Porn purveyor Larry Flynt, who built Hustler magazine into an adult entertainment empire while championing First Amendment rights, died Wednesday. He was 78. A statement from Flynt's public relations manager said, "He passed quietly in his sleep at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center" with his wife and daughter at his side. Flynt's nephew said Flynt had been in frail health and died of heart failure.
From his beginnings as an Ohio strip club owner to his reign as founder of one of the most explicit adult-oriented magazines, Flynt constantly challenged the establishment and became a target for the religious right and feminist groups.
Flynt scored a surprising U.S. Supreme Court victory over the Reverend Jerry Falwell, who had sued him for libel after a 1983 Hustler alcohol ad suggested Falwell had lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse.
