The magazine created a community, and people loved it. They were in the pictures, they saw themselves being photographed with celebrities, and they saw their life and culture reflected in a magazine that was made just for them. It became incredibly popular.
The following is taken from the July/August 1982 Issue of Studio 54 Magazine with Peter Allen on the cover and our guest host for that issue.
There were also gossip columns and here are a few quotes from Rick Bard’s Midnight column:
Music…
In our last issue Peter Allen talked about possibly doing a play with Bob Fosse. Now it’s definite. The two are scheduled to start collaborating after Bob finishes work on “Star 80,” the film biography of Playmate Dorothy Stratten, starring Mariel Hemingway and Eric Roberts.
David Bowie’s MGM/UA film “The Hunger” is scheduled for February 1983 release. He costars with Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve. David—now in Switzerland cutting his next album—also begins his first tour in six years once the album is completed. The tour will take him to all corners of the world, but not before he lends his support to the January 31 fund raiser at Studio 54: Abbie Hoffman’s “Save the Rivers Ball”, aimed at cleaning up the Hudson, the St. Lawrence, and other rivers. Among other friends also lending their support are Dick Cavett, Mia Farrow, Harry Belafonte, Jack Nicholson, Susan Sarandon, Joseph Papp, Joan Rivers, and Dan Aykroyd.
Studio After Hours… Sometimes Studio 54 shines brightest during the day. The Studio recently became a job clearing house from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. as Vietnam Vets got together with prospective employers at an event attended by Mayor Ed Koch who quoted from his Veteran’s Day speech: “We are establishing in New York City a memorial for Vietnam Veterans. One part of it is stone, and the other is a living memorial. And the best living memorial for these veterans is a job.”
Tinkerbelle was a regular contributor to Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine in the early 1970s and Studio 54 Magazine in the 1980s. Tinkerbelle’s Party Lines was another gossip column that went like this:
Party Rap Up… Just in case Carmen D’Alessio is wondering where all those presents come from, Carmen, Dear, you had a birthday party at Studio. Remember? The party was hosted by Lester Persky (escorting Valerie Perrine) and Mark Fleischman who started the evening with cocktails at Lester’s magnificent Central Park penthouse, continuing to Mark’s brother Alan’s Tennessee Mountain Restaurant in Soho for a dinner of ribs, chicken, and chili… Carmen always had soul.
People are still talking about the Peter Allen party. Studio’s interior was transformed into a festive Mexican Village with the food catered by Caramba, which is hailed as one of the best restaurants in town, and just opened Caramba II.
Also in swerving abundance were Tequila sunrises served, not shaken, by 54’s drop-dead bartenders who always seem so less available than their beverages. Well, why ask for the moon when you can have a tequila sunrise?
Photos from several of the 1982 and 1983 issues of Studio 54 Magazine, hosted by Peter Allen and Morgan Fairchild, which I am providing with Rick Bard’s permission:
Chapter Twenty-Two:
Scandal Hits Studio 54
We were always pushing the envelope to create unique event concepts that would garner the press we needed to sustain the paying customers necessary to cover the cost of the celebrity hosts, their friends, and the drinks and drugs it took to keep them happy. It was a party train—get onboard. The pressure was on to outdo the other large clubs that were opening in Manhattan, like The Red Parrot, Limelight, and, more significantly, Area. When we were running low on ideas, we came up with a new, never-before-celebrated category—“Scandal” parties. Until then, people involved in scandals weren’t celebrated as they are today; some hid in shameful isolation. Studio 54 changed all that in the 1980s. The most memorable of the “Scandalized” parties we hosted were for the Mayflower Madam Sydney Biddle Barrows and Rita Jenrette.
The Mayflower Madam became infamous when her high-end escort business was busted in 1984. Cachet, as it was called, focused on delivering classy prostitutes to the wealthy and powerful. Though she opened under the pseudonym Sheila Devin, New York Post reporter Peter Fearon discovered Sydney’s true identity, including the fact that she came from an upper-crust family—descendants of passengers on the Mayflower, hence her nickname the Mayflower Madam. Sydney was a beautiful woman and unique in that she managed to exist in the middle of the firestorm of one of the biggest sex scandals ever to hit New York City, without an iota of remorse or shame. Her attitude inspired our “Scandal” parties and paved the way for the “fifteen-minutes of shame” scandalized people enjoy today. Sydney is currently a management consultant and writer with several successful books in publication.
Rita Jenrette was our guest of honor at another Studio 54 “Scandal” party. Rita was a winning combination of beauty and brains. She was a model for Clairol Inc., and then in 1973 she became director of research for the Republican Party of Texas. In 1976 she married US Congressman John Jenrette of South Carolina. The film American Hustle is based on the ABSCAM scandal of 1980 in which Congressman Jenrette is depicted as having been convicted of taking a bribe in an FBI undercover operation, investigating the trafficking of stolen property. It ultimately led to the conviction of a US Senator, five members of the House of Representatives, and other city, state, and INS officials. Paulie Herman, a frequent guest at Studio 54 and the host of Columbus Restaurant, played the part of Robert De Niro’s attorney in the film.
During the investigation, Rita turned on her husband, talked to the media, posed for Playboy, and alerted authorities to the $25,000 in cash she found in her husband’s closet—telling them it was the ABSCAM money. Rita courted publicity. She announced she was seeking a divorce and began to disclose the salacious details of her sex life with her former husband—specifically the time they had made love on the steps of the US Capitol. Rita was thrilled to be the guest of honor at one of Studio 54’s Scandal parties. She was appearing on stage in The Philadelphia Story and a huge crowd came out to meet her in New York. Rita moved on to become a successful author, on-air personality, and real estate agent. She is currently married to Prince Nicolò Boncompagni Ludovisi of the Italian province of Piombino.
Once I was in the driver’s seat at Studio 54, I had to regularly come up with quality celebrity events that would guarantee the press we needed, keep our regular guests coming out during the week, and attract new people to the club. Every morning the four-page Celebrity Bulletin from Celebrity Service was placed on each of our desks. It was the first thing we looked at when starting our business day. We scoured it, then hit the phones, networking within our individual areas of expertise. Our survival depended on it. It was our Bible.
In 1939, Earl Blackwell, a Southern gentleman and impresario to the stars, founded the very lucrative New York-based Celebrity Service, an information and research service which reports on the comings and goings of celebrities in the arts, politics, sports, and business. Celebrity Bulletin was delivered to us five days a week, providing us with such valuable information as: which celebrities were coming to town that day, the reason for their visit, which hotel they were staying at, and their contact information. Bill Murray was our contact at Celebrity Service. He is a good and kind man, who was great to work with and never missed a good party.
The following pages of Celebrity Bulletin have been reprinted from the archives of Celebrity Service, illustrating why it was so crucial to our success in planning many of our events.
Nobody was better at booking events at Studio 54 than Michael Redwine. He was a valued member of my staff, booking many of our most successful nights, garnering great press, paid admissions, and bar action. The following four parties were just a few of the events produced by Michael in 1983.
We hosted many parties in celebration of movie premieres and one of my personal favorites was the night we honored Anthony Perkins and the 1983
release of Psycho II. Perkins attended with his beautiful wife Berry Berenson and cast members Meg Tilly, Robert Loggia, and Vera Miles who appeared in Hitchcock’s original Psycho as well as in Psycho II. Michael O. set up twenty bathtubs in the entrance hall, complete with shower curtains and water, to create the famous shower scene from the original Psycho. Instead of Janet Leigh behind each curtain, our guests found a scantily clad male or female model. Perkins declared it to be “the most incredible party ever given to launch a movie”—a sentiment echoed by many of the guests that night. The list included such luminaries as composer and former conductor of The New York Symphony Orchestra—Leonard Bernstein, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, Ursula Andress, Arianna Stassinopoulos, jewelry designer Kenneth Jay Lane, New York Mayor Ed Koch (who in the past had been against Studio reopening), and his famous commissioner of cultural affairs, Bess Myerson, the former Miss America of 1945.
“Tony Award Winning Actor Michael Moriarty Invites You To Celebrate Raquel Welch in Woman of the Year” is how the invitation read. This night was one of my favorites for the obvious reason that I got to hang out with and look at Raquel Welch all night. Hosting her party at Studio 54 was a truly memorable experience. She was so sweet, inviting me to see her performance in Woman of the Year as her guest. I went and she blew me away. I had seen Lauren Bacall in the production and she was wonderful, but Raquel took it to another level of enjoyment. I had never heard catcalls in a Broadway theater before—but she brought the unthinkable out in men. Her costumes did justice to her magnificent body and, just in case you haven’t heard, she can really sing and dance, kicking those beautiful legs sky-high. The crowd at Studio went wild upon her arrival.
“Playboy Magazine Invites You To Celebrate the Thirtieth Anniversary Playmate Search and Debut of 1983’s PLAYMATE of the Year—Marianne Gravatte.” She was Playmate of the Month in the October 1982 Issue and then Playmate of the Year in 1983. She was so hot and so was Studio 54. As usual on nights like this, we were packed. Hundreds of guys came out for Playboy Parties and so did hundreds of girls, wanting to be where the guys were that night. It was always a fun crowd. Once again the overflow of people stopped traffic on Fifty-Fourth Street. As much as I appreciate beautiful women, I spent most of that night in my office getting high with Don Cornelius and James Brown, determined to get a commitment from Don to do a monthly broadcast of Soul Train LIVE from Studio 54, and I wanted to lock in a date for a James Brown concert. At one point, Robin Williams joined us, and the interplay between Robin and the Godfather of Soul was unforgettable. Robin danced and sang, doing a manic impersonation of James Brown, for James Brown. I only wished I’d had the means to record it.
Around 3:00 a.m., after James and Don left, I decided to head up to the Rubber Room. The Rubber Room was not a room at all but the third-tier balcony of The Gallo Opera House, now Studio 54. It was seventy-five feet above it all, offering an unobstructed view of the dance floor and all of the goings-on below. The walls, ceiling, bar, and rubberized floor covering were all black. The two black leather banquettes and a small bar area made it very intimate. I felt like relaxing on one of the banquettes so I climbed the stairs with Luciana, a very tall, stunning, short-haired Italian brunette I had just met on the dance floor a few minutes earlier.
When we reached the Rubber Room I immediately caught a whiff of amyl nitrate and then my eyes took it all in. At least twenty-five to thirty very hot, scantily clad young ladies wearing bustiers and lingerie were dancing and moving to the beat of “Feel the Need In Me” by The Detroit Emeralds.
I recognized some of the girls from Tropicalia, a club I went to several times with Frankie Crocker before I bought Studio 54. It was on the Upper East Side, a cool little spot, with lots of mirrors, and a good DJ—Jay Negron. Frankie knew him and introduced us. He played some smokin’ hot dance music with some Latin stuff mixed in that I really liked. It was a hangout for some very attractive Pan Am stewardesses who liked to dance. They were a wild bunch—most of them were German and accustomed to playing around in the nightclubs of Berlin. There were four or five guys, I think they might have been stewards, dancing together—doing poppers. I spotted a small plate of Quaaludes and another plate of coke on top of the bar. Leroy was already into my playlist for the late-night crowd and when he dropped the needle on The Gap Band’s “Party Train,” the girls went into overdrive. High heels, thigh-high boots, and one or two whips caught my eye. One of the busboys informed me that the girls had arranged it all in advance with Shay Knuth in Catering, ordering twenty bottles of Dom Perignon and several bottles of tequila with sides. The girls had arrived at 2:00 a.m. and requested the bartender not hang around but return every so often to check on the chilled champagne. It was a birthday party and the birthday girl was a big fan of Helmut Newton—which explained everything.
Two of the hottest redheads wearing some sort of matching military garb were pleasuring each other on one of the banquettes. Sitting across from them was the only girl in the room wearing a long dress and on the floor in front of her, under a lot of black velvet, was a guy bobbing his head rhythmically between her legs. I had to laugh because some people never found their way up here—it was perceived as being too far from the dance floor and the main bar, where people thought all the action to be. But as regulars to Studio 54 knew, anything could happen in the Rubber Room—and it usually did. As Grace Jones described it in her recently published book I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, “It had walls that could be easily wiped down after all the powdery activity that went on. It was a place of secrets and secretions, the in-crowd and inhalations, sucking and snorting.”
A few girls were snapping cat o’ nine tails, grinding and teasing on each other. One girl wearing nothing more than a tutu, heels, and suspenders danced over to us and grabbed Luciana behind the head and kissed her on the mouth—deeply. Luciana grabbed the girl under her tutu and moved her against the wall. The girl began to writhe under Luciana’s touch. I moved over and away. I could tell that they were all really high on Quaaludes, coke, and poppers. The redheads on the banquette were now up and dancing and in their place was a girl licking and sucking the nipples of another while pleasuring herself, and a third girl was spooning coke up their noses. Two girls were standing at the bar pouring champagne on their breasts inviting the others to lick it off. One very big girl was attempting to pleasure herself with the neck of a champagne bottle…and then I saw him…there in the middle of it all was the one and only Dudley Moore…laughing his ass off and grooving to the beat. He was feeling no pain, loving every minute of the attention he was getting from the girls surrounding him.
I’d been introduced to Dudley earlier in the evening at the main bar. He was fascinated by Studio 54 and all the sexual possibilities it presented. I didn’t know how he ended up in the Rubber Room in the middle of this wild scene but I was happy for him. I was out of coke and didn’t want to disappoint so I decided to leave and head back downstairs to my office. Years later in 2002, I was in my car when I heard that Dudley Moore had passed away. Whenever I think of him or see one of his films, in which he was always so brilliant, I remember that night at Studio 54 and I smile. It was so Dudley. In 1983 he did an interview with Playboy in which he said,“I think sex is the most important part of anybody’s life. What else is there to live for? Chinese food and women. There is nothing else.”
Jack Hofsiss and Patti LuPone hosted a benefit for the Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians. That night was another memorable one for me because I was fortunate enough to meet and talk with some of the most creative forces in the music industry, all of whom showed up that evening to support the outstanding talents and contributions to the world of dance by Laura Dean. Laura is a dancer/choreographer having choreographed many ballets, eight of which were for The Joffrey Ballet. She often says that she wears two hats in the world of dance. The dance moves that she created for ballet were derived from her classical ballet training with such greats as Peter Martins of The New York City Ballet. H
er creations for The Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians, the foot stomping and twirling arm movement, were derived from her childhood and early dance experience in San Francisco. She composed much of the music for her dance company.
Peter Gabriel, founding member of the group Genesis, a pioneer in sound technology, and the genius behind the cymbal-less drum kit—the sound used by Phil Collins on the brilliant and beautiful “In The Air Tonight”—was in attendance to the delight of the Studio crowd. Peter had a monster-size radio and MTV hit at the time, “Shock The Monkey,” his first Top 40 hit in America after leaving Genesis. Laura worked with David Bowie as well, creating the movement for his Scary Monsters video in 1981, and with Peter Gabriel on staging and movement for his 1983 tour. John Travolta, David Bowie, Andy Warhol, Richard Gere, Mary McFadden, Melissa Gilbert, and Interview Magazine’s Bob Colacello were all in attendance, making donations and showing support for Laura. Richard Gere partied hard that night, hanging in the office till the end, along with Keith Richards and Phil Collins. Phil loved the energy of the club that night and we talked about a video shoot at Studio 54 for his next single, “I Don’t Care Anymore” on Atlantic Records, but it never came to be.
Hosting a party for the cast of characters on Saturday Night Live was always a lot of fun. We never knew what to expect. One great party was in celebration of the film 48 Hrs. which had been released a few days before, starring Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. The musical guest for the SNL show that evening was Lionel Richie and the host was Nick Nolte. I heard that Nick showed up for rehearsals on Saturday afternoon and threw up all over Eddie. Nick was too sick to go on after partying with me the night before at Studio, so it was decided that Eddie Murphy would step in and host, the first time ever an active member of the SNL cast had been given the honor of hosting the show. The show was a huge success from the opening monologue when Eddie said “and LIVE from New York it’s the Eddie Murphy Show.” Supposedly that pissed some people off. The SNL parties were always very private, with invitations going to cast members and their personally invited guests only. They liked to unwind after a grueling week of preparation for the show, which has always been performed in front of a live audience. We reserved the Rubber Room for them, which they appreciated, and we agreed once again to let them use the fire escape on Fifty-Third Street to enter the club. They requested that it be specified on the invitation. It was insane—watching them climb the five stories up to the Rubber Room on an outdoor fire escape, but they loved it. They were all such children—they loved doing the unexpected and naughty. Joe Piscopo, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Brad Hall, Clint Smith, Eddie Murphy, Lionel Richie, the SNL crew, and all their invited friends did their thing that night after the show in the Rubber Room. Nick Nolte has had his ups and downs since Studio but has always managed to land on his feet and do really good work as an actor. In 2017, Nick earned a Golden Globe (Best Actor) nomination, for his work on the 2016 TV series Graves.
Inside Studio 54 Page 21
