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- [00:01]
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- [01:32]
Josh Clark
Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
- [01:42]
Chuck Bryant
Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Boogie Down Josh and there's Disco Stu, Chuck, and it's just the two of us because Diana Ross Jerry is not here right now.
- [01:54]
Josh Clark
Yeah, this is what I'm surprised we didn't tackle shortly after our disco episode as like a two parter.
- [02:00]
Chuck Bryant
It is a little surprising, isn't it? But I hadn't heard of Studio 54 until you picked this, so I don't know how that would have been possible.
- [02:07]
Josh Clark
That's funny.
- [02:08]
Chuck Bryant
I'm just kidding. I have. I've heard of it. I'm cool man. I'm hip. Even though I guess I was 11 year old to 3 years old when it was open. So as it was going on I wasn't aware of it. But later in life I kind of developed an awareness of it. What do you think about all that.
- [02:27]
Josh Clark
I mean, I would have been six years old to nine, so I probably could have gotten into Studio 54.
- [02:32]
Chuck Bryant
I was going to say the same thing. There's some shocking revelations about this stuff that anybody who knows about Studio 54 is probably like, yeah, that's just how it was. And on the outside, it's just nuts. It was just such a. They called it like the Disco Sodom and Gomorrah. It was just a complete bacchanal of, like, just drugs and sex and, like, in the club. And it was just absolutely nuts. But as you read about it, it's just the same themes over and over again. People had sex in the club. Everybody was doing coke in the club. Everybody was on Quaaludes. And this Mick Jagger's wife Bianca was on a horse once. And it just kept getting like. It always just kind of melded together and. And I kind of felt like by the time I was done researching this, I get Studio 54.
- [03:24]
Josh Clark
Yeah. There's a documentary on Netflix that's. Okay. Called Studio 54. Yeah, I saw it from filmmaker Matt, I guess, Tiernauer. There was a very bad movie about Studio 54. Like a movie movie with Mike Myers in his feet playing Steve Rubell.
- [03:45]
Chuck Bryant
I thought that was the documentary. I was gonna say Steve Rubell is like the spinning image of Mike Myers, but now I gotcha.
- [03:52]
Josh Clark
No, Mike. It turns out Mike Rebel or. I'm sorry, Steve Ribell. Mike Myers, Young Billy Joel and Alex Edelman all sort of are the same person.
- [04:00]
Chuck Bryant
Oh, that's interesting.
- [04:02]
Josh Clark
They all look alike. But it's interesting. When I was watching the documentary, Emily was floating through the room here and there, and people were just like, oh, my God. And we would just do this and this and this and this. And she finally wandered through and just went, these people sound like idiots.
- [04:16]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, it is. It's just basically another example of. And apologies. Like, this is a pretty blanket statement, but the boomer generation being like, we did this and had so much fun, and it's the coolest thing that could ever possibly happen.
- [04:30]
Josh Clark
Yeah, I think. And it's sort of like it reeked of a documentary on, like, the. You know, the. What was that ill fated doomed island music festival.
- [04:42]
Chuck Bryant
Fire Festival.
- [04:43]
Josh Clark
Yeah, it was kind of like that, where she was just like, these people are idiots. Like, how long can you just sit around and talk about doing cocaine every night and dancing until the sun came up?
- [04:53]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. But the thing is. And Livia helps us with this, and I think she kind of captured it. The reason it Seems like that Studio 54 is still just so prominent in just the general cultural consciousness, especially in America, is because it was short lived. It ended at its peak. So it didn't stick around long enough to, like, really, like, become passe. And in the very short, like, bursting lifespan that it had, less than three years, like 33 months, I think it was just. It was the coolest of the cool. And when you put all that together, that's how 50 years later, people like us are doing a podcast on it still. You know what I mean? About a club. A club. That's what we're doing a podcast on. One of 8,000 disco clubs that were open between 1974 and 1976 alone. That's how important this club was to that scene.
- [05:52]
Josh Clark
Yeah. I mean, it's. On one hand, there's a couple ways to look at it. It was a symbol of something more than probably anything was a symbol of that era.
- [06:00]
Chuck Bryant
Yes.
- [06:01]
Josh Clark
Of that excess and decadence and everything. And on one hand, like, my brain goes, yeah, but you know what? This is great because these nightclubs were havens for minorities and for gay people, for that community to get together in a safe place where they could be themselves. Because you literally. The documentary even says if you were a transgender person, you were taking your life in your hands walking down the street. Some nights you get just assaulted. You can still get assaulted for that, but especially back then. So part of my brain goes there, and part of it goes to, like, kind of what Emily said. Just like, what a vapid material. Just sort of scene based on how you looked and who you knew. And part of it was like, oh, wow, what a cool time. And then part of me was like, geez, what an awful group of people.
- [06:58]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, good. I'm glad that we pretty much arrived at the same place. And also I find it comforting that I'm following the long standing trend of agreeing with Emily.
- [07:09]
Josh Clark
Yeah, well, as we get older, I think I tend to look at things a little more with, like, an eye like that, rather than just like, yeah, man, what a cool party that was.
- [07:18]
Chuck Bryant
Exactly. For sure. But let's talk about what a cool party that was.
- [07:23]
Josh Clark
Yeah, I guess we should get to the building first because it was a history building. It was located at 254 W. 54th St. It was originally an opera house in the 1920s, and then in the 1940s, kind of through the 50s and into the 60s and 70s, it was a CBS studio. They had $64,000 question and Captain Kangaroo and what's my Line Captain Kangaroo. It was called Studio 52, weirdly, at the time.
- [07:56]
Chuck Bryant
It's so square.
- [07:57]
Josh Clark
But they all eventually moved their operations to Los Angeles with the CBS studios there in Central Hollywood. And it sat there empty in 1977. So the guys that noticed that Studio was sitting empty or this large theater, I guess, were two guys named Steve Rebel and Ian Schrager, who were Brooklyn guys from sort of working class to middle class Jewish families who met each other at college at Syracuse.
- [08:26]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, apparently they became like friends for life. Ian Schrager said that after they met and became friends, he thinks that he and Steve Rubell spoke every day for the rest of Steve Rubell's life. And Ian Schrager also put it that because they were from Brooklyn, they had something to prove. Especially, you know, going to Syracuse with probably some wealthier kids and then coming from working class families, I'm not gonna say they had a chip on their shoulder, but they were like, they were hustlers. They were ambitious. They were going to make a life for themselves rather than, you know, just end up joining their dad's firms. Cause their dads didn't have a firm. One was a postman and the other one was named Max, the Jew who ran illegal gambling operations. So that kind of drive. And then also just the creativity that those two guys had together and. And then also like just the connection that they had. Like this was a genuine partnership that this came out of. It just kind of, I think, inserted a little electricity that otherwise wouldn't have been there.
- [09:33]
Josh Clark
Yeah. So after they graduated, Ian Schrager went to law school at St. John's and started practicing law. In the early 70s. Rebel got into the steakhouse business and was apparently opening steakhouses a little too quickly because he overextended himself. Did you see the one ad for one of his restaurants?
- [09:56]
Chuck Bryant
No. They were called Steak Lofts. Right, Like Lofts.
- [09:59]
Josh Clark
Well, this one was at least Steak loft, Make love to your stomach. And in the subheading it said, all entrees include soup, salad bar, baked potato and shrimp.
- [10:10]
Chuck Bryant
Wow.
- [10:11]
Josh Clark
Not a bad deal.
- [10:12]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, no, that is a pretty good deal. I'm kind of hungry for it now.
- [10:16]
Josh Clark
But he had these steakhouses. He got into a little financial trouble and his old pal stepped in to help keep creditors at bay as his attorney. And then by this point, though, in the early 70s, they were already sort of co owners in two different discos, one in Queens and one in Boston.
- [10:35]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, the one in Queens is the more important one. They actually gave up their share in the one in Boston so that they could get full ownership of the queens one called Enchanted Garden. And it was kind of like the original template for what would become Studio 54. They would throw, like, theme parties where everybody would dress up and they would decorate it along with the theme. Like it was way more than just some club. And it's like, look at the mirrors on the wall and the disco ball up there. Like, this was. There was theatrics to it too. And so the other big thing that happened at Enchanted Garden is that they met a man named Jack Dushy, or Dushy. Let's go with Dushy.
- [11:15]
Josh Clark
Oh, I thought it was Dushea. Is it?
- [11:16]
Chuck Bryant
Oh, D u S H E y. Douchey is definitely a pronunciation of that. So you say douche, huh?
- [11:25]
Josh Clark
I thought it was, but I actually can't remember now from the documentary that I watched three hours ago.
- [11:30]
Chuck Bryant
Well, let's agree, it's definitely not douchey. Okay. His name was Jack D. And he owned a store in Brooklyn, I think a discount store, and was fairly wealthy. And he threw, either, depending on who you ask, his daughter's bat mitzvah or his son's bar mitzvah at Enchanted Garden. And I guess liked the cut of Steve and Ian's jib and went into business with them as a silent partner. And he gave them the influx of cash that they needed to start Studio 54.
- [11:58]
Josh Clark
Yeah, it was about a half a million bucks. It was kind of a crazy idea at the time. Even though discotheques were big, West 54th street at this time was really, I guess the best way to say it is sleazy.
- [12:11]
Chuck Bryant
Is it near Tone Square?
- [12:13]
Josh Clark
Yeah, I mean, that's all sort of in that theater district. But at the time it was just. It was dirty, it was dangerous. People thought, like, if you're trying to open a high end discotheque, this is not the part of town where you want to be doing that. They did it anyway.
- [12:28]
Chuck Bryant
Wow. Yeah. They formed a company called Broadway Catering Corporation, which will make a little more sense in a little while. And they leased that building at 254 W. 54th St. And they got to work on turning it into a club. They did it in six weeks. They went from nothing to ready for people to come in six weeks without a construction license, I think.
- [12:58]
Josh Clark
Yeah. And they just kind of got to work. It was sort of a time where you could just get away with stuff until you didn't. Kind of under the table style, and that's what they did. You said they started with Nothing, but not quite, because the theater was. It was an old theater. So they had a stage and they had a proscenium arch and they had a lighting rigging system that was there from the TV days. And because they sort of got not blocked, but their rivals and the other discotheques were basically saying, like, hey, don't go work for these guys. Yeah, if you're a designer or a. Or you know, someone who would help them open it. And so they went very smartly to Broadway and got people who worked in the theater to come in and they were like, this place has got all the bones and this lighting rig's already set up. Like, this is not going to be too hard.
- [13:48]
Chuck Bryant
No, they had a lot to work with, in other words. So they hired one guy, a guy named Richard Long, who actually was the sole veteran of the club scene of like, like setting up clubs. He had set up the sound systems for most of the gay discos in New York. So he knew what he was doing. And that certainly came in handy because, I mean, one of the main things of Studio 54 was the music. Right. Like in the dancing to the music. So to have a pro creating the sound system was a big one. And then you also cannot overlook the role that Carmen D'Alessio did. She was a PR sorceress. I saw her described as. And her role essentially was to basically go around to New York's glitterati and talk about how awesome this club is going to be. And it worked very well.
- [14:39]
Josh Clark
Yeah, for sure. There were other PR people that worked with them that literally got paid for placing stories in the newspaper. Like, you get $500 if there's a picture of Liza Minnelli and Truman Capote going into Studio 54 in the new York Post. And you get this much if it's in this magazine. And that was, you know, it was a pretty smart way to do it. It was incentivizing these PR people to get the, you know, the biggest stars of the time very publicly through usually the front door. But sometimes they would slip in through the stage door.
- [15:14]
Chuck Bryant
Right. There was also just a little bit more about the club. Right. I see that it had 85 foot ceilings, is that right?
- [15:25]
Josh Clark
Oh, yeah, it was super, super tall.
- [15:27]
Chuck Bryant
That's like a nine story building inside.
- [15:31]
Josh Clark
Yeah.
- [15:32]
Chuck Bryant
Okay, well, I just want to make sure because my brain starts to boggle like 30ft up.
- [15:37]
Josh Clark
Well, I mean, those big old theaters in New York were huge and vast and still are. Okay, that's what you gotta remember is this was a performance Theater turned into a nightclub.
- [15:50]
Chuck Bryant
Right, I got that. I still don't think I've ever been in a theater that was 85ft up to the ceiling.
- [15:56]
Josh Clark
Maybe you should go to Carnegie hall, my friend.
- [15:59]
Chuck Bryant
I'm a bad judge of height and distance and all that too. So I guess it makes sense then that it could hold a capacity of 2000 people because when they ran out of room on the floor, they'd just start stacking them on top of one another.
- [16:12]
Josh Clark
On that 11,000 square foot dance floor. And while there was a scene happening anyway, a lot of it was really about the dancing there. There was a mezzanine lounge on the second story, a second story bar, and a balcony that kind of looked down upon the whole thing where you could go up and drink and do mountains of cocaine and have public sex.
- [16:36]
Chuck Bryant
What? How cool. Are you serious?
- [16:40]
Josh Clark
It all sounds gross to me.
- [16:42]
Chuck Bryant
I mean it was gross. At one point they retrofitted the second floor balcony, like the, the, I guess the whole area around it with like wash off rubber coating.
- [16:57]
Josh Clark
Gross.
- [16:57]
Chuck Bryant
It is gross. The whole thing's gross. Yes, and it was fairly gross. But I saw it described as this. These people were living in the age after the invention of the pill, before the onset of aids. So they could just have public sex and do mounds of cocaine and take tons of quaaludes with virtually no consequences whatsoever.
- [17:24]
Josh Clark
The good old days.
- [17:25]
Chuck Bryant
I guess. So. You want to take a break? Should we take a break?
- [17:28]
Josh Clark
Oh, look at us. Yeah, let's do that. And we'll talk about opening night right after this.
- [17:45]
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- [18:34]
Chuck Bryant
Okay, Chuck, so it's opening night. Six weeks after they started construction on Tuesday, April 26, 1977, aka the most important date in the history of humanity. According to some of the people who were there. That hype that Carmen D'Alessio had been building up was really paying off. Apparently there was an hours long wait already. And it was so long that Frank Sinatra and Warren Beatty were like, this is taking too long. I'm outta here. That's how long the wait was. Warren Beatty?
- [19:08]
Josh Clark
Yeah, I mean the pre hype was there in full because. Well, because of the PR push, for one, but also because they were selling memberships before it opened. They had 18,000 people apply to get a membership card. So here's how it worked. If you just showed up and you were lucky enough to get in and had to pay the COVID I think they landed on, like, 10 bucks, even though I saw everything from 7 to 14. 10 bucks is around close to 50 bucks today. So it wasn't cheap to get in for a cover charge. But if you bought a membership card for between 75 and 150, you were guaranteed. And that's in scare quotes, because nothing was really guaranteed as far as entry goes there. But you were supposedly guaranteed entry, but you had to pay with a $3 reduction in charge. 18,000 people applied for that card, and only 3,000 got it pre opening.
- [20:03]
Chuck Bryant
Wow. Pretty nuts.
- [20:05]
Josh Clark
Yeah.
- [20:07]
Chuck Bryant
So one of the other legends or stories about opening night is that wait was so long that they just basically broke out into a party on the sidewalk outside of the club, thanks in large part to a doctor who came by with a bunch of Quaaludes. Apparently, Quaaludes went for, like, 10 cents a pop, and everybody had them at all times. And I was looking up what it was like to take lewds, as they were called. And apparently there's not really any drug you can compare it to today. They were their own thing. They were a sedative. But they also had all sorts of other weird effects. Like I saw it described. Like you'd sit on a couch, and you weren't sitting on the couch. You were melting into the couch. But then at the same time, you were also super randy, and it made sex amazing. And you were just relaxed and, like, ready to go along with whatever. And everybody loved lewds, and they were super plentiful. So when this doctor came along and handed out lewds, the pre party broke out.
- [21:09]
Josh Clark
Yeah. The Quaaludes thing is weird because there were people in the documentary saying, like, nobody was ever on a downer in that place, and it was all uppers. And so I don't know. It's just very strange. Maybe it went well with cocaine and alcohol.
- [21:22]
Chuck Bryant
I get that impression for sure.
- [21:24]
Josh Clark
All right, so people are showing up. You mentioned Brooke Shields, right?
- [21:29]
Chuck Bryant
No.
- [21:30]
Josh Clark
Okay, well, Brooke Shields was there. She was 11 years old. That's my opening joke there. And she was taken there by Robin Leach, who would later go on to host Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
- [21:42]
Chuck Bryant
I used to do a great Robin Leach. Let's hear it. No, in retrospect it wasn't great at all, but at the time I thought it was pretty great. I also did a good Bartles and James impression. And then my other one was Larry of Larry Darrell and Darrell from Newhart.
- [22:00]
Josh Clark
You did an impression of a Bart bottled drink.
- [22:03]
Chuck Bryant
Remember the two guys who were like the spokesmen who were supposedly Bartles and James.
- [22:08]
Josh Clark
And you did both?
- [22:09]
Chuck Bryant
No, one of them didn't speak. The other one was the. And the shorter, more rotund one with glasses, he spoke. I have no recollection of what he sounded like, but I would do those impressions.
- [22:20]
Josh Clark
I love it. So you did. What was the first one?
- [22:22]
Chuck Bryant
Robin Leach.
- [22:23]
Josh Clark
Robin Leach.
- [22:24]
Chuck Bryant
The last one, Larry of Daryl and Darryl from Newhart.
- [22:30]
Josh Clark
And then the actor who played a commercial spokesperson for Bartles and James.
- [22:35]
Chuck Bryant
For Bartles and James wine coolers.
- [22:37]
Josh Clark
It was pretty good.
- [22:38]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, it was of a moment, a specific moment in history.
- [22:43]
Josh Clark
Yeah. I mean, I was doing like Wolfman Jack and John Travolta back then. So I was also at the time.
- [22:48]
Chuck Bryant
I got a John Travolta. You ready?
- [22:50]
Josh Clark
I've heard your Travolta. Let's hear it.
- [22:52]
Chuck Bryant
Why are you so weird?
- [22:54]
Josh Clark
Yeah, there you go.
- [22:55]
Chuck Bryant
And it's not actually John Travolta. I'm doing Dana Carey. Doing John Travolta.
- [23:00]
Josh Clark
Dana Carvey.
- [23:01]
Chuck Bryant
Dana Carvey.
- [23:02]
Josh Clark
Okay.
- [23:03]
Chuck Bryant
Or Drew Carey.
- [23:06]
Josh Clark
All right, so we mentioned that they were called the Broadway Catering Corporation, and that would make sense later. And that moment comes right now, everybody. Because they didn't have a liquor license. Permanent liquor license, that is. So every day, if you're like a catering company in New York or I guess a lot of other towns, you can get a temporary, like one day liquor permit to do your catered event. And they did that every single day for a year?
- [23:33]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, I guess pretty smart. Based on the name Broadway Catering Corporation. They'd be like, oh, okay, here's your catering license to go cater this party at 254 W. 54th St. Yeah. The fact that they did it every day, whose job was it to go by and get that permit every single day? That's just so crazy. Then I saw one time, apparently the whatever agency issued those got wise to it and they denied them once. So at least one night there was nothing but fruit juice and sodas, but guests were invited to drink as much of it as they liked for free.
- [24:10]
Josh Clark
Oh, so just. Just mountains of drugs and then fruit juice and soda.
- [24:15]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. So it was healthy.
- [24:16]
Josh Clark
All right. The Monday after it opened, they. I think they were usually closed on Mondays, but they would have special parties on the Mondays, which became a very big thing there, like renting the place out for like a, you know, 50 to $100,000 party, which at the time is. I mean, it's a lot of money now, but back then it was a ton of money. But Halston, fashion designer Halston threw BIANCA JAGGER A 30th birthday party there the Monday after it first opened. And they were like, basically kind of putting it together up until the minute that the doors opened.
- [24:49]
Chuck Bryant
Is it true that he approached them on the Monday that he wanted the party to be held?
- [24:55]
Josh Clark
I mean, that's the legend. I don't know. I didn't verify it.
- [24:58]
Chuck Bryant
So this was a really important deal, that it was very smart of them to take his money and throw this party. This was the one where Bianca Jagger rode a white horse around, I guess in a circle essentially in the club. And then I'm sure somebody gave the horse some cocaine. And everybody thought it was hilarious. But the reason that this was so important, by the way, was because the coverage of this party, it just went everywhere. And this was like where the people who hadn't yet heard of Studio 54 heard of it. So Halston helped put this thing on the map with that party.
- [25:35]
Josh Clark
Yeah, for sure. And just five, six, seven years ago, Bianca Jagger, very forcefully, I wanted to make it clear that she did not ride a horse around Studio 54 because she's a big animal rights activist now, and she really wanted that cleared up. So we would be remiss if we didn't say that that's a folk tale and that she claims she sat on it for like two seconds and then got off of it. And she makes a distinction between that and riding a horse around a nightclub.
- [26:11]
Chuck Bryant
But there was definitely a horse at her birthday party at Studio 54.
- [26:16]
Josh Clark
Yes, there are photos and she admits it.
- [26:18]
Chuck Bryant
So one of the other things too is you said, like, some of these parties would cost 50 to $100,000. I saw, like, even on non, like, party nights like that were like reserved private parties, they would often spend tens to up to $100,000 just on, like, the themes and decorations and stuff. Just for a regular night at Studio 54, like, they were just pouring money into this and they were getting even more out. I would be really interested to know what their return on investment was because they just. They put so much money into this place and they seem to have made buckets of it. So much so that as we'll see, they would keep the cash in garbage bags sometimes around the club.
- [27:03]
Josh Clark
Yeah, I mean, that's not because there was so much of it. It was because they didn't want the. The bank and the IRS to find out about it.
- [27:10]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, but I think if you have enough to fill a garbage bag, by definition, that's a lot, you know?
- [27:14]
Josh Clark
Oh, no, I wouldn't say it was a ton of money. I'm just saying it was all in an effort to obfuscate, but.
- [27:20]
Chuck Bryant
Gotcha.
- [27:21]
Josh Clark
But we're spoiling the story.
- [27:22]
Chuck Bryant
Oh, sorry. Sorry.
- [27:24]
Josh Clark
So Rebel was the. He was the guy who was, I guess, sort of the host of the whole thing. He loved being out there. He loved hobnobbing with people. It was his biggest sort of dream in life to. To be a part of that crowd where Schrager was kind of like, he was the guy behind the scenes. Seemed like. I mean, they were both smart guys, but he was definitely more of the brains behind the operation that would go there for a little while, then go home to his family.
- [27:49]
Chuck Bryant
I saw a picture of the two together, and you can definitely tell Rubell's ready to party. He's wearing his famous padded coat, like his kind of down coat that he wore because he could hide tons and tons of coke in it. And then Ian Trigger is dressed like Ron Burgundy, I should say. Ron Burgundy dressed like Ian Schrager, I guess. Really? But, I mean, just that same foggy, London town gentleman look with, like, the blazer and the turtleneck.
- [28:19]
Josh Clark
Yeah.
- [28:19]
Chuck Bryant
And all that. He looks cool, for sure, but he also looks like. Yeah, I could see him going home early.
- [28:25]
Josh Clark
Yeah, well. And the good thing about the documentary is he's still with us. And it was sort of the first time he had talked much about it because he's, again, just sort of famous, averse to attention. But he's one of the main interviewees in the doc, so.
- [28:38]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, so you said that Rubel was the host. So much so that sometimes he would stand out front and say who could come in and who couldn't. And he was doing that because he put it that he was casting a play. So the characters that he would pick out would all kind of come together and gel in a certain way inside to. To make the greatest possible party from the greatest mix of people. And one of the really important things about that is you didn't have to be famous to get in to Studio 54. You could just be a cool disco club kid who had a cool look and was clearly a cool kid, and you could get in, like, just from being you, essentially, not having any connections whatsoever.
- [29:27]
Josh Clark
Yeah, I mean, that was 90% of the crowd were just people because in a room of 2,000 people, let's say 10 to 12 celebrities getting all the attention, that's a lot of other regular folks out there. But they still had to get in. In order to get in, they had to pass whatever sort of secret test. Rebelle and the other door people. I think the head doorman's name was Mark Binnicke. He was 19 years old, which is crazy.
- [29:54]
Chuck Bryant
The head doorman, right?
- [29:56]
Josh Clark
Yeah. But he was a good looking guy and he had never done anything like that. And they were like, well, you're handsome so you should be able to judge other people on their looks. Rebel famously said, a year ago, I wouldn't have even let myself in. And this is another one of those things where of two minds, like on one hand he was like, you don't have to have money to get in. You can be gay, straight, black, white, Hispanic. He didn't judge people on that. And so like, oh, that's pretty cool. But he's like, I'm really just judging you on how you look.
- [30:25]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah.
- [30:26]
Josh Clark
And if you seem to be cool.
- [30:27]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. He said that it couldn't be too gay, it couldn't be too straight. It needed to be very, very, very bisexual.
- [30:37]
Josh Clark
Yeah.
- [30:37]
Chuck Bryant
So that was a big part of the mix too. But yeah, it was like who would get along with who. And then the doorman kind of developed their own shorthand too. Like if you looked like you were like a Midnight Cowboy type and you might go beat up some of the gay patrons inside, you weren't getting past the doorman. That was a big one right there. Like you said, it was a safe place for gay and trans people. And that started at the door. And also one of the other things too was mark Benneke again, 19 years old, the head doorman. He was the highest paid staff member in part or I guess entirely so that he wouldn't take bribes to let people in at the door, which I'm.
- [31:17]
Josh Clark
Sure he never did.
- [31:18]
Chuck Bryant
Well, the thing is, I was thinking about that. I'm like, well, yeah, I mean, can't you be like, I love this money and I want some more, so I'm going to take some bribes. But then you think about if he's making enough money that he would not want to lose that job, then it would keep him honest in and of itself, I think. Not just like, he doesn't need the money. You know what I mean? Yeah. Wait a minute, wait a minute. What was funny about that? Did I just explain the obvious. Is that what I was doing?
- [31:45]
Josh Clark
No. I think it's funny that you sat around and thought about whether or not he would take money or not because he had enough money.
- [31:54]
Chuck Bryant
Well, I was just looking for any flaws in that plan and I actually found it was fairly foolproof. So I appreciated it and wanted to spotlight it here on stuff you should know.
- [32:05]
Josh Clark
So Henry Winkler didn't get in. Some of the Kennedy kids didn't get in. There were a lot of people who didn't get in that were even famous because, you know, Henry Winkler's the Fonz. But he wasn't some cool guy in real life. They didn't want him in there.
- [32:18]
Chuck Bryant
No, no, he wasn't super cool. Supposedly super nice, but also not super cool. Two other guys didn't get in, Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards, who at the time they were in the group Chic, like Le Freak, say chic. And that song in particular was actually inspired by Studio 54, right?
- [32:39]
Josh Clark
Yeah, supposedly when they didn't get in because Grace Jones did not leave their name on the list, they wrote that song. But it was instead of Aw, freak out, it was Aw F off.
- [32:50]
Chuck Bryant
Right? And then they're like, guys, you can make so much more money with the song if you just change that to freak. And they're like, oh, okay. So they did and it became like, I'm sure they played that song inside Studio 54 all the time.
- [33:04]
Botox Advertiser
But.
- [33:04]
Chuck Bryant
Because one of the things that's worth mentioning too is as cool as this place was like you would hear essentially all the same disco hits that you would hear on the radio. It was just again, an 11,000 square foot dance floor with tons of cocaine on it.
- [33:19]
Josh Clark
Yeah, they did have some criteria as far as like, not necessarily the person on the street that they would look in, which one commentator from the time described as it was like the damned looking into paradise. Like all these people on the street, like trying to look through the blacked out doors when they would open. But they had a list of like, you know what kinds of designations people had. There were the no goods, which they designated as GN on the sheet instead of ng. They had regular guests who were pay guests who could get in, but they had to pay the whatever, 10 bucks. They had the comps list, who were the freebies and then the NFUs which were the no F ups. And by that they mean, like, you can't screw this one up. They're very important. You have to get them in and get them straight to Steve Rebel.
- [34:07]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. Did you see how or who was on the GN list then? Like, who did you have to tick off? Or what did you have to do to have your name, like, on a list that you were not allowed into Studio 54 no matter what? Like, that wasn't just some schmo. Like, this was somebody who was specifically targeted to not be allowed in.
- [34:30]
Josh Clark
Maybe famous squares or narcs or Henry Winkler competition or something. Henry Winkler, Yeah.
- [34:38]
Chuck Bryant
So there was also just kind of a general rule, like, if somebody showed up looking like Disco Stu or just like a cartoonish version of a cool disco person, they probably weren't going to make it in either. And there was a story where I think Mark Benecki was not going to let this one dude in because he looked exactly like that. And then Steve Rubell was like, no, he can come in. That's Barry Gibb from the beaches.
- [35:03]
Josh Clark
Yeah. Look in the park, they used to say, polyester melts under the lights. So Rebelle would chide people and say, go home and put on a cotton shirt. And then one guy, and this is from a 1978 New York Times piece, said, the doorman told me to go home and read Freud's essay on rejection.
- [35:22]
Chuck Bryant
Wow. Wow. That's pretty great.
- [35:24]
Josh Clark
Yeah.
- [35:26]
Chuck Bryant
So there was, like, a lot of desperation to get in. Like you said, the damned looking in on Paradise. Some people were like, I'm not going to be the damned any longer. I'm going to use this gun I have under my coat to make the doorman let me in. I did not see that that was successful. I don't see how it would be. It wouldn't be like, oh, you've got a gun on me. Sure, go ahead, go in with your gun.
- [35:47]
Josh Clark
Right.
- [35:48]
Chuck Bryant
I don't know how that played out, but that's just kind of like the little thumbnail anecdotes that are completely surrounding Studio 54. There were some other ones, too, right?
- [35:59]
Josh Clark
Yeah. There were reports of people climbing down ropes from other buildings into the courtyard that had secret maps of the subway system supposedly to get them in there. And then, and this is confirmed, there was a gentleman who was dressed in a tuxedo, tried to sneak through an air vent and was discovered dead.
- [36:20]
Chuck Bryant
Nuts. They didn't know that there was somebody in there until they started to smell the decomposition.
- [36:25]
Josh Clark
Yeah.
- [36:27]
Chuck Bryant
So there's apparently. I didn't see it. A Netflix special on Halston. The designer who figures big into this, does a show.
- [36:37]
Josh Clark
Yeah.
- [36:37]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. And I guess that made it into it, too. But they changed the man to a woman for some reason.
- [36:43]
Josh Clark
Yeah. Who played Halson in that? I meant to look that up.
- [36:46]
Chuck Bryant
Tommy Lee Jones, I think.
- [36:49]
Josh Clark
Wow.
- [36:50]
Chuck Bryant
Do you want to take a break?
- [36:52]
Josh Clark
Yeah. Let's take our second break. And we'll be back with act three.
- [37:01]
Botox Advertiser
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- [37:55]
Josh Clark
All right, so I don't know if we mentioned it. Yeah, I think I did that. It was closed on Monday. It was open Tuesday through Sunday from. They opened at 10pm, they closed at 6am ish. Or whenever the party was over, really.
- [38:08]
Chuck Bryant
Those are basically the times that I'm asleep.
- [38:11]
Josh Clark
Yeah, 1,000%. I mean, I may sleep in till 7 here and there, but the days of staying out all night are long in my past.
- [38:21]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, I'm so Henry Winkler.
- [38:24]
Josh Clark
Yeah, I mean, it was fun a little bit back in the day, but.
- [38:26]
Chuck Bryant
You can't do that like when you didn't feel like just total butt like the next day afterward, you know, so. Yeah, it used to be fun for sure.
- [38:34]
Josh Clark
Speaking of total butt, if you want to see a picture of Tennessee Williams looking really out of his mind, there's a fun picture of Tennessee Williams in a Studio 54 couch kicked back. Yeah, he's bloodshot eyes. He looks like he's been through it.
- [38:50]
Chuck Bryant
So. Yeah, it was a murderer's row, a Who's who of 70s famous cool people who were there. Apparently Divine, the very famous. Was Divine trans or was Divine considered a crossdresser? Is that just what they called Divine back in the day before we called for people trains?
- [39:09]
Josh Clark
I mean, I think Divine went by the tag of drag queen back then. Probably. But I'm not really sure about these days. Divine still with us?
- [39:19]
Chuck Bryant
I don't think so. I don't think you can live that fast and hard and still be around this many years later.
- [39:26]
Josh Clark
Yeah, that'd probably be a good episode, actually.
- [39:28]
Chuck Bryant
Divine for sure. For those of you who don't know who Divine is, she was a star, almost a muse to John Waters and was in a bunch of John Waters movies and I think ate dog poop in one of them.
- [39:43]
Josh Clark
Yeah, that was in Pink Flamingos. Yeah, Pink Flamingos, I think.
- [39:49]
Chuck Bryant
But yeah, we'll do an episode on Divine. Even though we just gave away the twist.
- [39:53]
Josh Clark
Right.
- [39:54]
Chuck Bryant
Andy Warhol was a big one there. In fact, he brought his whole Factory crew and loved Studio 54 so much that he basically was like, he's sick. The entire staff of Interview magazine on it, and started basically covering Studio 54 relentlessly in his magazine.
- [40:10]
Josh Clark
Yeah. And I saw that the sort of the heartbeat of that crowd, like, the real regulars, because, you know Mick Jagger and you know Elton John and Robert De Niro, like, everyone who was anyone would pop in there, but, like, the heartbeat of the regulars were Liza Minnelli, Halston, Bianca Jagger and Andy Warhol. And I think Truman Capote was like, the fifth.
- [40:36]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. Of that foursome, he seems to have been about as regular as any of them. Grace Jones was a big one, too.
- [40:42]
Josh Clark
Oh, yeah.
- [40:43]
Chuck Bryant
I don't know if she was super into that circle. She seems to have been kind of a lone wolf in a lot of ways. But one of the doormen said that she arrived naked so many times it became boring. I can totally see that.
- [40:56]
Josh Clark
Yeah. She just sort of. It's like, all right, Grace, maybe put on clothes. That would be the shopping.
- [41:05]
Chuck Bryant
There was also a woman named Disco Sally. Right. Who just was a legend. She also appeared in that Halston or not documentary, but that Halston miniseries, But I think they kind of didn't do her justice, from what I read.
- [41:20]
Josh Clark
Oh, really?
- [41:21]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. So what about her?
- [41:22]
Josh Clark
She was a. Well, I think she was an attorney or a former attorney and a widow who just, like this lady loved to dance. And in the documentary, they were like. At first, the doorman Benneke was like, nah, man, this isn't. It's gonna be like a. What do you call it? Like a gimmick if we start letting people like this in. And he said. Rebelle was adamant and just said, no, she's exactly who we want in this place.
- [41:51]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. I think we left out a really key thing. She was 77 and looked like 19. 70. 77. So she looked like 110.
- [41:59]
Josh Clark
She did.
- [42:00]
Chuck Bryant
And she would dance all night. She was. She was called Disco Sally for a reason. Like, she would get there and she would just start dancing for hours. And apparently she would stop to go pee and to do some coke and then would get right back out on the dance floor. And she became actually, from her Stint at Studio 54, a fixture on the New York nightlife scene for a long time to come.
- [42:23]
Josh Clark
Yeah. I bet it kept her young and alive and also killed her somehow at the same time.
- [42:27]
Chuck Bryant
Exactly. Yeah. Well put.
- [42:31]
Josh Clark
I Guess we could go over some of these parties. We mentioned that they would throw these huge, huge private parties, and they did everything from throw a country western party for Dolly Parton with more live animals, goats and sheep and pigs and stuff.
- [42:44]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. God knows what happened to those sheep.
- [42:47]
Josh Clark
Yeah. I don't like the animal stuff in there. Like, nothing good is happening to those animals.
- [42:51]
Chuck Bryant
No, for sure. And, you know, like, probably some bad stuff is happening to them, too. Let alone just being scared.
- [42:57]
Josh Clark
Yeah, yeah. Don't take your goat to a cocaine disco.
- [43:03]
Chuck Bryant
That's not just a T shirt. That's an epitaph.
- [43:07]
Josh Clark
What else? Liz Taylor had a big birthday party there with the Rockettes, among other things.
- [43:11]
Chuck Bryant
Yep. Valentino did. And then they. They had, like, Halloween apparently was like the big night where just if you were a normal person and you had a really great costume, there was a good chance you were going to get in. The better the costume, the. The better your chances. Yeah. And like, one year they did Hieronymous Bosch theme, which would have just been awesome. And I think that kind of shows, like, just kind of the coolness of the people involved. Like. Yeah, you know, they didn't go with something trendy. They went with, like, a really dark, bizarre, weird, like, painter. Hieronymus Bosch's stuff is really cool, and I didn't see what all they did with it, but from what I read about it, it seems like it was pretty bizarre. So. Pretty cool Halloween party, if you ask me.
- [44:00]
Josh Clark
Yeah. New York is always fun at Halloween, I imagine. In 1978 and 79, city of 54. It was crazy.
- [44:07]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. You mean, I walked all over New York once, from basically Wall street over to Greenpoint and just spent the whole day doing that. And it just had, like, such a totally different vibe than it normally does. It was cool. Cool day.
- [44:21]
Josh Clark
When Was this?
- [44:22]
Chuck Bryant
Oh, 2010, maybe. Something like that. Cause she went as a Snuggie, I think. Oh.
- [44:29]
Josh Clark
On Halloween. Okay, I got you.
- [44:31]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, Halloween. Halloween.
- [44:33]
Josh Clark
Yeah. I had a couple of fun Halloweens in New York back when I was living in Jersey. I was the bridge and tunnel guy.
- [44:41]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, that's what they called basically anybody who wasn't famous. Right.
- [44:45]
Josh Clark
Well, anybody from New Jersey or I guess, one of the outer boroughs.
- [44:49]
Chuck Bryant
I gotcha.
- [44:50]
Josh Clark
Because you came in via bridge and tunnel.
- [44:52]
Chuck Bryant
Oh, I get it now. What about the end? Because, again, this thing was like a bright, shining, meteoric star that lasted less than three years, and it went down hard. Like, it wasn't like a. This has been fun. Let's shut the thing Down. Like, the government came in and said, you're gonna shut the thing down? Essentially, yeah.
- [45:12]
Josh Clark
Steve Rebel was very mouthy about how much money they were making in the paper. He was quoted as saying, only the Mafia does better. Not smart, to be sure, but at least according to the prosecutor. And the documentary who prosecuted the case was like, it's not. Cause Steve Rebel was mouthy. He said, we had a confidential informant on the inside that told us about the fact that they were skimming 80% of the money. And this guy was like, you know, if they were, like, businesses skimmed back then with this kind of business, like, skim 20%, and they would have gotten away with it. He said they got greedy and were literally skimming, like, 80% off the books and keeping very, very, very detailed records about their skimming. So it was all there, and they had a informant kind of tell them where everything was hidden and where the books were. And I tried and tried to see if I could find anything about, like, who that might have been, and I came up completely empty.
- [46:07]
Chuck Bryant
It was Hieronymous Bosch.
- [46:09]
Josh Clark
It might have been.
- [46:10]
Chuck Bryant
So in 1978, December 1978, the place got raided, apparently with 30 agents. That's a big raid. And I guess as they were searching the place, Schrager showed up, was like, hey, what's going on, everybody? And he was carrying with him their cooked books, or I guess the uncooked books, which is even worse. That in detail, meticulously detailed all the money they were stealing. And one of the other things that it showed is that all the cocaine. Because, like, they weren't selling cocaine necessarily. I'm sure, like, if you were a nobody who got in, they weren't just giving you free cocaine. You could buy it. But if you were like a celeb or somebody they wanted to keep happy, they gave you as much free cocaine as you possibly wanted. And they would expense that. All the cocaine they bought, they expensed it whenever they actually did pay taxes. So all of this was basically being carried in by Schrager. And then as a little cherry on top. On top of the pile, there were five ounces of cocaine. So he walks in with 30 IRS agents raiding the place with that on him, and they're like, why don't you put that down and come over here?
- [47:20]
Josh Clark
Yeah. He disputes in the documentary that it was on him. He was like, this was stuff that they collected from around the club. But, you know, the prosecutor said that he had it with him. So either way, lots of cocaine, lots of cash, lots of skimming. Off the top, they would change the cash register tape midway through the night to have another set of books that were on the up and up. But they would eventually hire famous scumbag attorney Roy Cohn to come in and defend them. And he very poorly gave them the advice of like, hey, flip over a bunch of tables and stuff and make it look like worse than it is and let's get these pictures out there. And that just bought more disdain and retribution from the state Smart or the city, I guess.
- [48:09]
Chuck Bryant
There was one little point that I thought was kind of sad. During this raid, the IRS agents supposedly found a room. There were a lot of like secret rooms, like VIP rooms. But this one was so secret and so VIP that according to Andy Warhol, Halston hadn't even been told about it. And when he found out about it, it hurt his feelings. And I'm with him, I can totally understand that. He dropped so much cash there. And then don't forget that first birthday party that they hosted that he threw for Bianca jagger. Put Studio 54 on the map and they didn't tell him about the most secret room. I feel bad for Halston.
- [48:46]
Josh Clark
He should have had Alexis, huh?
- [48:49]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, if anybody should have, sure.
- [48:51]
Josh Clark
I mean, even Liza.
- [48:53]
Chuck Bryant
I don't know. Definitely Halston, though.
- [48:56]
Josh Clark
All right, so Jack D, the silent partner who invested to begin with, was indicted along with them in a grand jury in June of 79. That did not stop the club. They were still upgrading it and building new things. That's when that wipe clean rubber came in. They pleaded guilty in 79 of November 79 to tax evasion with Jack Dee testifying against them. The two guys were sentenced to three and a half years, went to prison together, thankfully, and paid a guy for a year of protection while they sold out their competition and turned state's evidence against them. Informing on other discos and they're skimming and they got out after but a year.
- [49:41]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah. Never trust a disco owner.
- [49:45]
Josh Clark
Yeah, I think Schrager felt bad about it. He was like, you know, my dad, he was in the gambling business and all this, but he was like, Max the Jew was a stand up guy and like he would. He was gone. And I'm glad because he would have been ashamed of me for. For being a rat.
- [49:59]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, I could see that.
- [50:01]
Josh Clark
Yeah.
- [50:02]
Chuck Bryant
So the last they closed down, you said the club kept going, but at least for this moment, it closed down on February 4, 1980, with a sayonara party. Farewell party, when. Yeah, I think that's what they call them. When they sent Schrager and Rubell off to prison. So they just burned the place down, basically. One more night. And those two, they each served a year. Did you say that? I think, yeah. And after they got out, I guess they were in touch in prison and they decided to get into the hotel business. And they started the boutique hotel trend, apparently, starting in 1984, with a hotel they opened as Morgan's.
- [50:44]
Josh Clark
Yeah, they sold the studio space to a guy named Mark Fleischmann. He was a hotel guy. So they took over one of his hotels, rebranded it as, you know, this new concept of boutique hotels. And that's what Schrager did for a long time.
- [51:02]
Chuck Bryant
I feel like it's time for boutique hotels to be reinvented as something else, don't you?
- [51:09]
Josh Clark
Yeah, but what is it even? Just not part of a big chain or some of them are even parts of big chains?
- [51:13]
Chuck Bryant
No, they've become very formulaic. I mean, like funky art in the rooms that are supposed to kind of feel like your house but just remind you that you're not home. Sometimes there's record players. There's like. Like a super cool bar where people not staying at the hotel come usually on the rooftop. And then there's the Invariable restaurant, the house restaurant that is new American cuisine. Every single time, every. All of the same stuff on the menus. And we're talking boutique hotels in totally different cities with totally different owners. And everything's outfitted in, like, copper fixtures.
- [51:52]
Josh Clark
Yeah, copper.
- [51:52]
Chuck Bryant
You know what I'm talking about.
- [51:54]
Josh Clark
Oh, I totally know you're talking about.
- [51:55]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, It's a formula now. I mean, it's been around for 40 years. I think we need something new.
- [52:00]
Josh Clark
What's the new thing? There is already.
- [52:02]
Chuck Bryant
I'm calling for it.
- [52:03]
Josh Clark
Oh, okay. I gotcha. I thought you had an idea or something. I was like, man, let's talk after we hang up here.
- [52:08]
Chuck Bryant
No, I'm the kind of person right now who has no idea is just criticism.
- [52:13]
Josh Clark
I gotcha. So they also opened a Palladium nightclub that was their last foray into the nightclub business to sort of partially help finance their hotel aspirations. And very sadly, Steve Rebel died of complications from AIDS in 1989. And that left Ian Traeger alone. And very sad, because that was his bestie.
- [52:36]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah, it really was. Ian Trigger just kind of. He had this thing hanging over him, this felony conviction. Even when they opened the Palladium, they couldn't be owners on paper because they weren't allowed to hold a liquor license. And in 2017, he was pardoned. By President Obama, I think one of his last days for the tax evasion conviction. And that meant a lot to Ian Schrager. I read an interview with him from after that, and he seemed to, like, really appreciate that. And he seemed to have kind of been the kind of guy who maybe deserved a pardon all this time later.
- [53:12]
Josh Clark
Yeah, he's like, does this mean I can stop paying protection to that guy from prison?
- [53:16]
Chuck Bryant
Right. You got anything else?
- [53:19]
Josh Clark
I got nothing else.
- [53:21]
Chuck Bryant
Well, that means, of course, everybody, since neither one of us have anything else. And it's time for listener mail.
- [53:31]
Josh Clark
I'm going to call this cool email an addendum. Hey, guys, the episode on widowhood just popped up. You mentioned federal elected officials and how often the widow is appointed. And it's quite common in my state of Kentucky in the past for the widow of a sheriff who dies in office, line of duty or not, to be appointed to that office, mainly because the sheriff's personal estate is wrapped up in his office. So letting her finish out the term gives him time to figure out if his tax books balance.
- [54:02]
Chuck Bryant
Wow.
- [54:02]
Josh Clark
Isn't that crazy?
- [54:03]
Chuck Bryant
Yeah.
- [54:04]
Josh Clark
If they don't, the estate will owe more to the county. There have been several notable widowed sheriffs or widow sheriffs in my state, one being the first documented one, Mary Roach, who served from 22 to 27 after her husband was murdered in office. And she was a real sheriff, went out with her deputies at work even. The other was a woman named Sheriff Florence Thompson, who took over after her husband died in 36. She oversaw the last public execution by hanging, was apparently the first and probably last woman to be in the role of. To be in that role in the United States just three months after she took office.
- [54:41]
Chuck Bryant
I wonder if this is what the sitcom she's the Sheriff was based on.
- [54:46]
Josh Clark
Maybe that's by the way, from Sean Herron, Attorney at law, Louisville.
- [54:52]
Chuck Bryant
Thanks a lot, Sean from Louisville. That was a great email. I definitely not heard that. Yeah, so thanks a lot. We love addendums and cool emails, especially when they're combined. And if you want to send us a cool email, you can send it off to Stuff. Podcastheartradio.com.
- [55:12]
Josh Clark
Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show.