Al Goldstein

Al Goldstein – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Al Goldstein – the provocative American publisher who founded Screw magazine and challenged obscenity laws. Explore his life, controversies, impact on free speech, and memorable quotes.

Introduction

Al Goldstein (January 10, 1936 – December 19, 2013) was an American publisher, editor, and provocateur best known as the founder and driving force behind Screw, a weekly tabloid that pushed the boundaries of sexual expression in the U.S. His work straddled pornography, free-speech activism, scandal, legal battles, and cultural rebellion. Though deeply controversial, Goldstein’s life raises enduring questions about censorship, public morals, and the limits of expression.

In this article, we’ll trace his early life, his rise through Screw and related media, his legal and personal ups and downs, his legacy, notable quotations, and the lessons one might draw from a life lived largely on the margins of respectability.

Early Life and Family

Alvin “Al” Goldstein was born on January 10, 1936 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family.

He attended Boys High (a public high school in Brooklyn).

Goldstein’s life before publishing was eclectic. He served in the U.S. Army, working as a photographer in the Signal Corps.

Notably, Goldstein once spent several days in a Cuban jail after taking unauthorized photographs of Raúl Castro. These early episodes hinted at his willingness to flout boundaries and provoke authority.

Youth and Education

While Goldstein had exposure to debate, writing, and photography in his youth, he did not follow a conventional academic or literary trajectory. His formative experiences were shaped less by formal training than by his restless curiosity and defiance.

His early journalistic activity (student newspaper work, freelancing) and his exposure to radical or underground press circles likely influenced his later approach to publishing.

In short, Goldstein’s education was partly institutional but largely self-directed, driven by a challenge to norms rather than acceptance of them.

Career and Achievements

Founding Screw and the Shock Tabloid

In November 1968, Goldstein and his partner Jim Buckley each invested $175 to launch the weekly tabloid Screw in New York. Screw was unapologetic in its purpose: it reviewed pornographic films, peep shows, erotic businesses; ran sexual news and commentary; and included hardcore pictorials without editing or masking sexual content.

The magazine’s motto, in effect, was to “uncover the entire world of sex” and to refuse apology or restraint. Screw sold about 140,000 copies weekly.

Goldstein often framed Screw as a weapon against hypocrisy, censorship, and religious or social repression of sexuality.

Because of its content, Screw drew repeated legal challenges. Goldstein was arrested multiple times on obscenity charges.

Midnight Blue and Other Media Ventures

In 1974, Goldstein launched Screw Magazine of the Air, which evolved into Midnight Blue, a public-access cable television show. Midnight Blue, Goldstein interviewed porn stars, ran provocative segments (“Fuck You” segments directed at various public figures), and further pushed boundaries of what could appear on cable.

He also ventured into film production, sometimes under the Screw brand, with titles tied to adult or erotic themes.

Legal Battles, Controversy & Decline

Goldstein’s career was punctuated by legal and personal turmoil. He was arrested around 19 times for obscenity-related cases in Screw’s early years alone.

In 2002, he was convicted of harassing a former employee after publishing her phone number and encouraging calls in Screw. He served 6 days before the case was overturned on appeal.

By 2003, Screw was struggling and published its final issue (selling only about 600 copies).

As his fortunes declined, Goldstein lost his Florida mansion and his New York townhouse. Penn Jillette, who paid for a modest apartment for him.

Goldstein died on December 19, 2013, at age 77 from renal failure in a nursing home in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

Historical Context & Cultural Milestones

• Screw emerged during the sexual revolution of the late 1960s, when debates around censorship, morality, and freedom were intensifying in the U.S.

• Goldstein’s repeated obscenity trials helped test the boundaries of First Amendment protections for sexual content.

• His unapologetic tone, combative style, and embrace of shock made him a polarizing figure in American media history.

• Critics and defenders alike sometimes compared him with other adult-industry figures like Larry Flynt (Hustler) or Bob Guccione (Penthouse)—Goldstein positioned his work more aggressively and politically (or at least provocatively).

Legacy and Influence

Al Goldstein’s legacy is complicated—he is both reviled and admired depending on perspective. Some key elements of his influence:

• Free speech champion or provocateur?
  To defenders, Goldstein was a bold fighter against censorship, pushing boundaries so that sexual expression could not be suppressed under vague obscenity laws. To critics, his work was vulgar, exploitative, and offensive. His extremes often overshadowed the principled arguments he claimed to make.

• Cultural challenge to stigma
  Screw forced conversations about sexuality, hypocrisy, and the divide between public morality and private behavior. He stripped away pretense, often crudely and deliberately, to expose what he saw as hypocrisy.

• Influence on adult media
  Goldstein’s approach—mixing pornography with commentary, politics, and media spectacle—anticipated aspects of adult entertainment’s later mainstreaming in digital media and online platforms.

• Warning tale of excess and decline
  His fall from power—bankruptcy, legal defeats, personal decline—serves as a caution about the perils of confrontation without sustainable strategy or stability.

In summary, Goldstein remains an icon of extremity in American publishing history: a boundary-pushing, combative figure whose methods and outcomes remain deeply ambivalent.

Personality, Traits, and Public Persona

Goldstein cultivated a persona of anger, provocation, irreverence, and confrontation. He often wore outlandish outfits, made flamboyant statements, and reveled in scandal.

He described himself as an “angry Jew” and embraced his Jewish identity as part of his antagonistic stance toward religious authority.

Goldstein’s temperament was aggressive and combative. His Midnight Blue show’s “Fuck You” segments, where he verbally attacked public figures or legal adversaries, underscored his confrontational style.

He also displayed contradictions: at times boasting of his self-invention, while later reflecting with bitterness on loss, betrayal, illness, debt, and alienation.

Despite the shock tactics, he sometimes claimed a deeper motive: “demythologizing” sexuality, exposing hypocrisy, and pushing boundaries so society might reconsider its taboos.

His personality was polarizing: some saw him as a lunatic, others as a fringe hero of free speech.

Famous Quotes of Al Goldstein

Below are some notable quotations attributed to Goldstein (often abrasive or provocative in tone):

• “You need fighters like me to battle, because frankly The New York Times and the Washington Post are not going to fight the fights that I do.”

• “I may be making a lot of money, but I really believe I'm doing some good by demythologising a lot about sexuality.”

• “To be angry is to be alive. I’m an angry Jew. I love it. Anger is better than love.”

• “The true success is the person who invented himself.”

• “When every piece of furniture and your underwear are taken by the bank, when you lose your house … you don’t feel very good.”

• “Love is a deception and a trap. Love is as big a myth …”

These quotes reflect his combative worldview, his emphasis on self-creation, and his disillusionment with conventional norms.

Lessons from Al Goldstein’s Life

1. Freedom of expression often collides violently with social norms
   Goldstein’s life reminds us that pushing boundaries—especially around sexuality—invites legal, social, and personal backlash.

2. Provocation is powerful, but costly
   His methods achieved visibility and influence, but also instability, legal risk, and eventual downfall. Pushing hard without sustainable foundations can lead to collapse.

3. Identity as weapon and burden
   Goldstein embraced his Jewish roots and his outsider identity as tools of dissent, but these also came with internal and communal tension.

4. The danger of obsession and extremes
   A life oriented around extremes—anger, scandal, excess—can burn out one’s resources: financial, relational, emotional.

5. Legacy is contested terrain
   Whether one views him as a free-speech hero, a shameless pornographer, or both, Goldstein’s life suggests that impact is rarely clean or unanimously celebrated.

Conclusion

Al Goldstein was a polarizing, audacious figure who turned pornography into publishing provocation. His life was messy, destructive, theatrical—and, for some, emblematic of the fight over what society allows and suppresses.

He pushed limits, litigated for rights, and lived through extremes. His story warns of the toll of such confrontation, but also underscores that the margins often force us to ask difficult questions about expression, morality, power, and censorship.