We knocked on the door. A 77-year-old widow who became known as "Disco Sally" was a regular and was always allowed in when she showed up. Messed Up Things That Happened At Studio 54. Once they did, a "mad sexual orgy" started. 9 Monumental Books About Martin Luther King Jr. 9 Films That Provide Insight Into Martin Luther King Jr.s Life and Legacy. Not something you see every day, but you could see it at Studio 54. At this point, the club had been closed down and reopened under new ownership. Once you found yourself inside the hallowed grounds of Studio 54, the next place you wanted to go was the fabled basement; a cavernous, dingy, decidedly unglamorous space decorated with damaged banquets, pillars of rolled carpet and set pieces from past parties. Studio 54 was crazy all year long, but things got especially wacky for Halloween. Giancarlo Giammetti threw a circus-themed birthday party for his business partner, fashion designer Valentino. This photograph offers a glimpse into New Years Eve at Studio 54. Margaret Trudeau was the wife of the Canadian Prime Minister at the time, and she loved to let loose. Desperately!. Another thing it often had, as a result, was strange performances. If you wanted to dress in next to nothing and wear lots of makeup, you were encouraged. One journalist who was there frequently said, "Even if you weren't having sex with someone every night, you felt like you could.". Once they replaced the profanity, it would become their smash hit "Le Freak.". Those who were turned away often returned night after night, changing their outfits, hairstyles and company. 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. At the time, childish fun in a club like this couldnt be found in most other venues. Ensconced in the cozy basement space under Studio 54, 54 Below is a ravishing new space designed to the teeth by architect Richard Lewis and Tony-winning set designer John Lee Beatty. Not even those who got inside the club could all make it into the basement. "I don't have only good memories. [Halston] only had about 150 people. A cheetah might be sitting at the bar. A man wears a gold costume, eyeliner, and a headdress while dancing. Left: Outside Studio 54, someone arrives to the club on a horse for the third annual Halloween party in 1978. Bokfrlaget Max Strm/Hasse Persson Studio 54. Footage shows co-founder Steve Rubell cherrypicking on the door, reprimanding one hopeful with the immortal line: Dont ever come here with a hat. Doorman Mark Benecke was charged with deciding on the chosen ones. It wasnt until a few years later that Rubell would get busted for tax evasion and end up in jail. This photograph was taken at the first Halloween party and shows two men dressed in taboo fetish gear, one man miming cutting the other. Frank Sinatra was stranded in his limousine, unable to get near. Being a spouse to legendary partier Jagger, its no wonder she enjoyed a good get-together herself. The club also had doves and a snake present for visitors on different nights. When youre a wealthy celebrity, youre going to want to have the best of the best. I dont know what Im going to do without Studio! And everyone was crying and weeping.. What Gene has is a very different sensitivity, McCarthy says. Sometimes the venue hired dancers or had fashion models walking the crowds. Hindsight is 20/20, but people who were there swear they knew they were part of something historic. Even so, it gave visitors a rush of adrenaline to watch them twirl in the air from below. And all of a sudden the guy starts choking me., That was a minor inconvenience compared to the trials of security chief Chuck Garelick, who tells Haden-Guest that a man once tried to literally crash the VIP entrance in his Oldsmobile. And on its last night under initial management, Diana Ross serenaded Rubell and Schrader -- of course surrounded by the likes of Jack Nicholson, Farrah Fawcett, and Sylvester Stallone, among others. We felt horrible., The men sulked back to Rodgers apartment just a few blocks away. Both Rubell and Schrager were arrested and accused of skimming $2.5 million in club earnings. A woman holds a makeshift pipe for a man as he attempts to smoke an unidentified substance in 1981. She called getting on it and riding around a "foolish decision.". One bartender co-wrote a novel in 1980 about a Studio 54-like club that was so close to reality, Andy Warhol wondered how he didn't get sued. It first opened its doors in 1927 as the Gallo Opera House. Though the club was ultimately destroyed by vice and greed, its short reign defined the flashy exuberance of the late Seventies, before the scourge of AIDS ended the party forever. So they were willing to wait and hope to get noticed and invited past the velvet rope keeping them away from all the fun inside. Studio 54 The Ultimate Den Of Vice Photography Guardian. Now an animal rights advocate, Bianca told the Financial Times (via the Guardian) that she didn't show up on the horse. One of the men on the scene was Gene Spatz, a pioneering paparazzo and street photographer who most people have never heard about. We were just yelling obscenities: Fuck Studio 54 Fuck em Fuck off Fuck those scumbags fuck them! So they would send limos to pick them up, making sure there was plenty of cocaine in them first. The doormen regularly had to be escorted home at the end of the night for their safety. And they were not quiet about it. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. Fashion designer Clovis Ruffin waits for a drink at the bar in 1980. Andys first reaction was, You mean they told me there was a thousand dollars in there and it was only $800? That November they pled guilty to two counts of corporate and personal income-tax evasion. Mick Jagger and his then significant other Jerry Hall entering the club. What made Studio 54 different, however, was that drugs were practically encouraged inside. There was an anything goes attitude to sex at Studio 54. Antoinette Norcia / Getty Images In this 1978 picture, crowds line up for entry into Manhattan's renowned disco and . It was a sad going-away party but we were laughing and trying to have fun. and Company, but the party was initially dead. Franco Rossellini and Steve Rubell (producer and owner, respectively) are pictured here in front of what appears to be a giant birthday cake. He was supplied with drugs and given a regular paycheck. It smelled like a cat had died. His body was discovered in black-tie attire. 60 Chilling Vintage Photos From Studio 54. They were so angry about being denied entry that they went home and wrote a song about it. I have. One of Studio 54s main attractions was its complex lighting. The crowds only grew as the clubs popularity did. Lowen recognized some of the celebrities in the photos, but she wasnt sure what exactly her brothers archives contained or its value to the world. People openly took poppers on the dance floor, and less openly shot up heroin in dark corners. Behind The Velvet Rope Line Of Studio 54 S Short Sordid Life. 10 Crazy Things That Happened At Studio 54 Mental Floss. For more New York drama, be sure to check out what the city looked like in the 1970s. And McCarthy was able to recognize the special collection Lowen had inherited and make sure his creative legacy remained alive. One clubgoer waited outside with a group of friends, including a doctor packing a jumbo bottle of Quaaludes. According to him he actually took the trash out and swept up while his co-workers partied. After they were found guilty and sentenced to three and a half years each, they threw one last huge party the night before they went to prison. documentary. Up above the balcony, there was the rubber room, with thick rubber walls that could be easily wiped down after all the powdery activity that went on. The doctor started handing them out, he told Haden-Guest. For 33 months, Studio 54 was the American bacchanal, an unprecedented mix of glamorous sophistication and primal hedonism. But if that wasn't enough, above the balcony was the "Rubber Room." By this time, the club had cemented its reputation as a popular place for celebrities, and Stallone was one more added to the list. The sex, drugs and disco on offer at Studio 54 served as the perfect release for a generation raised under the pressures of Watergate and the Vietnam War. Nightlife anywhere was sure to have drugs involved were talking about the 1970s, here. According to friends, Warhol said it was the best present he had ever received. Halston.It was 10:30 in the morning and the phone rang, club associate Renny Reynolds told Haden-Guest. Extreme Record Collecting: Confessions of an analog vinyl snob, A long, rambling blog post about my Nico obsession (+ some astonishing, seldom seen TV performances). For that reason, his photos are not only fine art, they are history. We had chickens in a pen, he says in The Last Party. A man dressed up in leather and an NYU tank chats with his friend, decked out in pearls and garters as two other club-goers look on. But wait, is that a horse shes trying to pet? It wasn't that disco was dying or the club became uncool, it was that the owners were complete crooks. For 33 months, Studio 54 was the American bacchanal, an unprecedented mix of glamorous sophistication and primal hedonism. The Birth of Studio 54. Williams appears to be accepting a drink from the jolly character. Many of the staff of Studio 54 including Rubell died as a result of it. Studio 54 co-owner Steve Rubell stands in his office, which he claimed was ransacked by federal agents looking for drugs, in 1978. She is even said to have enjoyed a night or two out with Mick Jagger and the rest of the Rolling Stones. He'd gotten stuck and no one knew he was there until it was far too late. Thats why Sylvester Stallone decided he needed to pay a visit to the most famous disco in the United States. Left: A performer on stilts manages to bust a move in 1981. The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time The setting is quite a departure from his most famous work, but Papageorges keen eye for detail and fascination with his subjects is consistently engaginghe just makes everyone look gorgeous. For Andy Warhols 50th birthday in August 1978, Rubell gave the artist a fresh roll of 5,000 free drink tickets and a silver garbage can filled with $1,000 worth of crisp new dollar bills. It was just as much a part of the Studio 54 experience as the dancing. Steve was coked out of his mind, remembered one in attendance, Bianca was hugging him, and he was saying, I love you people! They had haystacks and horses and donkeys and mules running through the club. Renny Reynolds procured most of the animals from a farm he was renting in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Operated by the Roundabout Theatre Company, Studio 54 has 1,006 seats on two levels. She made appearances at the nightclub more than once throughout the years and was there on its last day of operation under Steve Rubell in 1980. Studio 54 had arrived. One night a rejected hopeful came back and brandished a gun. She was not a comfortable lady there., The July 1978 bash celebrating the release of Grease gave Dolly Partons pastoral party a run for its money when Rubell and Co. recreated the movies retro set. Studio 54: heady daze of disco decadence in pictures, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Perhaps understandably, Rodgers now considers Benecke a friend. Inside studio 54 the wild nights of 1970 s celebrities disco and debauchery club owner mark fleischman i m ending my life by dancing with stars swimming in story behind legendary nightclub high humans broadway beloved basement feinstein below turns 10 new york times page 4 herald weekly ian schrager on doentary this film takes [] Under Rubells ownership, however, the strange, the weird and the scary were given a place to flourish beneath the lights of the nightclub. Exactly what needed to be cleaned is best left to the imagination. The door code played upon the fundamental human quirk of desperately wanting what one cant have. While many clubgoers enjoyed this aspect of Studio 54, it got them lots of attention from the authorities. Diana Ross and Liza Minnelli both performed. Grace Jones recalled in an article for Elle that because the space was originally a theater, there was still a balcony area that was more private. While it lasted, many photographers flocked to the bacchanal to capture the celebrities and other lucky denizens as they danced and snorted and frolicked under that iconic Man in the Moon with the coke spoon sculpture. We stood there as long as we could take it, until our feet were just finally way too cold. Skimming was standard practice in the cash-flush world of restaurants and nightclubs, but this was an order of magnitude greater than most offenders. 60 Chilling Vintage Photos From Studio 54 Studio 54 has gone down in history as the ultimate nightclub, a place where everyone who was anyone went to get down, boogie, and be seen. After those three years, the experience of partying at Studio 54 just wasnt the same. Photographer Gene Spatz captured celebrities including John Lennon, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger at the iconic New York City 1970s nightclub. It was "madness.". He was not there for the drug-fueled disco deliria. So we ended up having to pay for new seats. Nearby trash cans always had to be emptied of bottles and other things that could become dangerous projectiles. The picture that forms is that you had to see it to believe it. We were invited to meet with Grace Jones at Studio 54, Rodgers told Sound on Sound in 2005. According to the Guardian, the owners helpfully supplied mattresses and everything. In the very, very far left you can see me I didnt know that I was in the picture., Persson on this photo: "I think this is the same horse Bianca Jagger turned up on for her birthday in 1977. Even a brief sampling of these parties is enough to scramble the senses. It was down here that the privileged few were invited to indulge in their wildest desires. Enjoy these Studio 54 photos? Men and women whipped out their private parts and everyone started feeling up complete strangers. Studio 54's golden age came to an end when the federal government came after Schrager and Rubell for tax evasion. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for who gained entrance and who didn't. Right: A costumed partygoer hits the dance floor in 1981. See Rare Photos Inside Studio 54 Nightclub Photographer Gene Spatz captured celebrities - including John Lennon, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger - at the iconic New York City 1970s nightclub By. Among the first to appear outside the doors of Studio 54 on opening night was Donald Trump, accompanied by his new wife, Ivana. Unfortunately, the guest of honor was less than amused. [He] wanted to have a birthday party that Monday for Bianca Jagger. Like many venues, the club closed Mondays for a dark night, but Rubell made an exception. ' Released as Le Freak that September, the song would become Chics first Number One and biggest hit. About fifteen minutes later we were just getting ready to leave, and they opened one of the doors. Actress and model Margaux Hemingway celebrates her 24th birthday in style. Right: Clubgoers inhale nitrous oxide (also known as laughing gas) on the dance floor during the 1977 Halloween party. Oddly, one of the first people ever in the club was Donald Trump. In this picture, well-known English actor Michael Caine is laughing and dancing with his wife Shakira, while partygoers frolic on behind them. This would not be the only time the nightclub had a horse on its premises, nor would it be the only animal ever invited inside. Whether they were dressed in a festive way or they were interesting, high energy, danced well, or socialites, celebrities, models, you had to bring something to the table.. In the clubs first year open, Cher showed up to the scene at Studio 54. 74-year-old photographer Tod Papageorge is best known for capturing the buzzing streets of NYC and subtle moments in Central Park. (Quaaludes, a prescription sedative with hypnotic effects, were huge in the '70s and classily known as "panty droppers.") Studio 54: Candid photography captures all the bacchanalian revelry, Oliver Reed as a prototype Alex from A Clockwork Orange in These are the Damned, I Have No Desire To Be Nico: Post-Punks Muse Of Manchester, Linder Sterling. Steve had certain criteria, an insider later told Vanity Fair. This wouldnt be the only time Studio 54 went above and beyond for New Years. When New York published this list of party favors in November 1979, Warhol was horrified to discover that his pail had only contained $800. One of the many famous faces to grace the dance floor of Studio 54 was that of legendary singer Diana Ross. Contact Gabriel H. Sanchez at gabriel.sanchez@buzzfeed.com. While these two women may not have been the craziest partiers, they certainly appreciated a good night out. The IRS was not fooled. Lifelong memories were made within its walls every night. At the Purple magazine party, a naked couple in a clear bathtub perform for an audience in 1977. In 1977 the club made millions yet reportedly paid just a paltry $8,000 in taxes. Why dont we go? As you can see, this was long before his dramatic transformation and eventual controversies in the public eye. If you wanted a place to let loose and perhaps engage in some public nudity, then Studio 54 was the club for you. If you found yourself fortunate enough to make it inside Studio 54 in 1978, you mightve come upon a scene like this one. In the 1970s, Studio 54 was a palace of excess and hedonism and on Halloween, this infamous nightclub opened its doors to the costumed ghouls of New York City. Fans would say she had eyes the color of lavender, and her performances in films like Cleopatra and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof will forever go down in cinema history. Thankfully for Rubell, they only found a small amount of cocaine on his partner, who was subsequently released. According to Rolling Stone, people would offer him anything to get in. Cher, Margaux Hemingway and a young Brooke Shields made it inside, but Warren Beatty, Kate Jackson and Henry Winkler did not. Read on for 10 of the craziest stories from the clubs legendary heyday. We walked out through the entrance where the garbage goes out. Here he is pictured alongside Liza Minnelli and Bianca Jagger at the New Years Eve party of 1977. A look back at the epicenter of NYC nightlife, presented by Getty Images. Maybe the most bacchanalian parties of the Greeks or Romans could give the club a run for its money, but that's about it. This was ridiculous because if you want to get away with it you might skim 1-2 percent. On May 2nd, Jagger celebrated in grand style. His latest book, Studio 54, is a record of hedonism that includes actual swinging from the rafters and a literal procession of men in Dionysian drag. Getting high low-down, Grace Jones wrote in her 2016 memoir. Practically encouraged inside even so, it would become their smash hit `` Le Freak. ``,... Take it, until our feet were just yelling obscenities: Fuck Studio 54,. They went home and wrote a song about it have the best present he ever! 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