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from www.nyulocal.com - NYU Trustee Marc Bell might have the most eccentric resume of all of NYU’s trustees.
He is a partner in Artichoke Pizza, for starters. He’s also the founder and CEO of the company that owns AdultFriendFinder and is a partner at Lavo, that crazy nightclub in Mid-town Manhattan. Oh, and his company owns Penthouse magazine, too.
But Bell is a man of many talents with some serious business acumen. Before becoming CEO of FriendFinder Network, which owns 40,000 websites with AdultFriendFinder among them (where one can “browse adult personals for sex dating, meet swingers for threesomes,” and “try free sex chat with local singles”), Bell served as the CEO of a corporation called Globix, which provides bandwidth and other internet infrastructure.
He founded Globix at the age of 21 and the company developed quickly under his oversight. FriendFinder went public in 2008, to try to raise $460 million. But the adult entertainment industry doesn’t come without its scandals.
Gawker reported in 2009 that Penthouse was in danger of closing, in the midst of a sexual harassment lawsuit. A former company employee accused the magazine of humiliating her when she objected to nude models allegedly coming into the office to serve ice cream. But Marc Bell told NYU Local, “The lawsuit was dismissed as nonsense and was never a threat to the company. There were never people in the office serving ice cream nude hence it was withdrawn.”
In 2010, FriendFinder offered to buy Playboy for $210 million, but Hugh Hefner declined. Bell personally reached out to The Hef, noting that the merger of the two companies would benefit both brands. Still, Hefner wasn’t so sure and the deal fell through.
In 2008, Bell was a major donor to President Barack Obama’s campaign, giving over $30,000. Yet, according to FEC records, Bell personally gave $2,300 to Mitt Romney’s 2008 campaign as well. Records even show that he gave to both Democratic and Republican campaigns in the same year, and to Michelle Bachmann in 2007, long before her appearance on the national stage. Currently, Bell is based on Boca Raton, Florida, where he’s made all of these donations.
Bell also helped invest the movie Normal Adolescent Behavior, which starred Amber Tamblyn, and was about a bunch of teenagers in a six-way relationship doing the sex with each other. It did well at Tribeca, but then was quickly aired and promoted by Lifetime.
[Bell denies any connection to Normal Adolescent Behavior.]
Half business man and half entertainment mogul, Bell produced Tony Award winning musicals Jersey Boys and Rock of Ages, as well as the musicals The Wedding Singer and August: Osage County.
Think of Bell the next time you get that drunk slice of pizza at Artichoke, maybe after you where he’s also a partner.
