But the fact Taylor did work while the other bartenders partied made him invaluable to his coworkers, and they demanded he stay. The whole disco scene really wasnt what was happening at the moment. Next Airs Today at 3 pm. Oh no, hes the Bee Gee! They might be very high on coke when they arrived, but they were on pretty good behavior. People did quaaludes because quaaludes were aphrodisiacs, and there was a lot of sex at Studio 54. Per The Andy Warhol Diaries: Hearing how much money Steve actually had, he could have been treating us so wonderfully. '", Instead of informing this nobody that there were a million young, attractive men in New York City who would kill for his job, Rubell decided this was a great idea. And I just got opened up. They are provided in a historical context. Studio 54 is a Broadway theater and a former disco nightclub at 254 West 54th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Until they didn't. But at Studio, it was limitedPaloma Picasso used to go there, Salvador Dal. The doomsday mom, who wanted to rid the world of zombies, is accused of murdering two of her children. The Products This Climate Journalist Uses to the Last Drop. If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). It was pretty awesome. You had a really interesting mix of all different levels of society. Surrounded by those he loved, he swallowed five barbiturate pills intending to overdose. Robert 'Bobby' DeSilva - lightman / light-deejay. His position as the gatekeeper made him socially the most powerful man in the city, according to no less an authority than The New York Times. As an editor who worked in the . I was trying to get acting work, doing the occasional Off Broadway play. Its much more adult. Studio 54 was the first club that worked with a strict door policy. Nearly 35 years after her underappreciated romantic comedys release, the Oscar nominee returns to the Lower East Side. The photographer that captured the disco and diamond dust of legendary club Studio 54. The late 70s also saw the rise of celebrity culture, and Studio 54 . Feds had previously discovered $600,000 in garbage bags, 300 quaalude pills, and cocaine during a raid of the club. Bobby (touching his face) and Steve Rubell (foreground) in the 2018 Netflix Documentary, Studio 54. If there was already a similar type like you inside, you could easily be refused at the door. While celebs were always let in, anyone could make it past the velvet ropes if they were fabulous enough. ", This scheme to get out of real work, well, worked. In France, the slower pace of life and resistance to American-style productivity culture can be as effective as medication. Everybody just immediately went onto the dance floor and started dancing. I knocked on the backdoor on 53rd Street, and it all began. (Synonymous with wealth, style, power, to borrow from Gaga.) But most celebrities knew there would be paparazzi there, and they could be on Page Six the next day. There were people that were just flat-out fabulous, that would get in no matter what. You were drawn to it, like a vortex of pleasure. Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now. Howd you start working at Studio 54?I was tending bar at Jim McMullens on Third Avenue, a very hot restaurant owned by the male model. He was standing by the bar, and Steve said, Andy, this is Bobby Sheridan, hes our new doorman. I said, How do you do? I shook his hand, and he just wouldnt let it go. Orlando Perez - security. The employee still remains unknown. Scott Bitterman started bussing tables, but that wasn't where he stopped. ". If he was never going to let you in, he'd ignore you, or worse, mess with you. He did take us to La Grenouille once, but it could have been so much more. Im not even going to attempt to convert that to 2021 dollars, but was that a lot of money for the industry and the job?No not really, I was making more working at McMullens. View of an animated Man in the Moon and Spoon lighted sign at Studio 54, New York, New York, May 9, 1978. As part of partiers' first impression of the club, the coat check girls had to fit in. Like a fat little Kewpie doll. There wasnt a line of people and you went to each person and turned them away. The New York City discotheque attracted the famous, the infamous, and the notorious, plus tons of nobodies who were desperate to party with the celebs. I was friends with them. For a nightclub that only lasted a few years and closed more than four decades ago, the strength of Studio 54s sustained cultural influence astonishes me. 1. Even R. Scott Bromley, the architect who designed the indoor space, did the hard work actually hammering it all together. We went up to the balcony and just sat and talked, I told him about my background. Absolutely. I mean, we had major stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Mick Jagger. Theyd get in. Did people try to bribe you to get in?Yeah, sure, people offered money, but you would never accept that, because if you did, then theyd show up the next night with all of their friends, everybody whod been in their wedding. Mark Fleischman, former owner of the legendary space, has chosen to end his life after an eight-year battle with an undiagnosable neurological disease. Weve rounded up the best looks from celeb events this week, including Jenna Ortega, Troye Sivan, and Devin Halbal. People would do amyl nitrate on the dance floor, poppers, and also quaaludes. New owners took over Studio in 1980. It was like a hipster version of a Studio 54 doorman. So while these people were giving me, you know, guff, he rolled up and he said, Hi Bobby! I let him right in, he gave me a kiss on the cheek. To an extent. Now, people used to tip us occasionally on the way out, and my tips often came in cocaine and quaaludes. Club founders Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager provided premium guests with premium cocaine and spent up to $100,000 on a single nights party decor. When he wasn't gatekeeping New York City's clubs a job that he handled capriciously and according to however he was feeling that day, per"Factory: The Story of the Record Label" Haoui Montaug was providing them with musical acts, or "roving cabaret" shows, as it were. Once he told a guy to go to Bloomingdale's and buy the same blazer Benecke was wearing. I let him in, and I followed him into the club while Marc stayed at the door. Beyond being just the bouncer, he was also the gatekeeper for the "look" of the club, and anyone who didn't fit his definition of what that look was would find themselves at the end of the line. The team that brought Studio 54 to life in just six weeks included architects Scott Bromley and Ron Dowd, set designer Richie Williamson, and lighting designers Jules Fisher and Paul Morantz. but now my hip joint's been replaced. Nothing sets the mood like dust and crochet shirts. According to former visitors, the door policy was more like a casting agency. So I was hired, and I was paid $625 a week. She and some other . For the first time since he and his business partner (Rubell) were forced to sell the discoteque in 1980, former co-owner Ian Schrager . This is how I met my wife Elizabeth. He talked about working on the balcony, only to be sent to "fetch cigarettes" so people could use it to hook up. According to The Hollywood Reporter, she basically created a new job when she mentioned to them she had a subscription to Celebrity Bulletin, which, in the days before the internet was how one found out where celebs were staying. It was before cell phones and before TMZ and all the media outlets that we have today. At that point my band mate made a flavorful declaration and we decamped to the trusty, attitude free, IHOP where we enjoyed a drama free stack . Back then it was kind of normal for people to be excessive. This made it easy for the owners to skim profits, but they didn't take just a little bit off the top they took everything else and just left that little top bit. Were you interested in the club scene then? It was really different. Everybody was in awe. There were the front of house employees who danced around with the celebrities, then there were the people on the business side behind the scenes, who actually worked a real job to make the club a success. I wasnt good at that, because in some ways Im naturally shy. On any given evening, youd have, you know, Rudolph Nureyev, youd have Chuck Berry, Keith Richards. According to The Guardian, the balcony, with its slightly secluded nature, was covered in easy to wipe down materials for any body fluids that got spilled up there. People got off on that. On any given evening, it was an extraordinary event. 54 was just electric, he told me, this carnival atmosphere where people felt free to just be absolutely who they wanted to be inside. It was like a hipster version of a Studio 54 doorman. At around the same time, three young lads from New York were trying to make it big in rock, or punk, or hip hop, or whatever you would call the Beastie Boys'genre. ", Steve Rubell and Carmen d'Alessio in Norma Kamali coats (1977). You never asked anybody to dance, that was rule number one. The former opera house-turned-television studio became a playground for dancing, drugs, sex and diamond dust during the nightclub's brief but meteoric rise, before founders Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager were jailed for tax evasion and the studio closed its doors. As OZY reports, they, too, appeared in a Montaug-managed revue, although there appears to be no footage of this on the internet. New York was very, very loose at the time. But I was excited to do it. There was an etiquette to Studio 54. A visitor watches an archive photo of Grace Jones performing on display at the Studio 54: Night Magic exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum during the media preview March 11, 2020. He asked what I was doing for the summer and was like, How would you like to work here? And Im like, Okay. Thats basically how it started! He basically taught me everything: what to look for, what not to look for. And the doorman/bouncer at those clubs Studio 54 especially was, for a time anyway, a man named Haoui Montaug. In this case, it was one of their own employees that shut it down. There was a lot of media, especially on nights when there were parties, like when Dolly Parton showed up we had decorated the inside of the club like a barnyard, there were animals, bales of hay. The city's glitterati would come through to see and be seen if they could get through the door, that is. This crowd is made up of well-known, successful individuals: Fashion designer Halston and actress Bianca Jagger are on the left, followed by film director Jack Haley Jr. and actress Liza Minnelli in the back right. Therefore, celebrities and people in general were willing to let their hair down a lot more. He was able to turn people away with a smile. Halston, Andy Warhol, Liza Minnelli, Mick Jagger, Cher, David Geffen, Jack Nicholson, and Michael Jackson regularly packed the banquettes. What good was owning the coolest club in the world if you didn't party in it yourself? Steve had this amazing talent to converse with anybody and make you feel like he was your best friend. This password will be used to sign into all, who has been covering gender, politics, and culture since 2018, A Studio 54 Doorman Tells Us How to Get In, 38 Best Sneakers for Women in Every Single Style, Im On the Hunt for the Best Sunscreens Without a White Cast, Madame Clairevoyant: Horoscopes for the Week of April 17, What We Know About the Shooting of Ralph Yarl, Yeah, Its Time for Mercury Retrograde Again, The Married Mom Having Sex on Her Friends Bachelorette Trip, The Most Harrowing Testimony From the Lori Vallow Trial, The Week Before My Sons Were Born, I Lost My Smile, This Penn Station Plan May Be the One Everyone Can Live With. Studio 54 doorman Mark Benecke selects who will enter the nightclub, New York, New York, July 27, 1979. Youre there, youre there at a private party in the South of France, youre there in Vegas, youre in L.A., youre seeing all these people that you read about. Like Berlin's Berghain today, Studio 54 was very famous for its door policy, which was: fun-loving. They saw me behind the bar, and they asked Jim McMullen about me. He said he didntbut that didnt mean people wouldnt shove their hands in his coat pocket and leave drugs and money in there., Writing for Vanity Fair, Studio 54 regular Bob Colacello declared Taylors 1978 birthday the clubs most amazing party of allThe Rockettes performed and then presented the movie star, who was standing on a float of gardenias between Halston and her then husband, Senator John Warner of Virginia, with a cake that was a full-size portrait of her. Haoui Montaug went out in the most Haoui Montaug way possible: by throwing a suicide party. Haoui Montaug (1952 - June 7, 1991) was a doorman of the New York City nightclubs Hurrah, Mudd Club, Danceteria, Studio 54, and the Palladium. There were so many poppers left in people's coats, the women often got high by accident when they exploded. There were a lot of ordinary people eking out a living in Manhattan, going out to have fun, but they knew what the club was about and they knew it was about acceptance and celebration. I had been going there a lot, I wasnt getting any work acting and I was getting a little tired of tending bar, and this seemed like a very exciting thing to do. According to Disco, Drugs & Decadence: The Rise and Fall of America's Premier Discotheque, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell had known each other since they were college students and had been in business before Studio 54, including as co-owners of another New York City nightclub called Enchanted Garden. The stockbrokers were all doing cocaine. The busboys were running around in tiny shorts, for goodness sake. "I'm the most important person to talk to." According to the modest Peruvian, she brought . Marc Benecke, center, a Studio 54 doorman. "(I'd) back off a little bit and feel the vibe, and then document things," he said. Or Myra Scheer, who went from clubgoer to the owners' right-hand woman. If you need video evidence of the woman herself, behold: Here is Disco Sally alongside her 25-year-old boyfriend-manager. This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. The group's members Ad-Rock, Mike D, and MCA also got big a few years later. This is what it was like to work at Studio 54. By the next night, he was put behind the bar when another guy called in sick. We had this guy named Rollerina. It was decorated with "crystal chandeliers, carpet, and mirrors," filled with the delighted screams of people seeing it for the first time, and drew patrons to another set of doors to the club proper. Dressed in tight pants and high-top sneakers, she became Disco Sally, a star at Studio 54 and Xenon whod draw an audience of adoring fans as she got down on the dance floor.. The all-night shifts were "grueling and the work was extremely physical" and had some occupational hazards, namely accidental contact highs. . And the people looked at each other and they said, Oh, its that kind of a place. At that moment, Rod Stewart walked in right behind Rollerena, in an orange suit with pink shoes. The girls could also go hang around the club themselves for a bit, then come back with all the gossip. Confessions of a Studio 54 Doorman Illustration by Stefan Knecht In the three short years of Studio 54's heyday, Marc Benecke was who you had to get past to enjoy the hedonistic other side. What made the atmosphere special, the photographer said, was the co-mingling of people from all walks of life. However, the notorious New York City nightclub encountered a fair share of obstacles while party-goers ravaged the dance floor . "I only want fun-looking people in here," said the club's co-owner, who grew up in Brooklyn long before it became fashionable. It was kind of a celebration of people from the arts, dance, fashion, music, theater, entertainment, the gay world; this incredible mix of Manhattanites in the late 70s, before the AIDS epidemic basically wiped out at least half of the creative people in New York. Hecalled one of his shows "No Entiendes" "You Don't Understand" in Spanish and at least once, his show featured an up-and-coming singer from Detroit named Madonna Ciccone, or just Madonna. Its co-owners Steve Rubell and Ian . I grew up in the West Village, in the late fifties and sixties, when this area . And we all made really good money. I can only wonder, as I ogle all the reproductions from my dumb little couch: Is this sufficiently swinging? You walked in and you were hit with this wall of sound, and youd look out there and thered be Diana Ross dancing to her own song. The next day, a picture of Cher leaving the club covered the New York Post. As of 2016, Horowitz was still working with celebrities as Kevin Spacey's manager, a job she held for 28 years, until he fired her. People told me theyd say, I cant write this, and hed say, Oh, of course you can. I think that was a huge part of the allure, that people felt comfortable [at the Factory]. As Taylor gamely cut a good luck slice from the buttercream bosom, Warner fled the paparazzi., A dozen well-endowed hunks, naked but for sequined posing-pouches, and some with joints dangling from the corners of their mouths, scattered gardenia petals in the couples path as they entered,wrote Taylor biographer David Bret in The Lady, The Lover, The Legend. Privacy Policy and This was like a different person. I was a poli sci major in school, I wanted to become a lawyer. Pittman recalled shooting at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, which was then a social spot to "peacock fashion," drink sangria and socialize, in 1969. We'd watch from the windows on the eighth floor to see who was cute and ask them to come up, like a teenage Studio 54 doorman situation. Spanish police are hunting a British man after a doorman was killed while trying to break up a fight at former TOWIE star Elliot Wright's restaurant.. Father-of-two Jose Rafael Pisano Pardo died . When you dance here, you're just free," the late Michael Jackson said in footage that later appeared in the 2018 documentary "Studio 54. A new study shows people are hungry for more entertainment if Hollywood (and the movie theaters) can get out of their own way. It was like a big boxing ring with ropes all around, and you had three or four bodyguards around you, and people would just walk up. With few cameras in the club, and Rubell and Schrager careful about which images were made public, celebrities were more uninhibited. (The downside the drugs became a serious problem until he finally realized years later he needed to sober up.). Learn more. Actor Alec Baldwin worked for two months as a waiter at Studio 54. It wasnt a barroom, it wasnt a discotheque, it was a cultural moment., Okay, yes, incredible how do I get in? Steve liked the fact that I knew nothing about the whole nightclub scene. [Editors note: There are two other Bee Gees, Robin and Maurice Gibb; respect to these Bee Gees. "When you walked in the front door, not only did you get the sound of the disco music, the smell of sex and taste the sweat, but you got the smell of all those live gardinias. Studio 54 The Documentary - Official Trailer. Nile Rodgers on Writing 'Le Freak,' Grace Jones, and the Disco Backlash. I went down to 54 to meet with Steve. Their uniform was apparently various stages of undress. What does it feel like looking out at that crowd?Well, its overwhelming, but you feel safe because youve got a lot of security. Women would dance, showing their breasts, and guys would wear assless chaps, right? Schrager was all business, happy to stay behind the scenes and run things that way. Whats the orb for? Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Coronation. Halloween was always the biggest night of the year, drawing crowds of over 2,500, recalled Fleischman. I definitely did. Much different. (Photo by Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images) Please note: images depicting historical events may contain themes, or have descriptions, that do not reflect current understanding. Pittman also noted the boundless "artistic exchange" that happened at Studio 54 parties -- it was a weekly meeting place for musicians, visual artists and other creative minds. And two of the acts who appeared in his shows were Madonna and the Beastie Boys. [laughs] The Post was already doing its thing back then. Of course you had a lot of people burning out and most unfortunately, a whole lot of people died. I was very young. I lost Halston but I found him a little later eating a turkey leg, and he made me have some. Ahead, five outrageous anecdotes that paint a picture of Studio 54 in all of its gratuitous glory. According to Studio 54 documentary filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer, the club owners "cleverly paid doorman Marc Benecke more than anyone else to make sure he wasn't tempted to take bribes. After it all came crashing down and the club closed, Benecke took a much-needed West Coast hiatus. Rollerena on the dance floor at Studio 54. That remains in my mind as a real crystalline memory of that time. I think about 54 as the end of the 60s, in a way. In most cases, there was no serious hiring process, and many employees had no relevant experience or, indeed, any experience whatsoever before they were tasked with running the world's most amazing club. I was right behind him, and he got on the floor and they put his album on. 2hrs. The law was willing to look the other way on that stuff. The one that sticks out in my head had a midget family eating a formal dinner., Ahead of Thanksgiving in 1978, Rubell attempted an audacious holiday event for which Valentino footed the bill. The photographic work of Dustin PIttman -- the focus of this feature . Are you glad you quit the higher-paying job at Jim McMullen to do Studio?Oh, well, yeah. They were very into social issues and I grew up being politically aware at a very early age. Here, Vogue presents the best looks from Studio 54. We were all there to work really long hours. It was six nights a week, from 10 at night until 4 in the morning. Are we getting it? How did you do that? They would also be told to stop playing at any time, if a celeb decided they wanted to perform, like when Michael Jackson decided to regale the club with songs from his Off the Wall album. Page Six was around, though! At the door, Steve Rubell tasked you with letting a mixed salad of people into the club. It was as crazy as has been talked about. "Renny the florist decorated the entire studio with live gardenias for Liz, because that was her favorite flower," he wrote as a caption for one of the exhibition images . So they were on pretty good behavior. Steve Rubell, a co-owner of the club, reveled in mixing beautiful "nobodies" with the glamorous by hand-selecting guests from the crowds outside the . He launched into an enthusiastic rendition of I Did It My Way. A bit too enthusiastic, in fact. There are a bunch of gay guys in Day-Glo construction helmets, dancing with Bianca Jagger. What was your approach to turning someone away? I remember there was a couple who came and one of them would be on a leash, and I think the woman was topless. The former editor of Interview, Bob Colacello, said of Studio 54, "Even if you weren't having sex with someone every night, you felt like you could.". Mifepristone will remain widely available through April 19, the deadline for the Court to decide whether to let stand an order rolling back access. How different was the vibe once Ian and Steve left? While the other bartenders danced at the end of the night, he took out the trash and swept up. From 1977 until early 1980, lucky revelers who got past the velvet ropes of Studio 54 in Manhattan were greeted with a haven for hedonism and creativity. You got up and you danced, and you might end up dancing with Catherine Deneuve or anybody, but there was a sense that different rules applied. Fleischman began to develop symptoms of . Rubell had the waiters dressed up like Pilgrims and he was serving turkey, recalled Warhol in his published diaries. People were really tired of war and people just wanted to have a good time, and we did. He was in black tie. Jones added, People would climb down from the building next door in full mountain-climbing geartrying to get into the courtyard., Doorman Marc Benecke told the BBC, At one point you could buy maps which claimed to show how to get in through tunnels up from the subway system. ", What makes a man? But people who were in the main industries of New York, finance, fashion, entertainment, it was considered normal. Some of the social and political issues of the time must have played out at Studio 54? This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Opened by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager in 1977the same year Saturday Night Fever came outthere's never been a club like it since, with . I was nervous. It had to be later than 1976 because Studio 54 didn't open until 1977. He also had zero experience as a doorman or even with the club scene. In the three short years of Studio 54s heyday, Marc Benecke was who you had to get past to enjoy the hedonistic other side. 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