I was nervous. So what was the wildest thing you ever saw at Studio?The wildest thing was happening every night in the balcony. Locals have targeted former TOWIE star Elliot Wright's Spanish restaurant with graffiti calling him a 'killer' less than two days after his doorman was killed while trying to break up a fight at . Scantily clad dancers gyrated on an automated bridge that moved back and forth over the dance floor. When you dance here, you're just free," the late Michael Jackson said in footage that later appeared in the 2018 documentary "Studio 54. The photographic work of Dustin PIttman -- the focus of this feature . This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. Sally Lippman, also known as "Disco Sally", was a 77-year-old widow and regular . 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. There were people that were just flat-out fabulous, that would get in no matter what. All rights reserved. Rubell was the exact opposite. Dustin Pittman was one of many photographers who entered the hallowed grounds of, The storied celebrity photos that shaped Hollywood. It wasnt just a nightclub. Or Myra Scheer, who went from clubgoer to the owners' right-hand woman. "A lot of the clubs had their energy, their excitement," he said in a phone interview. But before you went in there, you had to check your coat. He was all of 19-years-old. Nevertheless, they were "treated like s***." This article originally appeared on Vogue US. She was blitzed. "We didn't want people with . Both Rubell and Schrager were arrested and accused of skimming $2.5 . With few cameras in the club, and Rubell and Schrager careful about which images were made public, celebrities were more uninhibited. Studio 54 Radio is the Ultimate Classic Dance Experience. It was an easy interview, it didnt go into too much depth, it probably lasted for half an hour and then he offered me the job. Simone Kessell Wants to Throw a Very Kiwi Dinner Party, Living Abroad Helped Me Cope With My Tourette Syndrome. The bartenders at Studio 54 were meant to be eye candy as much as employees there to serve drinks. We became very good friends. I went down to 54 to meet with Steve. On any given evening, it was an extraordinary event. Benecke said, "One of the things I think that made me a good doorperson was that I can really feel [people's] energy and for the most part, where they're coming from." "Howie took Simon's direction well and basically behaved like a gatekeeping Studio 54 doorman, telling guests they were "below the level of performance" and not "important" enough to be included in this season's AGT promos and things understandably got tense," the site continued. It smelled like a cat had died. I had only ever been to one clubI wasnt interested in that whatsoever. How much cocaine are we talking?Cocaine was ubiquitous. Anything Went. On any given evening, youd have, you know, Rudolph Nureyev, youd have Chuck Berry, Keith Richards. 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. 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 was an army of people working behind the velvet rope, behind the bar, and behind the scenes to make sure Studio 54's patrons had the times of their lives once they were inside. [laughs] The Post was already doing its thing back then. Steve had this passion for Diana. I was very young. "It's always in the air. We had kind of a language at the door, certain words we used to describe who was approaching, that kind of thing. A German male model, Uva Harden, originally found the location and brought on an investor plus a woman named Carmen D'Alessio to handle the publicity. I brought these questions to Robert Bobby Sheridan, who worked the door at Studio 54, alongside Marc Benecke, from just after its opening to around the time of the bust, in 1979. ), Hey, he said after my stunned pause, you asked., Nothing could shock me anymore, added Gaines, whose book Simply Halston is the basis for Netflixs limited series starring Ewan McGregor as the late fashion designer. The doomsday mom, who wanted to rid the world of zombies, is accused of murdering two of her children. Each EDITION property is completely unique, reflecting the best of the cultural and social milieu of its location and of the time. However, it only put him into a labored sleep. 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. This is how I met my wife Elizabeth. How exactly the music at a disco could interfere when it's literally called "disco" is unclear. Not that Studio wasnt adult. He mixed with the celebs and partied just as hard as they did. Barts. "People were able to let go of their inhibitions, let go of all their emotional baggage they had on the outside and just be who they were.". Anything went, everybody was cool with everything, and all I know is that he was always impeccably dressed, a gentleman, I never saw him do any drugs, though everybody knows that he did. In France, the slower pace of life and resistance to American-style productivity culture can be as effective as medication. Studio 54 Radio. 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. I remember there was a couple who came and one of them would be on a leash, and I think the woman was topless. 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. There are varying stories of how Scott Taylor was hired, but New York Magazine says he just showed up on opening night and asked for a job. Fleischman began to develop symptoms of . A haven of hedonism, tolerance, glitz and glamor, Studio was very hard to gain entrance to and impossible to ignore, with news of who was there filling the gossip columns daily. It had to be later than 1976 because Studio 54 didn't open until 1977. But people who were in the main industries of New York, finance, fashion, entertainment, it was considered normal. The next morning, he woke up furious, threw everyone out, and instead took 20, the final chapter in the life of one of the New York LGBTQ+ community's most beloved members. This was like a different person. Studio 54 produced many star-studded photo opportunities. The Upper East Side socialites were doing cocaine. But asthe director of a documentary on the club said, "For something that was so brief, Studio 54 had a disproportionate impact on the people who went there." There was an etiquette to Studio 54. It's no fun to be 53 at Studio 54. The fall of Rome, let me tell you. He started dancing, and the whole floor cleared out, and he danced to a couple of songs from that album. A Black teen in Kansas City was shot when he went to the wrong house to pick up his siblings. If somebody came up and they were really drunk and acting obnoxious, no they wouldnt get in. 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. He had this drag queen muse. "I only want fun-looking people in here," said the club's co-owner, who grew up in Brooklyn long before it became fashionable. Some of the social and political issues of the time must have played out at Studio 54? Therefore, celebrities and people in general were willing to let their hair down a lot more. Fleischman took over Studio 54 in 1978 after the two original owners were arrested for tax evasion, although the club closed its doors for good in 1986. Considering Studio 54 was a nightclub, and people tend to go to nightclubs to dance, you'd assume the DJs there would be close to royalty. Halloween was always the biggest night of the year, drawing crowds of over 2,500, recalled Fleischman. Nothing sets the mood like dust and crochet shirts. Do you expect me to pick up glasses and sweep the floors? To an extent. - Studio 54: Night Magic is curated and designed by Matthew Yokobosky, Senior Curator of Fashion and Material Culture, Brooklyn Museum and runs March 13 to July 5, 2020. Would any celebrity get in if they just walked up?Well, not necessarily. So this guys standing out there for probably half an hour, Steve comes out and he looked at me and he said, I think that might be one of the Bee Gees. I said, Really, you think so? And he said, Thats how they dress. He walks up and he says, Are you one of the Bee Gees? And he goes, Yeah Im Barry Gibb.. 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. It was a haven of illicit sex, illegal drug use, and the wildest parties the city had ever seen. Health warning over viral TikTok trend which sees sweet-flavoured powders and syrups added to water to make it taste better. He launched into an enthusiastic rendition of I Did It My Way. A bit too enthusiastic, in fact. People Magazine was barely three years old when Studio opened. Hed have dinner in fairly large groups and you could get a sentence out here and there, but in general, he was more of an observer than a participant unless he knew you really, really well. He was like a fairy godmother. Benecke wanted to be a lawyer, according to the Edition Broadsheet. According to former visitors, the door policy was more like a casting agency. It was a joyous prelude to the AIDS epidemic, which reared its head in the early 1980s, before claiming around 50,000 American lives a year during its peak in the mid-1980s, and fundamentally changing New York nightlife. ]I kept Barry Gibb waiting for half an hour. The girls could also go hang around the club themselves for a bit, then come back with all the gossip. Perhaps because, as Taylor put it, "Steve [Rubell] wanted all big, gay, muscle-bound bartenders, and I was, like, this Jewish straight boy from Queens," the owner was unimpressed when he noticed and tried to fire him. "Judi called the publicist for Studio 54 and got us on a list," she remembers, "then she became friendly with the doorman, Marc Benecke. We were all there to work really long hours. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Bob was watching Bianca [Jagger] take poppers and he said to Diana Vreeland, It really becomes more like pagan Rome every day, and she said, I should hope soisnt that what were after?, That would be Disco Sally, a sprightly thing in her late seventies who danced like a thirty-year-old, and was accompanied by a handsome young man named John on her arm, wrote Mark Fleischman in Inside Studio 54. 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. He had every single song in his car., Ross prodded an even more trashed Rubell into singing himself. This is what it was like to work at Studio 54. And Montaug was one of the victims,dying from the disease in 1991 (via The New York Times). Who do you particularly remember? Not everyone who worked at Studio 54 was just there to have a good time. He tipped off the IRS and the IRS pounced." Realizing you really could pay for publicity like that, the job of celebrity wrangler was born. A distant cousin of mine had a bouncer contract for 54. AsOZYnotes, disco was getting big, the drugs flowed freely, and the AIDS epidemic hadn't yet turned casual, unprotected sex into a death sentence. He basically fell over the thing at one point, Roger Parenti says. 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. One of my favorite people was a guy named Rollerena, I think he was a stockbroker but he dressed like a fairy queen with a tiara, and he had a wand, and he was on roller skates. People would come from out of town to come to the club, and it just wasnt necessarily a good fit. 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