Studio 54 (2018)

Musicals/Concerts Movie Collection.

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Studio 54 (2018)

Post by bunniefuu »

He's wearing bell-bottoms.

Hold it right there.

And he's chewing gum.

I'm not gonna be fake. I come from Venezuela.

-More coming up over there. -Okay.

-Let the black guy in. -I think they should let all of us in.

Exit over there to your right, please.

Yeah, let them in.

I will get inside.

What do you think makes a place hot?

Like 54... What was the phenomenon that it became international?

People flew in from over the world just to go there.

What made it such a...

I don't know. I, uh... You know, in a club it's all about capturing a moment.

When you walked through those blacked-out doors, you were in another world.

Anyone that was allowed in, uh, was totally free inside.

Steve and I had no idea what it would really mean, or that it would last only 33 months.

Just captured everybody's imagination.

You could be next to Elizabeth Taylor or, uh, just about anybody, uh, and feel wonderful and good about yourself.

I love the nightlife, and I love seeing people have fun nights.

There's nothing that makes me happier than to see the people having a good time.

Everybody that was there was a star.

Thanks. That makes me feel great.

It does, because so much bad came out of it, you know, for Ian and I that it's good to think some people think of it like that.

The owners of Studio 54, Ian Schrager and Steven Rubell...

Two dozen agents raided the chic disco this morning.

It's up to ten years in prison.

What was your reaction when you learned that your partner had been arrested?

-I just go? Uh, yeah, try that.

Well, um, you know, I was wondering to myself why, after almost 40 years, you know, I would finally feel okay to talk about Studio, 'cause I hadn't talked about it, you know, at all.

Now I'm at a point in my life that it doesn't sting as much after all this time the way it used to sting.

There's only two people that could've told this story...

Steve and I.

That's why I'm happy to finally tell the story as it really happened.

All right.

You haven't seen the book in a few weeks, so we should look at everything, and I have to ask you a couple questions.

I never been in a room with so many celebrities.

It was like numb.

So we need a picture here.

This one.

My friendship with Steve was always very close, almost from the moment we met.

We met in college.

We both came from Brooklyn, middle class, lower middle-class working families.

Everybody upwardly mobile and ambitious, and everybody wanted their kids to do better than they did.

Brooklyn made me hungry.

My father was a tennis pro, and I played tennis, and I'd visit these estates, and I saw how people live.

And you just see this whole other life.

You were very well aware of the difference between what they had and what you had.

Somehow tennis expanded the universe, and you saw that there were other possibilities.

We chose, as much as possible, to try and pursue those avenues of success.

In college, Ian was very studious.

He wanted to become an attorney.

And Stevie was the social butterfly.

If you wanted to meet a certain girl, you saw Steve Rubell.

If you needed to know what courses to take, you saw Steve Rubell.

He knew everybody at Syracuse University.

Steve was the most public of people, but he, in fact, was very private.

He was never open about his sexuality and the fact that he was gay.

It wasn't something we talked about.

You know, it didn't matter.

Steve was an extrovert, and, yeah, I am an introvert, but inside, value-wise, essence-wise, you know, we were the same.

After we graduated, I got a job as a lawyer, and then Steve was working on the steak restaurants.

Steve was very interested in doing steak restaurants in as many places as fast as he could possibly do it.

He had expanded too quickly, and they weren't doing well.

So I acted as his lawyer and kept the creditors at bay.

That's when Steve and I became partners.

I was the one that wanted to go into the nightclub business because I smelled that there was a real, you know, opportunity with it.

That ambition, that drive really forged a real bond between us.

Steve always felt he had something to prove, as I did.

From the beginning, they had this intuitive understanding that they were getting out and they were gonna do something big together.

The Vietnam w*r ended, and Watergate ended, and everybody, all of a sudden, was tired of being concerned about outside forces, and they said, "I want to have some fun."

They were tired of being serious.

So everybody went out and went wild.

We were going out to clubs in Manhattan all the time, and trying to figure out what kind of club we wanted to create.

♪ Makossa ♪ Gay clubs were some of the first clubs that had disco music.

But disco was black music, and it came out of black clubs.

♪ Makossa ♪ The beautiful models, the girls would go to the gay clubs with the gay designers and hairdressers and makeup men, and then the straight guys would want to meet the models, so they would go to these clubs, and it all started blending.

For me, as a New Yorker, I'm telling you, this was revolutionary.

And it was the first time that it felt like people were nonjudgmental.

Everybody was fine with everybody else's culture.

At that time, gay clubs were behind closed doors, hidden.

It was a little bit like going to a speakeasy in the '20s, I suppose.

It was subversive, and there was an incredible energy.

We wanted to tap through the loose, intense, sweaty, dancing fun that was happening there and take it up a notch...

to create the ultimate nightclub.

Blow everybody away with it.

Dent the universe. Change the world.

♪ Makossa ♪ Ian and I walked into this old opera house and theater, and Ian and I both saw it, and we both went upstairs and signed the lease.

And some people said we were crazy

'cause we were on 8th Avenue and 5th and 4th when the West Side was nothing.

In those days, it was not.

And Mayor Beame said he's gonna clean up the streets.

We're still waiting. It's very dirty.

I'm living here many years, when I remember when it was beautiful, and now it stinks.

54th and 8th wasn't Disneyfied yet.

It was really a very sleazy neighborhood.

Perhaps the sleaziest neighborhood in the city... the West Side and the Theatre District.

If you wanted to get mugged, that was really a good place to go.

It was amazing that anyone would think of opening up a discotheque on West 54th Street.

In the '20s, it was built as an opera house.

And then it used to be a CBS television studio.

And there were some really big-time shows that were there.

Time now for everybody's favorite guessing game...

Uh, What's My Line?, Captain Kangaroo, The $64,000 Question.

I mean, these are big-time television programs.

They had all moved to L.A., and it sat empty for a long time.

This is around the 40th anniversary of Studio.

It seems like yesterday to me.

Now there's a sloped floor here for the theater, like there was when we were here 40 years ago.

But, you know, you can't have a sloped floor and have dancing.

So we had to level it off.

And we didn't have enough time to get a building permit to do it.

We had to just start working on it immediately.

So we said, "Just go ahead and do it."

We had a guy on a tall ladder with a paintbrush...

Yeah. ...that was maybe 30 feet long...

Right. Right. ...and he was painting the ceiling.

And someone kept moving the ladder.

Yeah, I worked 30 hours straight right up to the opening.

Yeah. And it was that kind of unbridled energy, you know, that got this whole place built in six weeks.

We were competing against what probably is the best nightclub people in the world, and wanted to have the best of those clubs.

First, we went to the usual suspects.

They said they couldn't work with us

'cause they were told not to by our competitors.

So, it was out of that problem that it went to Jules Fisher and Paul Marantz, Tony award-winning lighting designers.

The theater part was already there, and we made as much use of it as possible, which turned out to be a very good idea.

And the people we hired to help us were mostly coming from the theater, 'cause this was all at the speed of a theater production.

We were hammering and nailing, we were working there, we were wiring, we were doing everything... I don't know... with no unions, no nothing, you know?

I remember I was even a little bit afraid, because we had to have people back here.

They were paid $65.00 a night.

That was a lot of money, and I was afraid it was gonna impact the margins.

And I didn't want to have anybody back here.

You know, even having a lighting guy.

Up to that point, no nightclub had a lighting guy.

The DJ did the lights.

He played the music, and then he played with the lights.

There was nothing like it. So, we had a DJ, we had a lighting guy, we had two guys on a fly reel back here.

Like, we had four people in that thing.

♪ sh**t me ♪ There's still some old CBS residual stuff around here too.

CBS left a lot behind that was just lying here for years.

What we tried to do was keep it in the context of a theater.

All the lighting... Everything was designed...

The rawness of it, the seeing of the lights...

It wasn't designed to be just pretty, it was designed to be a theater.

There was just a tremendous amount of detail that went into the band floor.

And, of course, all the interior design.

You know, we just... we had to race ahead and were doing everything instinctive.

Making the club was Ian's job.

Steve did not get involved in this kind of stuff.

But they were both engineering this whole process of getting the right crowd in the club.

♪ Ooh, ahh ♪

♪ Ooh, ahh ♪ Ian and Steve shared the same office, and Steve was always laying on the couch.

They were making deals and calling people, and they were sending limousines, they were inviting all the important big names.

We were also sending out thousands of invitations.

All those things contributed to the groundswell, the buzz.

♪ Ooh, ahh ♪

♪ Ooh, ahh ♪ In the crush of everything that was going on, it was impossible to get a liquor license in that period of time.

And matter of fact, we kind of forgot about it.

It got lost in everything.

So we thought we would go up and get a series of one-day catering permits.

And so we called our company the Broadway Catering Corp.

This is the first article ever written on Studio.

This is Deana Winterpiece.

"'Then we saw this', said Steven Rubell, "leading a tour around the forgotten theater that is, even as we write, becoming New York's newest discotheque."

How much did it cost?

400,000. I remember that.

No, it was more, because we... No.

...we owed him money.

-We owed him money. -How much?

Probably another 350, 400,000.

Yeah, it was close to 700,000.

-Are you sure, Jack? 'Cause I always remember 400.

-Um, yeah. Yeah...

Who did you owe money to?

To the contractor.

And, you know, that made me nervous because I was on the hook.

You guys weren't. We didn't have anything.

Jack, why did you do this?

Steve and Ian had a club, Enchanted Gardens, which is where I met them.

We had done a bar mitzvah for him.

And I think at that time, it was the first time that anybody had actually done a discotheque for a, uh...

-Bar mitzvah. -For a bar mitzvah.

Enchanted Garden was the first nightclub that Steve and I did.

It was a club for the kids in Queens.

The first night, Steve went to the bar to hang out with the people, and I went up in the DJ booth to play with the lights.

It's not over yet.

Our fabulous band from Fiorucci are gonna give you a couple more treats, and then we hope you'll join in and dance with them.

It was at the Enchanted Garden that we started to throw these extravagant parties.

We learned the business and got our feet wet in Queens.

But we always wanted to do a nightclub in Manhattan, which was the big leagues.

As of tonight, the disco-goer becomes the performer.

During the night you'll have sunsets, sunrises, fog machines, snow machines, wind machines.

There'll be a tornado about 1:30 at night to get the people...

Every night at 1:30, there's gonna be a tornado.

Right. Tonight at 1:30, there'll be a tornado.

Where do you take shelter around here?

Oh, we hide upstairs in the balcony.

You can also retreat to the balcony if you don't want to become one of the performers down there.

In fact, they encourage you to come up here, whether you come up here to spectate or not.

They give you these binoculars.

Kristy Fair, Channel 11 Action News, on the balcony, out of the act, at Studio 54.

We had everything riding on this club.

If it was a failure, it would've been a very, very big failure.

And if it was a success, it would've been a big success.

The opening night, there's a mob scene.

It was almost impossible to get close to the door.

We didn't have the velvet rope all stretched out.

And we didn't have adequate security.

We had to take all the rest of the security that was in the place and put them out front.

And we were afraid that they might break the door down.

All right, please, everybody back up.

At first, I was hired as security, but that first night, Steve put me outside the front door, and I was out front from day one.

And Marc Benecke became the doorman only because he was the better-looking of the rest of the security guys.

I'd never worked at a nightclub before.

I, you know, just had to... I had to just kind of wing it.

It was really beyond crazy.

I remember getting past the doorman, and there was a carpeted...

Looked like almost a runway.

And it was mirrored.

The coatroom was to the right.

I just remember hearing the music, and I threw my coat.

The coat check was so out of control.

I just started giving people tickets.

We were hanging coats or putting coats...

Then we're just throwing coats on the floor.

Like, hundreds of people must've lost their coats that night.

It was... It was total pandemonium.

Boom, boom, boom.

The sound of the music down the hall.

There was a rush to get to the dance floor. Just a rush.

The full blast of the sound, you know, just came over you in a big wave.

♪ You make me feel ♪

♪ Mighty real ♪

♪ You make me feel ♪

♪ Mighty real ♪ The amount of dr*gs was profound.

You know? And they were all uppers.

No one was on a downer that night.

♪ You make me feel ♪ It was carefree. It was hot. It was sexy.

♪ Mighty real ♪

♪ Make me feel mighty real ♪ Something happened from that first night opening party.

The message was sent out.

It was like, poom, this was the spot.

♪ I feel real ♪ They invited the people that everyone else wanted to be in a room with.

♪ You make me feel ♪

♪ Mighty real ♪

♪ You make me feel ♪

♪ Mighty real ♪

♪ Oh, you make me feel ♪

♪ Mighty real ♪

♪ You make me feel ♪ I was absolutely shell-shocked.

Steve was only 33, I was 29, and we had this massive hit.

We were on the front page of the New York Post.

No other place had ever gotten that. None.

It was like a dream for us.

Then it was just a question of, uh, feeding the monster.

Who, me?

I think they wanna get out of the cab.

Get them out of the cab.

Oh, you're not shaved.

There's no way in a million years you're gonna get in.

-Every... -It doesn't matter. You're not shaved.

-Listen, just go home. -Over here!

I'll try as soon as some leave.

-Marc, check that side. -Right over here.

Can you put the lights down a little?

I can't see some of 'em.

This is the scene outside a New York disco called Studio 54.

This is the place that's in with the disco crowd.

Except that these people are still out.

Of course, Liza Minnelli and her kind of celebrities sweep right through the protective ranks of doorkeepers.

The ropes came about because there were prostitutes on 8th and 5th and 4th, and in order to keep them out, we put the ropes up.

And the ropes became part of the game.

Steve!

Now, you only admit celebrities?

No. No. We admit everybody.

How do you choose?

What are your criteria for admitting someone?

Really fun-loving...

We want people who are just in there to have fun and not get heavy with each other.

-People come there to relax. -You favor couples versus singles?

We... Couples, gay people, you know?

Going out in those days, it was all about ego.

This was one's lifestyle.

If you didn't see somebody at Studio 54, it meant they couldn't get in.

And what did that mean?

Pfft!

Every night, there would be a guest list that would be for the front door.

There'd be somebody's name on the guest list, then the next column, there would be "pay," "comp," or "NFU."

And "NFU" meant "no f*ck-up."

That meant that Marc had to let them in.

We had "GN," which really meant "NG," which meant "no good," which means if they were no good, you don't have to let them in. Celebrities...

Some celebrities get special treatment, others don't.

-Do they get in for nothing? -Most of them do, not all.

-Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, of course, would get in.

But some of the other Rolling Stones actually had to pay.

Friday and Saturday night, you know, the so-called bridge-and-tunnel crowd used to come in.

They didn't get into Studio 54.

They probably did go to New York-New York, and Infinity, the Ice Palace, you know, Hurrah's, and other clubs like that.

But they weren't coming to Studio 54.

Steve is the one who came up with that term "bridge-and-tunnel."

You know, it was his way of explaining that we didn't want people with the polyester shirts, gold chains.

"Polyester melts under the lights."

That was, uh... That was one we heard a lot.

He would split up couples. He would say to the girl, "You're really beautiful. You're in, "but your boyfriend's gotta go home and change into a cotton shirt."

And would you let yourself in wearing a shirt like that?

This shirt? Yeah, this is a good one to let in... these Hawaiian shirts. Uh, good one. But, uh, I don't know if I would've let myself in when the place started.

I doubt it really very much. If somebody else was to...

No, actually, it isn't like that.

The only thing that it's not based on is money.

Has anybody ever offered you sex? Oh, yeah.

-Do you take it? -Depends on the offer.

But they have to be hot enough to get inside first.

Because if they weren't, then that wouldn't be a problem anyway.

-So it doesn't matter.

If you look at the photograph, it's a more slightly hopeful throng.

You see an occasional waved hand, a little grin trying to catch the eye of Marc Benecke or Steve.

It's like the damned looking into paradise.

I don't know. Last time I was here, I got in right away.

So I don't know. I guess they either like the way you look, or they don't.

If I knew what their policy was and how they selected those who are permitted entrance to the inner sanctum, I might even alter my personality, my dress, in order to pass inspection.

But they, apparently, keep it a secret.

There was a passion to get in, and a resentment and a hatred if you didn't.

We didn't care. We just wanted the success.

Ian and Steve were excellent at the PR.

Steve just loved getting on the phone, and talking to the press and letting them know who was there, what went on.

And we got more press than anybody else.

Ian called me up and said, "Let's make a deal."

And I would get paid for wrangling the celebrities.

If I generated PR around that person, I would get $500 for the cover of the Daily News.

If I got them on the cover of the New York Post, it would be an additional $500.

And then if I got them into "Page Six," it'd be like 150.

So, any celebrity that walked in pretty much got on the cover of the New York Post or the Daily News.

It was huge news.

Anything that happened there was on the cover of the newspapers, was double pages inside.

And there were celebrities there every night.

Everyone felt like they had to be there, or they were missing out.

There was this paradigm shift away from reading about crime and and sports heroes, and people became fascinated with celebrities.

It was the beginning of the age of celebrity.

We were there at the right time, and we rode it for all that it was worth.

The photographers we let in were those that we could control, that would play by the rules that we set up.

Here's the Studio 54 box.

Here's some of the pictures that I've taken.

This is a great sh*t of, uh, Elton John feeling the boobs of Divine.

I did miss Bianca, but I got Dolly Parton kissing this horse.

In the limousine, I got this great sh*t of Liz Taylor in a limousine.

I call it "Fat Liz."

Here we have Truman Capote with his robe.

And he had slippers. I have another sh*t with his slippers... with his initials on his slippers.

There's Ian Schrager at the stage door, looking for an arrival of a celebrity.

I don't know which celebrity he was looking for.

But Ian was very nice.

He was an introvert.

He was rare, actually.

It was a rare time I got that picture.

He didn't like publicity. Like, you see, here's a braggadocio.

Here's a braggadocio!

Steve Rubell!

Here I am.

Look at me.

He's there with the stars. Big stars, small stars.

He wanted exposure, and he got it.

He got a lot of exposure. He's in the pictures.

What came first, the photographers or the celebrities?

I think the room, and being an old studio, an old theater, and the lights, and...

That has a lot to do with it. I mean, you have to build a nice mousetrap to attract the mice.

Steve really took care of these celebrities.

He became very friendly with fashion designers like Halston.

The press actually came up with this phrase, "Halston-Liza-Bianca-Andy," with hyphens between the names.

It was like a unit.

They were the core group.

Studio got so much publicity that it made all of these people more of household names.

-Hello, Steven. -Hi.

I go out of my way to take care of them, make them feel comfortable, honestly, 'cause I get off on it myself.

This was really his dream.

His dream was to be the best friends with everyone he saw in the newspapers and in magazines growing up.

And they were.

Hi, Michael. Come on in. You can come right in. Hi.

-Hi. Hi. -How are you?

-You just walked in? How are you? -Yeah, I did.

-Michael, this is Jane Pauley. Come sit over here.

-Excuse me. Whoops. Can I?

-Hi. Fine. -How do you do, Michael Jackson?

Good to see you. Come here a lot?

Oh, God, yes. Because, well... Why?

I like the atmosphere of Studio 54.

I've been to a lot of discotheques, and I don't like them, honestly.

What's the difference?

All around the world, I've been...

I don't know. The feeling... I mean, the excitement of the props coming down, and the balcony...

It's just exciting. Honestly.

People take good care of you here?

-Yes. Steve's very nice. -What's Stevie like?

He's one of my favorite people because he's genuine, and for real and honest.

And that's what I like in people.

When you hear the name Studio 54, what does that do?

Does it... your pulse quicken, and your feet start moving?

Yeah, I'm ready to have a good time.

It's where you come when you want to escape.

It's really escapism.

That's what I try to make it be, too, is escapism.

In other words, people who have... whatever hassles they have all day, they come here, and they can forget about them. -That's right.

And they can come here and just be yourself and dance.

When you dance here, you're just free.

You dance with whoever you want to.

You just go... I mean, you just go wild.

There aren't that many times in life where you're absolutely free.

Everybody felt protected and safe.

You felt like you were in a place where you could relax.

You saw gay men kissing for the first time there.

And celebrities with gay men.

And people didn't judge.

You could be who you are when you were there.

The lighting and everything... I mean, it makes you feel sensuous.

All this going on and drinking and thump-thump-thump music and beautiful people everywhere.

It makes you want to feel like that.

I was wearing lingerie and heels, and I could go to the dance floor, and I could dance with everybody.

I'd float on the dance floor and dance with...

They were all my friends.

I mean, I didn't know them. They didn't know me.

But they didn't care, and I didn't care.

So that's how we danced at Studio.

We danced with the entire club.

Disco was a haven for, you know, inclusion and acceptance, and that the street wasn't.

Out on the street, h*m* existed much more than even today.

Transgenders took their lives in their hands walking down the street in New York City.

But as soon as they stepped foot into the disco, they were safe.

And not only they were safe, but they were included, they were accepted, they were part of the scene.

Do people ever insult you or are rude to you?

-No. -No, they're petrified.

They think we escaped from a Broadway show.

Basically, New York people are very open and very courteous and kind.

No. No, that's not true. Only at Studio.

-We truly feel at home here. -Yeah. Yes.

We pay rent, sort of. $14.00 is rent, I think, you know?

At Studio 54, gay energy was bigger than life.

The influence filled the room and filled the space.

The mantra at Studio was you were in a fantasy and you could be anyone you wanted to be for that moment in time, and people did.

♪ All that love and affection ♪ Thank you, Rollerina. I really needed that.

Rollerina was a Wall Street banker by day, a fairy godmother by night.

Disco Sally was a lawyer, and she was about 78 years old.

I was against Disco Sally at the beginning

'cause I thought the whole thing was kind of gimmicky.

And Steve's like, "No, no, you're wrong. You're wrong.

This is good for the club. It's good for the club."

Potassa, who was, like, the most fabulous drag queen of that whole era.

She was 5'11" out of shoes, and 6'6" in shoes.

And you never, ever, ever, ever, ever saw her out of drag.

And she'd hold center stage when she wanted to.

What's really beautiful about the Studio... the combination of people.

If you put just the beautiful people so close together, then they... they are used to seeing each other.

They might even get bored of that.

But if you mix them properly, which was the case of the Studio, with all the bizarre characters and the transvestites, and all that, they like the combination.

I think it was a wonderful cocktail.

That diversity created this combustible energy.

It was tribal almost.

That wild abandonment, that freedom was all a part of it.

It was like an adult amusement park.

They had a real sense of what people wanted.

You know? Adults wanted.

♪ Ahh, my baby's baby ♪

♪ Oh, my ♪

♪ My baby's baby ♪

In the '70s, there was this kind of window of opportunity between the invention of the pill and the advent of AIDS.

So, even if you weren't promiscuous or sleeping with someone different every night, you felt like you could.

You know, love was in the air.

Sex was in the air.

♪ Fly, robin, fly ♪ In the balconies, it was dark.

People would make out, and maybe somebody would give somebody a blow job.

♪ Fly, robin, fly ♪ Same thing in the bathrooms.

♪ Up, up to the sky ♪ There were mattresses in the basement.

And I went down there and slept with a lot of people. A lot.

Gay people had the advantage because no one was getting pregnant. So, basically, you could just go out there and have a blast, and you could have sex as much as you want, and there was no repercussions.

And why not?

Because you're supposed to now.

It's all about freedom.

You could try anything.

Steve had this huge coat that he would wear a lot of times, and in that coat was money and dr*gs.

And it was like Daddy Warbucks.

Steve was big on Quaaludes, to be quite frank about it.

He loved giving out the Quaaludes. If you said, "Steve, I don't want a quaalude," he'd say, "Oh, just take a half."

Oh, I don't think you're a priest, are ya?

You're too much of a bad boy.

He always wanted to get the party going to another level.

You can say higher and lower, and I'll leave that open to interpretation.

Everybody, come on!

You think this happens anywhere else in the world?

-No. -No, I was all over the world.

I'm happy.

The music, the lights, supple-bodied young waiters dressed in nothing but shorts, and drinks at one pound fifty a glass.

The formula has made the owner a very rich young man.

He enjoyed every night.

I mean, Steve probably had more fun than anybody.

And the environment we created allowed him to be comfortable and accept his sexuality, maybe for the first time in his whole life.

He was in his element.

To me, it was different.

I didn't want to walk through the crowd and have to be poked, people say hello.

All the time that Studio 54 existed, you rarely saw pictures of Ian or read anything about Ian.

Ian was behind the scenes.

But he was the brilliant mind and designing in a way that had never been seen.

People were just obsessed with what he was gonna do next.

There was a theatrical quality of the place that I'd never seen before.

It was an experience.

Touching, like, pretty much all of your senses.

It's a visceral business.

You have really no discernible product except the magic you create.

The moving of lights and sets and changing the environment from one second to the next... that had never been done before.

Ian really created a world of fantasy.

It was the transformation of individuals into this sort of group energy that absolutely exploded.

Ian really is a genius for creating experiences for people.

We went right up to the edge in every single aspect of it.

Building code, modalities, taste levels, social morays... everything, right up to the edge.

It would cost as much as 40,000 or $50,000 just for the one night.

We wanted to break down that barrier between the audience and the performers and introduce the idea that anything could happen.

And it did.

Everybody who worked there knew we were cast members.

We were putting on a show, and everybody had to give an incredible performance and give an incredible service.

I was addicted to Studio 54, without any question.

I had to go there every night, and so did a lot of people.

Studio 54 is probably the Mount Olympus of the disco world.

Right now, it is the center of the universe for those who dance to 125 beats a minute.

Studio 54, the definitive disco here in New York City.

We were so excited, so high on the success, that I would count the money at night, which I enjoyed.

You know, dump the money out of the bag, kind of arrange it, and then split it up in...

You know, and I would make three piles, and bring in a pile for Steve and a pile for Jack.

One thing that I think, if you hung out there, you did notice was that they changed the cash register receipt roll in the middle of the night.

That began to get out.

People began to notice that.

It was about the exhilaration of having this great success, our life's dream.

We had the best crowd in the world.

We had the best press. We had the best club.

We were number 1.

Suddenly on top of the world.

They were living in a dream, practically.

It was becoming so much fun that they were losing touch with reality.

I was up in my office with a girl, and I heard the music stop.

Well, I walked downstairs, and Steve was already over there.

You're encompassed in this little world, and all of a sudden, the lights went on, and the police are there, and it was like the reality was in your face, like holy sh*t.

And we were both under arrest.

We still didn't have a liquor license, so we were getting catering permits every night.

But, you know, at a point in time, they're like, "Okay, why are these guys coming every night for a catering permit?

They're a nightclub, and everybody knows it."

Okay.

Roy Cohn was our lawyer at the time.

I had called him, and, uh... to help us.

Their lawyer was Roy Cohn, and I knew he was also an attorney for Mob guys and heavy-duty people in Manhattan.

That kind of made sense to me... that there's a reason they're not afraid of much.

After a few hours, we were released.

We were able, you know, to keep the place open for six months with no liquor.

Then we finally got the license.

I have a picture of me and Steve holding the liquor license when we got it.

And from that moment on, we felt like we conquered the world.

They thought they were so important that they could do anything.

But people started to get angrier and angrier at Steve Rubell and at Studio 54 because they couldn't get in.

-One day, I'll be a star. -They won't let me in.

You can't have this much popularity without somebody somewhere being envious or wanting to take it down.

I mean, it's human nature. It's just the way life is.

The Dan Dorfman article, Steve said, "Only the Mafia does better, but don't tell anybody."

Part of Stevie was a braggart, you know?

"Look what I'm doing, I'm having the best time, and we're making tons of money."

He was very proud about that.

I thought it was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen.

And when I called him, I said, "You're asking the IRS to just come knocking at your door."

And he said, "No, no, no one's gonna bother me."

Close to two dozen IRS agents raided the chic disco this morning, armed with a warrant to search and seize any and all records relating to the club's finances.

We got raided on December 14th, 1978.

December 14th... that was just a terrible day.

The Studio 54 case began with an allegation of a gigantic skimming operation, that there was cash and dr*gs hidden at Studio 54.

One of the cleaning guys called me and said, "There's some guys here, and they have warrants."

So I called Steve.

Steve said there were some Quaaludes in the safe, and if I can run over and see if I can get them out.

But I ran into the Feds while I was in the basement, and they said, "Are you the manager?"

I said, "Yeah." And they said, "Well, come on, open the safe."

27-42-37, da, da, da.

Two this way, one this way, one this way.

Clink, ploomp, and open.

They said, "Is this everything?"

And that's when I said, "Well, there's a couple of boxes up above here too."

First of all, I tried to open the door, and somebody pulled it back because they were already in here.

Yeah.

So I put my key in and tried to open it.

Then they pulled it back. And then eventually, the federal marshal, whatever, just opened it.

This is 9:00 in the morning, by the way.

Federal marshal opened it and said something...

"Do you wanna come in, do you not wanna come in?"

So I came in. I had all my papers with me like I normally have.

I put them down on the floor, then I walked in.

Ian Schrager, one of the owners of Studio 54, entered the club some time later, and agents say that among his records they found cocaine.

It wasn't in my books. It was around my books.

And then they came in. I put my books on the floor.

Maybe it was left from the night before. Who knows?

The field test kit showed positive presence of cocaine.

Not only was it positive, the thing was off the charts, pure.

It looked like it had been cut right off the key, as they say in the narcotics business.

If you're going to walk onto the premises that are being searched by 50 IRS agents, with cocaine under your arms, don't walk in.

-I was arrested, and my first call was to Roy Cohn's office.

And he came down immediately and advised us to overturn all the furniture in the office and make it look like the agent turned everything upside down, like a Gestapo.

They even ruined my birthday presents.

And it got everybody even more pissed off at us because it wasn't true, and they said they were very careful to keep everything very neat.

That kind of started the litany of mistakes we made in this thing because that made the front page of the Daily News.

I don't think we realized the, uh, the seriousness of, uh, of what we got ourselves involved with because we're getting away with everything.

And they were interviewing Ian.

Ian was sitting in a chair with the chair turned around, leaning on it like this.

Like, defiant.

Kind of like, with, like, "f*ck you."

You think he'd be scared, but he wasn't.

He was... He was pissed.

Seven hours after the raid began, co-owner Steve Rubell emerged with lawyer Roy Cohn, -who blasted the IRS. -...publicity stunt...

Well, you tell me one other instance in American history when 23 Internal Revenue Agents at the beginning of an investigation, before they even go to a company's accountants or lawyers, come in and raid a place, tear it to pieces, open up everything in sight...

Uh, if that's ever happened before in America, I've never seen it.

But what was it? Was it cocaine?

What does it look like inside right now?

It was not in his briefcase.

They do not allege it was in his briefcase.

I've read the complaint, and I was in court, and you weren't.

-Steve, what does it look like inside? -Wait a minute.

We have to fight to get a lawyer into this place.

I came in through the front door to get in.

-The first time I had trouble getting in.

One piece I billed him.

-That's a piece... -One piece of the bill. Come on...

Steve, what is the reaction...

-What about the cocaine? -I don't know anything about that.

I really don't know anything about that.

Are there any other dr*gs on the premises?

I don't know anything about any other dr*gs.

Did you know anything about dr*gs on the premises this time?

No, I didn't. Absolutely not.

What was your reaction when you heard that your partner had been arrested for cocaine?

I-I-I'm very fond of Ian.

We went to college together. We met in college.

He's a good guy. And of course I was upset.

Was coke use common at Studio 54?

No, I like... What Roy said...

I don't wanna really comment on anything to do with that legal case of it, but, uh, you know...

-What?

-Steve, look this way, please. Thank you.

I feel like the president today.

We had had every great lawyer working for us.

You know, we had had one of the lawyers that had represented John Mitchell on Watergate.

We had James Neal, who had sent Jimmy Hoffa to jail.

We had had Arthur Liman. We had had Mitchell Rogovin, who was part of Arnold & Porter, where Abe Fortas came from, and he was a Supreme Court Justice.

We'd circled the wagon, and we got ready to fight the government.

There are, incidentally, 37 lawyers working on behalf of Schrager and Rubell.

When they were raided, it was real Schadenfreude here in New York City.

They'd finally got what was coming to them, people felt.

They had their loyal friends, but nobody was running around with their head in their hands.

"Oh, poor Steve Rubell, poor Ian Schrager"...

None of that happened. People kind of liked it.

And now, following up on the Studio 54 story, is Weekend Update correspondent Laraine Newman outside Studio 54.

-Laraine? -Thank you, Bill.

Standing next to me is Steve Rubell, co-owner of the club.

Steve, what was your reaction when you learned cocaine had been found here?

I was shocked.

It was more of, you know, taking on the institution, taking on the system, which was all part of the Studio 54 mystique.

And I think everybody rallied around, and there was a party after that.

The notoriety was like a moth to a flame.

And everybody came, and it got even bigger.

Which controversy, uh, sometimes does.

A lot of people say, "Well, Rubell was sh**ting off his mouth about don't tell the IRS this and don't tell the IRS that."

That was not it.

This case came about strictly because, uh, an informant, who was very unhappy with his treatment at Studio 54... and knew where the records were kept.

The basement had a drop ceiling.

And if you remove the ceiling tiles, that's where we found the manila envelopes that were, in effect, the second set of books.

Also, up there in garbage bags... plastic garbage bags... there was cash.

Absolutely never any millions of dollars in the ceiling of Studio 54.

That's, uh, just folklore.

They took down bags of cash, which had been particularly described in the search warrant.

It was, like, five combinations, and you had to...

It's like, "Oh, man, this is a pain in the neck.

The guys are all dying for quarters, so I'll keep the quarters up top."

That's as simple as it was.

That was the "money in the ceiling" story.

There was also cash in a safe-deposit box that belonged to Steve Rubell that we got a warrant for.

We drilled the box. We got cash out of there.

There was also cash in his apartment.

There were secret doors behind bookcases.

Steve had 900,000 in cash, 5s and 10s, stacked.

The Feds came, took all of that.

I was driving around with $400,000 in the trunk of my car.

It could've been stolen. It could've been towed.

I mean, I was parking in garages.

It was ridiculous.

At Studio, Steve's mother was the bookkeeper.

And Steve always had a budget for recreational dr*gs.

He would give them for free to certain people.

Steve's mother didn't know anything about the dr*gs and what the codes were, but she knew where every penny was going.

If there was $100 taken out to get a celebrity a drug or whatever, it was recorded as a "party favor."

So it had everything in there.

There was one envelope.

On the outside of the envelope were three columns:

"Ian," "Steve" and "Jack."

And then there was a fourth column, which was the total amount of the take for that night.

And then there was a fifth column that was labeled "skim,"

"S-K-I-M," or "SK."

So that you had a daily record of everything that they took in and what they took out as skim and didn't report.

Who created those books?

I didn't, uh, 'cause I wasn't the bookkeeper or taking care of the books.

But one of us did. I... I...

Who instructed that those books be created?

You know, I... I... I don't remember...

You sure you're not a prosecutor here?

I, um...

You know, all I know was that I got the benefit of it, and I was a co-conspirator, and, you know...

But, you know, the actual, you know, workings and all...

I don't... I don't know who did it.

In the 33 months that they were doing it, I think there was skim of two and half or three million dollars... an astronomical amount to skim, which was ridiculous.

I mean, if you're gonna skim, you know, skim 10% or twent...

You know, not 80%.

They were really, you know, pigs about it.

Well, this was the Richard Nixon of skims.

We just went way over and way beyond, you know, anything that was even remotely possible to go unnoticed.

Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager are totally and completely innocent of this claim for additional taxes or any kind of evasion of taxes.

Cohn charges there was only one partner to blame for the troubles of Studio 54... that's the man who keeps the books.

His name is Jack Dushey.

He secretly pleaded guilty to charges last week, and he now faces up to five years in prison.

Jack Dushey agreed to cooperate and to testify against Rubell and Schrager in the grand jury and at the trial, if one was necessary.

What happened wasn't his fault.

He had a whole family. He would've never done it.

-I never asked him that. -No.

But that's what I've, uh, always felt.


Were you... Jack, were you resentful...

It was very difficult to put reins on the success, you know?

Who am I? First of all, I was older than them.

And, you know, I didn't need the money.

I wasn't doing it for the money. But, uh, this was an overwhelming success, so I wasn't about to try to harness them.

And, you know, you know, we all paid the price.

I mean, but did you know what was going on in the counting house?

Oh, I was right in the middle of it.

Yeah, I was right in the middle of it.

I was just as culpable as, you know, Steve and Ian.

But you seem so level-headed.

Why do you think you let that happen?

Oh, the success.

-The success went to everybody's head. Yeah.

I was assigned to the Organized Crime Strike Force, which deals mostly with organized crime.

In particular, at that time, the Italian Mafia.

The Studio 54 case... there was a supposed connection to organized crime through Ian Schrager, whose father was Louis Schrager, also colloquially known as Max the Jew.

I've always heard all these things about my father in the newspapers, and I didn't really know anything about it.

I idolized my father.

I knew he was different than other fathers, you know, with his hours of work, and I was always concerned that that would be a problem for me.

I was always very sensitive to that.

Louis Schrager, who had d*ed at the time, was an old Meyer Lansky associate.

But we never found any evidence that Studio 54 had a Mafia link.

I definitely think that Ian didn't want any part of his father's business or connections or anything.

I mean, his father was successful at what he did.

His father had power.

And I think that Ian wanted power and success in a different area.

The three owners and the manager of the Studio 54 disco were indicted today on charges of income tax evasion.

Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager were slapped with a 12-count indictment...

Now Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell face up to ten years in prison and fines up to $20,000.

They had this ball of fire that nobody in the world had.

They had this... this thing that was worldwide popular that had fallen into their laps, and I don't think they wanted to lose that.

During one of the meetings, the lawyers kept saying, "Well, you know, you have to try and trade something."

It was August 25th.

I remember Steve telling me, "I hope there's a w*r in Iran."

I said, "What are you talking about?" He said, "I just don't...

"There's a story that's gonna break, and I just don't want it to be big."

The Justice Department is investigating an allegation that White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan used cocaine during a visit to New York's Studio 54 discotheque last year.

The White House flatly denies the allegations, saying the people making them have a clear interest in making false and sensational charges so they can bargain for lighter sentences.

To accuse the White House Chief of Staff of asking to buy cocaine in the basement of Studio 54...

I mean, didn't Steve realize he now is gonna have the White House against him?

I thought Steve better be really careful.

These people are powerful. He doesn't have any power.

He's a nightlife person. His power is among celebrities, it's not among the politicos.

He definitely messed with the wrong people.

President Carter's comment about Jordan was

"He will tell the truth, as my wife would or my children."

While the Justice Department would not ordinarily pursue a case involving individual use of the drug, it's compelled to do so on this case because of a new law called the Ethics in Government Act.

That law grew out of the Watergate scandals.

It requires an investigation of up to 90 days by the FBI when criminal allegations are made against high-ranking government officials.

One of the lawyers, Mitchell Rogovin, made a really fatal mistake and hurt us.

He didn't understand how Watergate changed the law.

It became very public.

The train left the station and took a life of its own.

There was no turning back.

You saw, with your own eyes, Hamilton Jordan use cocaine?

Yes.

-No question? -No question.

-No mistake? -No.

We didn't realize the magnitude of what was going on.

We had this thing of, you know, "We'll get out of it.

"You know, we got Roy there, but, you know, we'll figure out a way and get a way out of it."

We even went and did a major renovation in the club, like a signal to everyone... it's gonna be fine.

What do you do when you're under indictment for tax evasion and fighting Hamilton Jordan in your spare time?

Well, you can create a new image... architecturally, at least.

600 workers on round-the-clock shifts have been laboring since last Wednesday to put it all together, and when they're finished, it's expected to cost $1 1/2 million... three times what it cost to open Studio 54 three years ago.

♪ More, more, more ♪

♪ How do you like it, how do you like it? ♪

♪ More, more, more ♪

♪ How do you like it, how do you like it? ♪ Ian had all these magical ideas.

He'd seen Sweeney Todd, and he got this idea to do a bridge.

Tired of fighting your way through the crowded dance floor?

Well, this moving bridge ought to be able to solve that problem.

It can carry 25 tons in weight and will be able to move 250 people over the heads of the dancers to the other side of the room or to the balcony at the speed of 45 feet a minute.

Of course, the story goes that they had to cover the balcony in rubber so they could wash it down more easily.

Were you aware that you were creating a sex pit?

♪ ...how I really feel? ♪

♪ Just get the cameras rolling... ♪ Yes.

♪ More, more, more ♪

♪ How do you like it, how do you like it? ♪

♪ More, more, more ♪

♪ How do you like it, how do you like it? ♪ I love Studio 54 so much, and I thank you for making all my evenings a lot more fun.

Ah, what can I say?

Oh, just say "thank you."

Plead guilty to charges of flattery.

I don't plead guilty to any charges.

Two owners of the trendy Manhattan discotheque Studio 54 pleaded guilty today of defrauding the government of more than $400,000 in taxes.

Today, Rubell and his partner Ian Schrager were charged with skimming $2 1/2 million from the receipts of Studio 54 and lying about it.

12 counts in all.

They admitted to two counts of tax evasion.

The government dropped the rest.

We didn't want to plead guilty to a felony because you can't have a liquor license if you're convicted of a felony.

So this whole thing was to protect Studio, but it just got out of control.

We were out of our league, and we were forced to plea to a felony.

-Come on down a little bit.

Well, Roy, did anything go wrong with the plea bargaining?

Listen, when you have about 37 lawyers involved in anything, uh, something's always gonna go wrong.

-Steven... -What made you do it?

Was it greed?

-Too much money too fast? -No.

I made a mistake. Did you ever make a mistake?

Why did you make that kind of mistake?

Are you and Schrager still friendly after this?

He's my best friend. I love him dearly.

When we got in trouble, the press, you know, turned on us.

It was the first time, you know, in my life and in Steve's life, we couldn't talk our way out of it.

It was like we couldn't shake it.

Things seemed to be closing in on us.

When you go through something like that, uh, it either makes you closer and stronger, or it tears you apart.

In our case, it made us stronger.

We rose and fell together.

A federal judge today sentenced Steven Rubell and Ian Schrager, owners of the New York discotheque Studio 54, to three and a half years in prison for evading almost half a million dollars in income taxes.

He also fined each man $20,000.

It didn't hit me. You know?

There was a complete emotional detachment.

I was numb.

Our life was over, and we didn't even know.

The party, the night before they went to jail, was probably as exciting and as much fun as the opening party, -It may have been more fun.

Andy Warhol as there, Calvin Klein.

Diana Ross sang.

Liza Minnelli sang, too.

What I distinctly remember, Steve was wearing, like, a Frank Sinatra hat, and they played "I Did it My Way."

"My Way"...

What does that mean, "my way"?

When I look back at it now, it is so preposterous.

-What were we thinking? ♪ Don't leave me this way ♪

♪ Ahh ♪

♪ Baby ♪

♪ My heart is full of love and desire for you ♪

♪ Now come on down and do what you gotta do ♪ That night, the music was still intense, the dancing was still intense, and it was fabulous.

♪ Come on, satisfy the need in me ♪ Partying that night, I remember all I wanted to do was dance.

And I was so high on dr*gs, I really didn't realize what was going on.

I mean, I didn't think the party was gonna end.

♪ Ohh, baby ♪ That feeling of invincibility permeated the whole process.

♪ Don't leave me this way ♪

♪ Don't leave me this way, no ♪

♪ Don't leave me this way, no ♪

♪ Don't leave me this way, baby ♪

♪ Don't leave me ♪

♪ Don't leave me this way, baby ♪ It was enormous denial, you know, from beginning to end.

I'm not sure I would've made a party to celebrate the fact I'm going to jail the next day.

I don't think they prepared at all, and I think it was the actual going to jail was just a terrific shock for them.

Stand right there. Thank you.

The owners of New York's flashy discotheque Studio 54 surrendered to federal authorities today.

They reported this morning at the Federal Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Meanwhile, the State Liquor Authority has filed seven charges against the disco.

What was that first night like at the Metropolitan House of Corrections here in New York City?

Well, uh, the doors closed, and when those doors close, it's amazing how quickly you, um, just realize you lost your freedom.

There's nothing worse in the world.

We didn't share a cell.

We were in the same jail.

And that's something that we both wanted, obviously.

We couldn't guarantee that.

I don't know what it would've been if I didn't have the benefit of having Steve there.

We were treated just like everybody else, not unfairly.

-They didn't care that you were with Liza... -No.

...and Bianca and all those stars? -Oh, that's another world.

It's how it is. You just have to learn to keep your mouth shut and not say a world.

If you say a word, you're, uh... you're dead.

There was a guy that lived across the hall from me and who had k*lled somebody with a bowling ball.

Um, and so I right away thought that was a good guy to get friendly with.

I made a deal with him that we would give his wife money on the outside and he would protect us.

You know, it was just a base instinct to survive in... in there.

After they went to jail, we had another couple of months.

But it was never the same after, you know... without Steve and Ian.

And then, when we lost the liquor license, there wasn't much we could do.

It was in prison that, uh, you know, we sold Studio 54.

And I was negotiating the contract, and that kept my sanity.

But selling Studio was the hardest thing I ever had to do.

The whole thing, it was like a vortex of, you know...

It was all just going down the tubes, and everybody just faded back to where they came from.

You really feel like all these people are really gonna be your friends for life.

They love you. And then you really find out, well, that's really not the case at all, you know?

The phone calls stop coming.

The, you know, the, uh, the invitations to great parties stop coming.

All those things just stop, and that was, uh, that was, uh, that was a rude awakening for me.

The disco era was over.

Disco music became a joke.

It was billed as Teen Night at Comiskey Park.

The feature attraction was a disc demolition between games.

Local radio morning man Steve Dahl is to lead the crowd in song, and then finish by blowing up a box full of disco records which the fans were to bring with them to the ballpark.

"Disco Sucks" was almost a backlash against Studio 54, in a way.

You think about the economic situation in America.

It was the worst financial recession since the Great Depression.

And you think about what Studio 54 and what disco life looked like to somebody working in the Midwest who had now lost their job and is never coming back.

You know, you blame it on all these people.

You blame it on gay people, you blame it on black people, you blame it on women.

There was this ground-swelling resentment.

People, you know, were pissed off.

We upset the status quo.

We knew Rubell and Schrager could help us

and could give us more income tax evasion cases against other people that they knew who were doing the same thing.

So we devised the great Chinese food scenario.

The U.S. Attorney's office is on the border of Chinatown, and the IRS agents know all the good places to eat, trust me.

So they ordered a slew of different Chinese dishes, and I had Steve and Ian brought over, and I had two chairs set out just outside my office so that the smell was kind of wafting out into the hall.

And they're looking at it, and they're... you know, they're hungry.

We really tried everything.

We were under all kinds of pressure.

The government had all our records.

It isn't as if, you know, we named names, but we would've had to perjure ourselves if we didn't answer questions about the nightclub owners of Bonds, Infinity, and New York-New York at the time.

They were, like, kind of our enemies.

You know, we, uh, always suspected that those guys were out to hurt us anyways, so it was a kind of... easy way to rationalize that, I suppose.

But my father wouldn't have, uh... have liked this. -Why?

You know, because just, that's not something you do.

You know, um, do your time like a man.

Wouldn't be something that he would, uh, you know, want... want... want me to do.

-And did that weigh upon you? -Of course.

I had problems. I still have problems, and I'm still embarrassed about it.

It's one of the things, uh, I was hoping you wouldn't get into.

But I, you know...

I, um...

It's, uh, just part of the story, I suppose.

We couldn't stay in prison for three and a half years, so we did what we had to do and got a reduced sentence.

When we got out of prison in 1981, it was a whole different world.

Governor Reagan, we just wanted to show you what the map of the United States looks like as of 8:00 tonight.

-Hey! -All yours!

You had a different administration in the early '80s, and suddenly it was all about making money.

It wasn't about abandon, it wasn't about equalization, it was about massive, obvious success, and a dollar über alles.

Downtown became more downtown.

The Mudd Club really became dominant in protest against the yuppies and the Reagan administration.

Getting out of jail, we were both really, really, really sensitive, both unsure of ourselves.

You know, that's a devastation that's hard to explain.

You lose everything.

You know, I lost my law license.

I couldn't vote.

Even a driver's license, your credit card...

So I'm disenfranchised.

It's... You know, you don't realize, till you can't, what it means to you.

And the shame of it. That was the real thing.

One of the things, I guess, that's a little bothersome is that there is no stigma attached to the fact that you did jail time.

Oh, but there is a st... There isn't a day that goes by when I don't think about it.

-Okay. An emotional stigma.

It's emotional. Until about a year ago, I had dreams that I was on an island and I couldn't get off.

And the nightmares... I would wake up soaked.

-And, uh, it's something you don't get over.

-Fair enough.

Steve was kind of tentative, because he didn't know the way people were gonna be reacting to him.

Just that they didn't know if they could trust him after the Hamilton Jordan and everything.

Yeah, the price of being a success, you know, uh... you know, is easy.

Price of being a failure is difficult.

I went through both.

That was probably the most difficult moment of their life, wondering if they would ever emerge.

In a sense, they had nothing to lose early on.

They had nothing.

Everything was an improvement.

It was fine.

Coming back, that was courage.

Ian's not gonna give up.

Stevie, in his own way, isn't gonna give up.

They both had the same DNA when they went in and when they got out.

They'll take on any challenge.

-And they did. -I mean, I believe they were plotting a comeback in prison.

Of course. The day they got in, they were thinking about what we're gonna do when we get out.

Despite Rubell's plans, post-prison reality was harsh.

It took three years before the two could find the capital to finance their next venture.

A string of luxury hotels that cater to the same kind of eclectic crowd that used to hang out at Studio 54.

They immediately began channeling their efforts into purchasing prime Manhattan real estate, becoming part owners in several chic hotels, including the Royalton and Morgan's Hotel on Madison Avenue.

We wanted to be in the hotel business.

But we had to prove to the banks that we could borrow $14 million and pay it back.

So that was the reason why we opened up Palladium nightclub.

The bald, the brave, and the beautiful came out tonight for the opening of the Palladium.

It's an incredible thing that with Steve and Ian out of the picture for six or seven years, really nothing's come along to replace them.

And now they're back and bigger and better than ever.

I had hesitations about everything I did because I had made a mistake, and I had not felt so great about myself for a while.

I got a second chance, and you couldn't ask for anything more.

When we did the Palladium, this was the first press piece we got, called "The Comeback Kids," where I came out from the shadows.

The story was, uh... as much on me as it was on Steve.

Steve was a little bit upset about it, and the story disrupted that balance that existed between Steve and I all those years in terms of him being out there getting all... all of the attention and me being in the background and not getting any.

It was a new dynamic.

I remember it took him a little while to... to... to get over it.

We should point out, for better or for worse, Studio 54 is no longer.

Yeah. I read in the paper the other day it was just closed, but...

-How'd you feel about that? -Um, I...

You know, I'm almost a little...

It's something of the past, and I so do not want to dwell on the past.

-Sure. -The good or the bad.

I'm always futuristic in what I can do next and what opportunities we can... you know, that Ian and I can come up with, and...

You know, life is so exciting.

So how did you find out that Steve had contracted HIV?

I did a blood test.

Did you suspect that he was becoming ill with that?

He had some symptoms.

Not of HIV, but there were vague symptoms.

And I was the one that told him he had AIDS, yeah.

You have to remember, AIDS, at that time... it wasn't a disease.

It was a condemnation.

And so he wouldn't let me tell our parents.

He held it together, and...

I'm sure he didn't hold it together after I left, but he held it together.

Everybody was getting sick.

It was frightening, and... if I'm still emotionally affected by it, the loss was profound.

All these young guys were just fading away.

Half the bartenders... you know, half the people that did the sets... the kids that painted, they're not with us anymore.

It was devastating.

The impact that these people had on the community, on the culture, on New York City... such an incredible loss.

Culturally, it changed everything.

Steve was the kind of guy that, you know, if he did something the night before that might've been a little embarrassing, you would see him the next morning, and he would act like nothing happened, and get away with it, and that would be the end of it, whereas somebody might come into the room with their tail between their legs, terribly embarrassed.

So Steve was always able to get away with it.

This one thing he didn't get away with.

Steve Rubell changed the look, the feel, and the pace of New York's nightlife when he opened up Studio 54 some years ago.

Well, Rubell d*ed this morning here in Manhattan from complications of hepatitis.

Steve Rubell d*ed of complications resulting from hepatitis and septic shock.

Steve Rubell, who d*ed yesterday of liver failure...

There were rumors that Rubell succumbed to AIDS, but the official word is that he d*ed of hepatitis and septic shock.

He didn't want the press to put in the obit that he d*ed of complications of AIDS.

That was kept out.

I wanted to, you know, make sure everybody came to the funeral because that's what Steve would've wanted was, like, a big send-off.

So I was on the phone making calls to make sure everybody would, you know, would come.

The funeral for that people person turned out the chic of New York City society.

From Calvin Klein to Bianca Jagger to his partner Ian Schrager, who, at times, looked shaken.

Losing Steve was like losing a family member.

So it was a very difficult day, and a very difficult time. I think it hit...

Every one of our Studio family who knew him felt the same way.

After the brief service, some from Rubell's past said they saw his death as emblematic of the passing of an era.

He gave a magic to the city, and the city always needs magic.

And it always finds its, uh, marker, and Steve was it for an awful lot of years.

Steve Rubell dead at 45.

Ann... Mrs. Rubell... said to me, "Why didn't Steve ever get married?"

And I realized then that I'm not sure that she really knew that he was gay.

That was part of that time, that time of maybe your mother was the last to know.

Steve's death and his illness had a huge impact on, um, Ian.

Their love for each other and their bond was so strong, um, that I think it... it made an impact for quite some time.

I met Steve... I think I was 18 or 19... and the friendship blossomed right away, and I was friendly with him for all that time right up to 1989.

I'm lucky that I had one of those friendships.

Not many people, you know, do.

Steve and I bought this house in 1985.

Has a lot of history, this house.

It's like a family heirloom.

For that, it's quite beautiful.

How did the death of your partner, your best friend, affect you?

It was devastating. It was a personal loss.

Steve and I were really like husband and wife.

I'm not sure which one was the husband and which one was the wife.

We vacationed together.

We shared a house on Long Island together.

We worked together. We...

He was the last person I talked to when I went to sleep.

And so it was a personal loss, uh, uh, uh, more than anything else.

On the business end of it, the same passion that drove me while Steve was alive still drove me.

I had the same hunger.

I still have that same hunger now.

And so we just continued on.

It's not as much fun. It's not as exhilarating.

I don't have someone to share it with.

But we just... you know, you go on.

Did you ever doubt that you could do it?

Of course. I still doubt it. I think that's what drives me.

It's not a surprise to me that through all these years, Ian has evolved and reinvented himself and taken that core of who he is to where he is today.

I was trying to capture energy in the hotels in the same way you might capture energy on the streets of a city.

You know, there's an energy that lifts everything, a high tide that comes in.

That was the same thing with Studio.

Studio just meant everything to us, what we had gone through together.

Both of us ingrained with that desire to be successful.

I didn't get it as a lawyer, and he didn't get it as a steak restaurateur, but we both got it together with Studio.

What they created, nobody has come near since then.

You know, there was a brevity to it.

There was a sense of something lost.

Paradise lost.

I don't think they had any idea what it would become, that it would become this world famous, that it would be important in our culture and the history of New York City and maybe significant in the history of what was going on all around the world.

Studio wasn't a nightclub.

It was like a kind of social experiment.

And that's why it's never been able to be recreated.

It was fun... holding on to a lightning bolt.

♪ What's the sense in sharing this one and only life ♪

♪ Ending up just another lost and lonely wife ♪

♪ You count up the years ♪

♪ And they will be filled with tears ♪

♪ Love only breaks up to start over again ♪

♪ You'll get the babies, but you won't have your man ♪

♪ While he's busy loving every woman that he can ♪

♪ Uh-huh ♪

♪ Say I'm gonna leave a hundred times a day ♪

♪ It's easier said than done ♪

♪ When you just can't break away ♪

♪ When you just can't break away ♪

♪ Oh, young hearts run free ♪

♪ They'll never be hung up ♪

♪ Hung up like my man and me ♪

♪ My man and me ♪

♪ Ooh, young hearts ♪

♪ To yourself be true ♪

♪ Don't be no fool when love really don't love you ♪

♪ Don't love you ♪

♪ It's high time now, just one cr*ck at life ♪

♪ Who wants to live it in trouble and strife? ♪

♪ My mind must be free ♪

♪ To learn all I can about me ♪

♪ Mm-hmm ♪

♪ I'm gonna love me for the rest of my days ♪

♪ Encourage the babies every time they say ♪

♪ Self-preservation is what's really going on today ♪

♪ Say I'm gonna turn loose a thousand times a day ♪

♪ But how can I turn loose ♪

♪ When I just can't break away? ♪

♪ When I just can't break away ♪

♪ Oh, young hearts run free ♪

♪ They'll never be hung up ♪

♪ Hung up like my man and me ♪

♪ You and me ♪

♪ Ohh ♪

♪ Ooh, young hearts ♪

♪ To yourself be true ♪

♪ Don't be no fool when love really don't love you ♪

♪ Don't love you ♪

♪ Ohh ♪

♪ Young hearts run free ♪

♪ They'll never be hung up ♪

♪ Hung up like my man and me ♪

♪ My man and me ♪

♪ Ohh Ohh, young hearts ♪

♪ To yourself be true ♪

♪ Don't be no fool when love really don't love you ♪

♪ It don't love you ♪

♪ Ohh ♪

♪ Ooh, young hearts run free ♪

♪ They'll never be hung up ♪

♪ Hung up like my man and me ♪

♪ My man and me ♪

♪ Ohh ♪

♪ Oh, young hearts ♪

♪ To yourself be true ♪

♪ Don't be no fool when love really don't love you ♪

♪ Don't love you ♪
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