midwest; the Hustler was also sold in the clubs and mailed to over 10,000 club members with a readership of nearly 50,000 people, Hustler Magazine became an effective tool in the advertising and promotion of the Hustler Clubs.
On March 6, 1978, during a legal battle related to obscenity in Gwinnett County, Georgia, Larry Flynt and his local lawyer, Gene Reeves, Jr., were shot by a sniper later revealed as Joseph Paul Franklin in an ambush near the county courthouse in Lawrenceville. The shooting left Larry partially paralyzed, with permanent spinal cord damage, and in need of a wheelchair. Three months later, Larry, Jimmy, and Larry's then-wife Althea Leasure were involved in a dispute over ownership of the Hustler enterprise. In settling this dispute, Jimmy accepted ownership of Hustler subcompany Leasure Time Products, which sent sex toys and lewd T-shirts through mail order. In November, LTP vice-president Bill Abrams was shot as he and Jimmy were leaving the Hustler building.