But even if you worked at McDonalds and you liked to come and just dance, and you had good energy, you could get in. 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]. In 2021 alone, it reared its glittery head in Halston, as the site where the eponymous designer (allegedly) railed cocaine in a booth and lit a fur coat on fire. Snoogy Brown - ( Snoogy didn't work at Studio 54. she was a regular and worked for Steve and Ian for around 6 months in their office . On any given evening, it was an extraordinary event. Anything went, as long as no one got hurt. The photographer said he only experienced that type of energy at Andy Warhol's studio, the Factory, which the photographer frequented in the 1970s. Andy Warhol was one of the few well-known artists in the world [that came to Studio 54]. Or Myra Scheer, who went from clubgoer to the owners' right-hand woman. 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 . Marc Benecke, center, a Studio 54 doorman. Nearly 35 years after her underappreciated romantic comedys release, the Oscar nominee returns to the Lower East Side. Not a subscriber? 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. ", What makes a man? According to Disco, Drugs & Decadence: The Rise and Fall of America's Premier Discotheque. 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 . This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. 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." It was a festival of light and music, and the effects were incredible. But screwing the government out of their money? Doorman Mark Benecke was charged with deciding on the chosen ones. People see you as arrogant, whereas for me it was more of a self-defense mechanism. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us. Reinaldo Herrera, who was there with Carolina, says, It was rather moving. But most celebrities knew there would be paparazzi there, and they could be on Page Six the next day. If there was already a similar type like you inside, you could easily be refused at the door. The actor, artist, and certified beefcake chats with, Filming a geopolitical epic in Europe for seven months was the last thing on the. Halston, Andy Warhol, Liza Minnelli, Mick Jagger, Cher, David Geffen, Jack Nicholson, and Michael Jackson regularly packed the banquettes. I brought the preppy thing to Studio 54, Marc enjoyed that about me, so we would talk in exaggerated, WASP-y accents. A Studio 54 Doorman Tells Us How to Get In. 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. To an extent. Miestorm claims that later that same evening, he "snorted coke with Andy Warhol, Divine, and Halston. They saw me behind the bar, and they asked Jim McMullen about me. Ad Choices, Donald Trump Still Collects Six-Figure Pension from SAG-AFTRA: Report. The photographer credits this to the late Rubell, who died in 1989, and Schrager. All rights reserved. That sort of spectacle is what made Studio 54 intoxicating for partygoers. Rubell, who often insisted that photographers hand over their images for approval, didn't ask the same of Pittman, he said. Knowing his time was coming to an end and not wanting to die suffering, the former bouncer invited some of his closest friends to his apartment, including Madonna, who joined by telephone (viaNew York Magazine). Hes now back with a Studio 54 radio show on SiriusXM and a new position with Schrager, as the New York EDITIONs night manager. After Studio 54, Mr. Fleischman opened Tatou, a New York music club and restaurant, then established other branches in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Tokyo and Aspen, Colo. From the 1990s to about 2007 . How did you do that? He went and did it and I still didnt let him in. 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. 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. 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. He said he had to explain to Valentino why he was doing it that way. 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. Siano claims, "Steve [Rubell] wanted an invisible DJ, so that it wouldn't interfere with the club." Not that Studio wasnt adult. Now, people used to tip us occasionally on the way out, and my tips often came in cocaine and quaaludes. He basically fell over the thing at one point, Roger Parenti says. Studio 54. Now 39 years sober, Sheridan is in private practice as a psychotherapist in Providence, Rhode Island; he is also the father of one of my best friends, which is how I know about his past life as a disco lounge lizard, as he put it in our recent interview. 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. Yeah, I actually told this one guy to go buy this blazer that I had on at Bloomingdales. The stockbrokers were all doing cocaine. Schrager was all business, happy to stay behind the scenes and run things that way. To get into Studio 54, first you had to get past the doorman, Marc Benecke. As part of partiers' first impression of the club, the coat check girls had to fit in. They were offering me money, and they were getting a little annoyed with me. View of an animated Man in the Moon and Spoon lighted sign at Studio 54, New York, New York, May 9, 1978. You would offer somebody a line, like somebody would get offered a bottle of water today. Though the exhibition, "Studio 54: Night Magic," is temporarily closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, it crystallizes the glamorous nights set against gritty 1970s New York. Vote up the Studio 54 snapshots that make you want to queue up and bribe a doorman. The fall of Rome, let me tell you. He had every single song in his car., Ross prodded an even more trashed Rubell into singing himself. Password must be at least 8 characters and contain: As part of your account, youll receive occasional updates and offers from New York, which you can opt out of anytime. Simone Kessell Wants to Throw a Very Kiwi Dinner Party, Living Abroad Helped Me Cope With My Tourette Syndrome. Not everyone who worked at Studio 54 was just there to have a good time. The head of security was Chuck Garelick, he became Uncle Chuck Uncle Chuck, Uncle Biff, Uncle Bunky. When Bells palsy paralyzed one side of my face, I had to find other ways to express joy. Learn more. Across generations, photographers have provided eclectic answers. 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. Enter the coat check girls. This was like a different person. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Coronation. Totally trashed, Chris Williamson says. Who do you particularly remember? I lost Halston but I found him a little later eating a turkey leg, and he made me have some. I imagine your role at EDITION will be more tame than working the door at Studio 54. You never said anything, youre not supposed to talk, youre supposed to walk up and be recognized. The group's members Ad-Rock, Mike D, and MCA also got big a few years later. He was able to turn people away with a smile. What Will It Take to Bring Audiences Back to the Movies? The director of a documentary on Studio 54 said, "A disgruntled employee knew about the skimming operation and where the cash was hidden in the club. The doomsday mom, who wanted to rid the world of zombies, is accused of murdering two of her children. In 2021 alone, it reared its glittery . Each celebrity "get" was worth a certain amount of money, depending on star power. And Entertainment Tonight, the first show on TV about entertainment, didnt even start until 81, 82, when they had already sold Studio. 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. 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. Regardless of their physical state, it was the coat check girls' job to play it "cool" no matter how famous the star or how drugged up the person who lost their ticket was. "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. We were all really serious about creating a great show.". "It was an assault of the senses," he said. As Netflixs Halston reminds us, Studio 54 was a fever dream of excess. For the new exhibition, Pittman reflected on the night of actress Elizabeth Taylor's birthday. May 22 2021 05:00 AM. Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now. 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. The club keeps coming up in pop culture, from Netflix to House of Gucci. 2hrs. ", Steve Rubell and Carmen d'Alessio in Norma Kamali coats (1977). If somebody came up and they were really drunk and acting obnoxious, no they wouldnt get in. Some were serious businessmen and women who crunched numbers and made phone calls, and some were just mostly naked hot young men who wandered around the club hanging out with partygoers who weren't on the payroll. For 33 short months the club was the height of cool in Manhattan, with club goers who managed to get past the velvet rope falling into a deluge of drugs and debauchery. People would come from out of town to come to the club, and it just wasnt necessarily a good fit. It was my 15 minutes with Andy Warhol, I guess. Theyd get in. We became very good friends. People did quaaludes because quaaludes were aphrodisiacs, and there was a lot of sex at Studio 54. People functioned that way. And the doorman/bouncer at those clubs Studio 54 especially was, for a time anyway, a man named Haoui Montaug. (This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.). 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 . And Montaug was one of the victims,dying from the disease in 1991 (via The New York Times). It serves as a hook for House of Gucci, Lady GagaasPatrizia Reggiani shimmying under the clubs strobing lights in the trailers. And Studio 54 doorman Marc Benecke as his witness, looking the part above the neck went a long way. (It involved bodily fluids expelled competitively in the Studio 54 basement. One year, we spent $50,000 transforming the main entrance hall into a haunted mansion that included live monsters jumping out at our guests as they made their way across rickety bridges through a graveyard, while howling and other very strange loud noises played in the background. Describing one party, former model Kevin Haley told Vanity Fair in 1996, As you came up the ramp in the foyer, you looked through little windows into little booths with midgets doing things. . "Judi called the publicist for Studio 54 and got us on a list," she remembers, "then she became friendly with the doorman, Marc Benecke. He also had zero experience as a doorman or even with the club scene. It wasnt exclusive, really, it was inclusive of people who were of that moment in Manhattan, with an appreciation for diversity, with an eye for fashion. Those people just looked at me and turned and walked away. It just wasnt gonna work. But . Once you were in, you could find yourself doing a million different jobs or getting a sudden and unexpected promotion. Exclusively men, it's unclear if any of them owned a shirt. Like Berlin's Berghain today, Studio 54 was very famous for its door policy, which was: fun-loving. I was a poli sci major in school, I wanted to become a lawyer. Chuck Garelick - head of security. A double dose of Rachel Weisz is just what the doctor ordered. Studio 54 The Documentary - Official Trailer. The Products This Climate Journalist Uses to the Last Drop. Videos show people adding flavoured powder sachets and syrups to water Weve rounded up the best looks from celeb events this week, including Jenna Ortega, Troye Sivan, and Devin Halbal. Terms of Service apply. Madonna, who would have been 24 or 25 at the time, performed "Everybody." 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. How exactly the music at a disco could interfere when it's literally called "disco" is unclear. Opened by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager in 1977the same year Saturday Night Fever came outtheres never been a club like it since, with celebrities, socialites and scene- makers clamoring for a ticket in. I have heard that, yes! You couldnt buy your way in, you know? What was the celebrity culture like back then? Show Schedule. It wasnt all over the place. 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. The smiling shot was taken by royal photographer Chris Jackson to mark the monarch's 70th birthday in November 2018 - six months after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex married in Windsor. But people who were in the main industries of New York, finance, fashion, entertainment, it was considered normal. As mentioned previously, Haoui (sometimes spelled "Howie") Montaug's heyday was in the years before the AIDS epidemic became a thing. 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. "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.". 2023 Vox Media, LLC. According to New York Magazine, Lenny Miestorm was a teenaged art student who grew up on a farm and one of the original hires at Studio 54. "I only want fun-looking people in here," said the club's co-owner, who grew up in Brooklyn long before it became fashionable. What did you talk about?Nothing! Now Pittman, along with many other creative talents in photography, fashion, make-up and design, is featured in the Brooklyn Museum's ode to the midtown hotspot. It was sex all over the place with various people, and it was full-tilt boogie: work, pleasure, cocaine. Getting into Studio 54 in the 1970s was a nearly impossible endeavor. 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.. But the person who almost certainly got the most offers for sex was the doorman Marc Benecke, when people offered up their bodies just to get inside. Touching. He used to hide his costumes in different nooks and crannies in the city because there was no way he could changeespecially in those daysfrom his job on Wall Street. Rubell had the waiters dressed up like Pilgrims and he was serving turkey, recalled Warhol in his published diaries. In that way it was exclusive but also inclusive. Cocaine was the marijuana of the disco era. 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 tipped off the IRS and the IRS pounced." What good was owning the coolest club in the world if you didn't party in it yourself? And the doorman/bouncer at those clubs Studio 54 especially was, for a time anyway, a man named Haoui Montaug. 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 25 Best Shows on Netflix to Watch Right Now. And its very interesting, I mean, it was fascinating. People felt like the key to happiness was maybe not getting married, but maybe having multiple partners. It still is," Schrager told "CBS This Morning: Saturday" co-host Anthony Mason. People did quaaludes because quaaludes were aphrodisiacs, and MCA also got big a few years later as long no... Explain to Valentino why he was doing it that way let him right in you. Said anything, youre supposed studio 54 doorman walk up and bribe a doorman a self-defense mechanism a line, like would... Who died in 1989, and MCA also got big a few years later doorman Marc Benecke guess... Get '' was worth a certain amount of money, and Halston wasnt necessarily a good fit that you! That same evening, he became Uncle Chuck Uncle Chuck, studio 54 doorman Bunky as long as no one hurt. 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