Woodland Hills- The one obvious question you might not consider asking Marc Bell is where all his gold neck chains are. That’s because Bell, who’s taken over Penthouse magazine and is starting up an adult company called Penthouse Films, dresses as corporate as it gets. Bell’s guys all dress corporate, and January at AEE now looks to be a suit-off between Flynt’s people and Bell’s people. In fact former Flynt guy Don McDonald is now with Penthouse and probably knows all the Flynt fashion secrets. And when HBO gets around to making the movie about this Penthouse deal, Brian Dennehy plays McDonald and Tobey McGuire puts on a couple of pounds for the Bell role. But it all works.

Amid a pen & pencil setting that reminded you more of an SAT qualifier, Bell was in Woodland Hills today overseeing the first of what will probably be many talent searches to come up with Penthouse Pets and contract girls. Yeah, I could see Bill Gates doing something like this. In fact, Bell has similar origins. In 1989 at the age of 21, Bell founded the Internet firm Globix, one of the first Silicon Valley high-tech companies. Bell now invests in real estate and specializes in buying distressed companies’ debt and turning them around. Penthouse, under Bob Guccione’s Roman emperor lifestyle, became one of those so distressed.

I had a quick couple of minutes with Bell which is more time than I ever had with Guccione and Gates put together, though Bell didn’t see too inclined to want to talk about The Gooch who’s off living somewhere with his hairpieces- still more comfortably than probably you or I considering that he came very close to being another Al Goldstein.

Bell already knew me by rep since my interview with Bill Margold was practically dropped at his doorstep- the one with Margold proclaiming dire consequences of nude girls running around some Holiday Inn. Today’s talent call was nothing like that at all, however. Motorcycle cops in their jack boots and stretch uniforms were fairly obvious. And the talent, most of them accompanied by their agents, were as sedate as if they had just sat through a five hour AVN awards show.

The first question I put to Bell was concerning the on-going drama he had with Mexican entrepreneur Luis Enrique Fernando Molina for the control of Penthouse. Molina for all intents and purposes looked like he was going to be the new Gooch but Bell at the eleventh hour emerged with all the goodies.

“To make a long story short, we’re bond traders,” Bell tells me. “We bought the bond, tried to sell the bond to a gentlemen in Mexico, someone in Germany. Both times they never came up with the money. It took us about a year to do this. But we had been planning on owning this at the end of the day.”

Bell saw the deal almost as dispassionately as a Randy Johnson for Pedro Martinez basecall card exchange. “We buy bonds, we trade bonds.” As far as Bell was concerned the quality of the magazine was deteriorating. “The photography was getting harder and harder. It was not going in a positive direction. We realized that if we didn’t do something about it, Penthouse would be in a lot of trouble.”

As far as Bell’s concerned the adult business is like any other business. [My prediction? After six months exposure to it and some of its wacko players, Bell’s going to be playing Negro spirituals on his lips.]

“We’re just applying basic business practices to this,” says Bell of his new-found porno empire. I had to ask him if he was going to be a hands-on owner. I couldn’t help myself. “We’ve put a management team in there,” he says. “They’re running it. We’re not from the industry. We’re going to run it like a business- something that hasn’t been done there a long time.” I take that comment to mean that Guccione could have gone to a toupee discount warehouse to save a buck here and there.

Bell says he has a smattering of knowledge about the porn business. “But we’ve been in publishing before. We’ve owned magazines and a newspaper.” All of which was non-adult he’s quick to point out.

“This is a whole new ball game,” I venture to inform Bell. “I think you’re going to find this out.” Bell goes back to the about this being a basic business mantra. “It’s the same problems you have in any other business.” According to Bell there will be similar pit stops such as the one today in Miami, New York, Los Vegas. “And wherever else we need to do this in order to find the most beautiful women and get beautiful women back into the magazine.”

Bell predicts major changes in the look of the publication over the next year.