Gloria Leonard - High Society

After her adult film career, for 14 years Leonard served as publisher of High Society magazine, which pioneered such novelties as nude celebrity photos and phone sex lines. She was hired by the magazine's publisher Carl Ruderman, who wanted a female publisher of a men's magazine. Margot Kidder, Ann-Margret and Barbra Streisand attempted to sue the magazine after it published nude photos of them. Leonard established the first phone-sex lines in 1983, and the magazine fought a legal case over them in the Supreme Court. She was in charge of High Society from 1977 to 1991. In the early 1980s, Leonard almost clinched a deal for Norman Mailer to write a porn film but the plan never came to fruition.