ARI UP OF THE SLITS: Some of the first-generation punk rock women copied, mocked, or expanded on the then-traditional bad-boy rocker tropes. Ari Up, with her bandmates, did something different. They created a sound that was neither “fuck me” nor “fuck you.” It was totally rocking, totally strong, and totally feminine. And it’s seldom been matched.

BOB GUCCIONE: His masterwork, the first two decades of Penthouse magazine, was not merely a “more explicit” imitation of Playboy, as some commentators have described it. It had its own aesthetic, its own fully formed identity.

And so did its originator. If Playboy founder Hugh Hefner was more like William Randolph Hearst (a hermit philosopher secluded on his private estate), Guccione was more like Charles Foster Kane (living with gusto, building and losing a fortune). A Rolling Stone profile, published just before Guccione reluctantly gave up control of what was left of the Penthouse empire, depicts the open-shirted, gold-chain-bearing mogul as a man who poured millions into “life extension” research, even while he smoked the five packs of cigarettes a day that took much of his mouth in 1999 and his life last week.

TOM BOSLEY: Now we may never know what happened to Richie’s older brother.