DISGRACELAND - Studio 54: Disco Decadence, a Dead Body and Bags of Cash

Episode Date: May 26, 2020

In the late seventies, Studio 54 was the place to be for musicians and celebrities alike. John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and others all famously hung out at the notorious club where hedonism was part of the venue’s allure. The success of Studio 54 was sudden and massive, resulting in mountains of cash, cocaine, jealousy, revenge, an FBI raid, and an ironic ending for one of its owners. To view the full list of contributors, see the show notes at ⁠disgracelandpod.com⁠ This episode was originally published on May 26, 2020. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠YouTube⁠ ⁠X⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠ ⁠TikTok  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things, Tana Monjou, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes a suspect is found guilty before a verdict is ever read in court.

On the Wicked Words podcast, I talk with the writers who dig deep into the cases that changed history, including Marsha Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction. It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder. If you were at the scene at all, you're guilty of murder. Every week, the real story is revealed. Join us every Monday for new episodes of Wicked Words. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream.

Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorway than Elizabeth Taylor? That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. The story is about Studio 54.

are insane. Arguably the most legendary nightclub of all time, Studio 54 celebrated, encouraged, and flaunted hedonism. Farm animals, little people, giant Coke spoons hanging from the ceiling, drugs, cocaine, quailudes, sex, and other Romanesque acts of debauchery were rampant inside the walls of Studio 54. As were the criminal exploits of club owners Steve Rubel and Ian Schrager, both of whom carefully cultivated the allure of Studio 54, drawing first on the inclusiveness of disco culture's early days, and later on the exclusive cult of celebrity personality. Famous musicians John Lennon, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, along with the world's most famous celebs, not just actors and actresses, but international heads of state, royals, and even brady dynastic Kennedy kids, were all a ubiquitous presence, seen nightly dancing with a band in amongst ordinary New Year's. Yorkers. So constant was the celebrity presence at Studio 54 that Studio 54 redefined the concept of celebrity for the modern age. That's a fact. Andy, Truman, Liza, suddenly their last names didn't matter.

Studio 54 had made them even more famous, and Studio 54 made its owners Steve Rubel and Ian Schrager a lot of money. And money, the abundance of it, was the problem, not the sex or the drugs or the great music. That's right, great music, because disco is great music. That music I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music.

That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Coke Baroque MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to La Freak by Sheik. And why would I play you that specific slice of fuck-off cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on December 14, 1978. And that was the day federal agents showed up at 254 West 54th Street and effectively shut down one of the greatest parties America had ever seen. On this episode, sweat-soaked and totally coked celebrities, debauchery on the dance floor, cash,

trash, a dead body at the disco in Studio 54. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. It was simple. If you owned a bar or nightclub in New York City and had a jukebox in your place, you were going to have to go into business with the mafia. Jukeboxes were one of the many rackets controlled by the mob. Truth was, racketeering millions of dollars in jukebox nickels all over the country was a time-honored practice going back to Meyer-Lansy. in the 1930s. Movie star Debbie Reynolds caught a taste of it when she tried getting into the jukebox game

as an investment in the 60s, only to see most of her financial stake gobbled up by the Genevese crime family. Mob control of jukeboxes also gave made guys easy access to all sorts of classy nightclubs and dance bars where they could frequent regularly with their gumas. So if you didn't want wise guys

cutting in on your profit or worse, hanging out at your club, you would best find a form of entertainment that wasn't a jukebox. Especially if you were gay, in trying to establish a club in New York in the 1970s, you had enough problems. You didn't need the mafia jamming you up,

so a jukebox was out. And bands, good bands anyway, not the covers crap that would attract the unwanted straight crowd and possibly also the mafia's attention weren't really an option either. So DJs were a necessity. DJs, music aficionados with impeccable taste

who could source new, citing as of yet unheard of 45s from places as far away as France and Western Africa, and as near as a couple of hours down the road in the Gamble and Huff warehouse in Philly. Records like Sugar Pie Guy by the Jones's and Wild Safari by Barabbas, music that would attract the preferred clientele, clientele who wanted to dance and to connect emotionally out in public, sort of, for the first time. These were early to mid-70s recordings that had nothing to do with the post-60s malaise of the first part of the decade. These were records that were willfully ignorant of the societal pressures

of the day, the drag of the economy, Vietnam, and Watergate. Records that were meant to be an escape. These were the records being played in Manhattan's first openly gay dance clubs. The music these DJs played rhythmically relied on a repetitive, reinforced kick drum, nearly a constant four-on-the-floor beat to keep the dance floor full, and celebrated hedonism and individuality, a sense of individuality that turned out, could be empowering for a subculture regularly persecuted because of its sexuality, a type of music called disco. Clubs like the Ice Palace, Infinity, and Hurrah, hired DJs who not only sourced this exciting new music, but who also knew how to perform it. And I don't use that word perform lightly.

Disco DJs, or good ones anyway, sequenced the records they played to not only keep the dance floors full, but to elicit an emotional reaction from clubgo. to connect through music, through dance, and in an emotionally resonant way, one that was enthralling, compelling, and totally fun. Most early disco was a combination of obscure, deep-groved, black American soul, and imported world music being played in European discothex. In addition to attracting sophisticated gay Manhattanites, some of whom worked in fashion, stylists, hairdressers, and makeup artists,

these clubs also attracted beautiful women, models who would have been. follow their gay male co-workers from the fashion industry for an undeniable good time to clubs where there were no obnoxious straight men to hit on them, clubs where they were free to dance and to have fun until the early morning hours. The vibe at these clubs was special, unique. It was a moment in time, post-Stonewall, pre-Ragan. For the first time anywhere in America, being gay was being seen as something other than a liability. It was fun and semi-open. If you were gay or straight in an hour, ally, the experience of dancing at these clubs was glorious. You couldn't help but feel emotionally connected to most everyone in the room. The DJ at Harrah knew this, and he calibrated his set

accordingly. The last song was crucial. It wasn't about kicking the party off from the club at 4.30 a.m. to some grimy after hours. It was about creating a lasting emotional connection before parting ways. He had just the song. Donna Summers loved to love you, The Giorgio Moroder penned 16 and a half minute vamp, filled with summer's ecstatic moans and groans, was more than just sex. It was a high-wock cable of connectivity that pulsed through the early disco scene. Timed, right, played at just the right moment during the night. The song was enough to make those in the know openly weep on the dance floor. Because aside from the sex, the sweat, the pulsing lights, the requisite clubland drugs and booze, the burgeoning hedonism,

If you were in on this song, it meant you were in on something special. It meant you were special because you were in on what was going on. You couldn't help but feel it, not just on the dance floor, but in the larger club scene in New York at the time, something big was about to happen. The little dude from Brooklyn at the bar knew it too, and it didn't matter how fucked up he was either. Last call had come and gone, and the quailudes had kicked in big time.

The bartender asked him if he was going anywhere, and the little dude smiled Riley as if in on an even deeper secret. The bartender then shouted over the pulsing Donna Summer Track. You look like you're having a good time. The short dude replied with, Yeah, I think I'd take in too many quails. I want your name and address. The bartender smiled and wrote his info on the back of a matchbook.

The short dude smiled back. back at him and tried again to make his mouth work. Thanks. My name's Steve. It's called Studio 54. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests, like Amelia Clark. When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever,

my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going,

and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kimman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear,

not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Morone at Carrie Kenny Silver. And more.

Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever.

Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you do. You know, you look back at it and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter arguing about movies?

Well, that's us. I'm Millie to Cherico. And I'm Casey O'Brien. And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You, from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the criterion closet? Go ahead, dude. They're letting too many people in there.

Okay, that's another film grape I got to. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes. Or an ice cream shop with an extra pee and an E at the end. So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over, from hidden gems to big screen favorites.

New episodes drop every week on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There was simply too much money. Too much cash. Too much to count. Too much to account for. At the end of another successful night at his new club, Studio 54,

co-owner and Master of Ceremonies extraordinaire, Steve Rubel, used to collect all the cash in a big plastic trash bag. He'd stash it in his safe, hide it in the ceiling, squirrel hundreds of thousands of dollars of it away in his Upper East Side apartment. He'd flaunt it, he'd stuff it into the insides of his puffy winter jacket and roam the bowels of the studio handing it out to unsuspecting clubgoers. He'd set an extra trash bag full of cash aside in his office and let his new friend Andy Warhol come over and just play with it. Andy loved cash. But most of all, Steve Rubell and his business partner, Ian Schrager, would skim it.

Off the top of the nightly take, illegally. Skimming cash was always part of the plan. Going all the way back to opening night. April 26, 1977, 254 West 54th Street, the first guest to show up at the opening of Studio 54 were ushered in with little fanfare. Near Empty, the new club and old converted CBS television studio seemed cavernous, cold.

The guests, one of whom was an ambitious up-and-coming real estate tycoon from Queens, Donald Trump, and his new wife, Ivana, fresh from dinner at Elaine's to see what all the hype was about. We're not impressed, but that would soon change. Shortly, the club started to fill up around them, and it filled up fast. They came pouring in through the front door, the side door, the back exits had to be open to accommodate the surging crowd inside.

Months of smart publicity, well-placed notices and local papers, perfectly timed tip-offs to celebrity handlers, an organic word of mouth throughout the disco scene, had created a swell-yed. of anticipation for the new club. And an hour or so after its official opening, that swell had crashed down upon Studio 54. Cher made the seat.

People freaked out. She and actress Margo Hemingway hit the empty dance floor before anyone else and just went for it. Strategically placed photographers from local rags started snapping picks of basically the only thing that was happening at the club up to that point, two celebrities dancing.

Norm soon joined them and it was Cool. This mixing of class status, it was compelling. More people joined on the dance floor. Brooke Shields, not yet a teenager, brought there by British journalist Robin Leach, was one of them. Michael Jackson showed up, accompanied by Diana Ross, both of whom were in town filming The Whiz. Photogs photographed, the music pulsed, deep, deep bass from the state-of-the-art sound system. Gotta Give It Up by Marvin Gay. I Feel Love by Donna Summer. Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder, Sheeks, everybody dance. The music was contagious, and thus, so was the dancing. The vibe was real, right, the dance floor was hot, sticky, euphoric.

Self-consciousness wasn't an option. Abandoned, visceral, and fun filled the room. Liberation. Men, dancing with men, dancing with whoever they wanted, unencumbered. Bartenders, young, cut 20-something shirtless, clad in nothing but tight gym shorts and tennis sneakers hustled the crowd for tips. Celebrities mingled with New Yorkers in off the street, no one busted the vibe or the groove.

It was almost innocent, for a New York minute anyway. Inside, all of a sudden, there were a thousand people, and there were another thousand people trying to get in. Outside on 54th Street, the crowd ballooned. Steve Rubel stood on a fire hydrant next to his head of club security and Cherry picked wannabe discos from the sidewalk for entry into his own private theatrical production. Choosing lucky entrance into his suddenly exclusive club was like he would say, casting a play.

Like Groucho Marx's famous line that he wouldn't want to be part of any club that would have him as a member, Steve Rubel knew what kind of people should get in. And ironically, he joked that Studio 54 clubgoers shouldn't look anything like himself. Shlubby, short, unimpressive, outer burrow, bridge and tunnel, a phrase he invented. Despite his self-perceived shortcomings, Steve Rubel had. had a keen eye for glamour, not celebrity necessarily, but physical beauty, vitality, charisma, individualism. The scrawny boy from Brooklyn with the pockmarked face had found a loophole in Groucher's joke. He wasn't just a member of the club. He owned the club. And so he ruled like a little

disco Napoleon that he was, casting his embittered, glamorous spell with a new kind of magic wand of his own invention, the original velvet rope. The velvet rope connected on stanchions was first deployed outside Studio 54's entrance to keep the prostitutes working Times Square out from under the marquee and away from the customers. But with the swelling crowds looking to gain entrance into the club, it quickly became a tool to keep the crowd at bay, clearly dividing those who had it from those who didn't. The velvet rope empowered Steve to keep anyone who looked like him out. Steve had started from the bottom. Now he'd made it. He was special, and his club was only for the special people, and he was going to make damn sure he was the only person like himself inside.

Outside the studio on opening night, while Steve cast clubgoers, the crowd spilled into the street and completely blocked traffic. Sirens wailed, beat cops shook their heads and disgust. Prostitutes wondered what in the hell was happening to their neighborhood. What an ass pain. Warren Beatty tried unsuccessfully to get in. So did Henry Winkler,

and the Fonz was shit out of luck. Words spread around the excited crowd that Frank Sinatra was circling in a limo, his people trying to devise a quick entrance. And there was a doctor in the crowd, who like most of the people around him, had been trying without any luck to get in. Soon he figured that if no party was to be had inside, and there was a party to be had out on the sidewalk, about 30 or so waves of people back from the studio's entrance. He pulled the mayonnaise jar-sized container of quailudes from his coat pocket and began passing them out to everyone around him. About 20 minutes later, the pills kicked in, and so too did the pent-up sexual tension in the good doctor's immediate

vicinity. A streetside orgy kicked up amongst the fully looted crowds surrounding the doctor. Sex, in the street, on opening night, because... Why not? Because it was something to do, because it was Studio 54. The next day, Steve Rubel was ecstatic. The opening was a smash. It all but said so right there on the cover of the goddamn New York Post, with its front-page coverage of the club's first night, with a photo of Cher at the studio. Rubel worked the phones, called everyone he knew to let them know what a success the opening was.

His business partner, Ian Schrager, worked the books. Ian, an attorney with a sharp mind for business, calculated the skim. The cut for him, Steve and his other partner, Jack Duchet, off the gross from the door, the bars, the coat checked, cigarette concessions. It was not an insignificant number. Business was about to go, boom.

Steve took a call. It was international fashion. designer Halston. He'd read about the studio in the morning paper and wanted to know if he could throw a birthday party for the soon-to-be ex-Mrs. Mc Jagger, Bianca Jagger, at Steve's new club. Of course, Steve exclaimed. He quickly made arrangements with Halston hung up and deadpan to his business partner. Ian, Bianca Jagger is throwing her birthday party here. We need a horse. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler,

we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an act or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me.

Making karate noises. And his entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham.

So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more.

Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words Podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do.

You know, you look back at it and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the exactly right network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter, arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie to Cherico.

And I'm Casey O'Brien. And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You, from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the Criterion Clause? Go ahead, dude. They're letting too many people in there. Okay, that's another film grape I got two.

Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes. Or an ice cream shop with an extra pee and an E at the end. So consider us your Slacker Movie Clerks and Podcasts, form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over, from hidden gems to big screen favorites. New episodes drop every week on the exactly right network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Mark Bankey, Studio 54's doorman and head of security, couldn't believe what he was seeing. There, cutting through the nightly mass of wannabe studio 54 entrance lined up and assembled on the other side of the velvet rope on 54th Street were two women, naked women, on horses, riding the horses, through the crowd up to the velvet rope in hopes of getting by Steve Rubel and gaining entry into the studio. The women, like everyone else in the world, had read about Bianca Jagger's party at the studio and the papers. Bianca was photographed riding into the club into her party.

on the back of a beautiful white horse that Steve had arranged. So these two women figured they could one up, Bianca, and not only mount horses, but mount them naked, and be so over the top they would be guaranteed entrance. Steve Rebell took one look at them. They were bridge and tunnel all the way. Steve told them their horses could come in, but they couldn't,

and to take their naked asses back home to Bay Ridge or wherever the fuck. And that's exactly what happened. Steve Rubel could be vicious at the door, demeaning wannabe customers. right to their faces, insulting their appearance, their fashion choices, their clout. It made for a cult of exclusivity. Steve made sure the qualifications for getting inside remained hard to pin down. It wasn't just novelty or camp or glamour.

It was originality and authenticity. Disco Sally, a widowed septuagenarian born in 1900, who still had the craziest moves on the dance floor. Rollerina, a staple of Greenwich Village in the club scene who was never spotted without her trademark skates on inside the club. Stockbrokers blowing off steam by coming out to party and drag and mingling with drag queen royalty divine, who could be seen yucking it up with Elton John. For all the excess inside the club, Steve had an eye for balance, keeping the blend of crazy characters, celebrities, and regular clubgoers just right, like a secret recipe.

Studio 54's eccentric regulars and velvet robe policy became legend. Doorman Mark Benicki regularly exchanged entrance for sex. The shot of Super Ego adrenaline Steve got from ruling over the crowd was better than sex. Steve may have been callous and mean to his customers outside, but inside he took care of his guests, especially his celebrity guests, showering them with drugs, alcohol, gifts, and elaborate parties. Whether it was New Year's Eve or Halloween, Bianca Jagger's birthday or Andy Warhol's, the parties at the studio were not to be topped.

Magic rained from the ceiling whether it took the form of a literal ton of glitter or wrapped gift boxes full of designer fashion. Dolly Parton held an after-party at the club with live farm animals. One Halloween party featured peep show booths where inside, little people performed everyday scenes. Another birthday was circus themed with costumes provided by legendary Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. Celebrities flock to Studio 54. Liza Minnelli, Andy Warhol, and Truman Capote, New Yorkers all adopted the club as their regular. And there were more celebrities, of course.

Robert De Niro co-mingled with his native New Yorkers and hid out from paparazzi. Bruce Springsteen traded in his blue-collar credentials for the high life. Andre the Giant hung out with the little people, literally. Mick Jagger got bored with Bianca and found a new love, Texas model, Jerry Hall. Keith Richards found his future wife as well, another model, Patty Hansen. Stephen Tyler got to know Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson got to know Brooke Shields. John Travolta got sweaty with Sylvester Stallone.

Grace Jones got naked, a lot. Despite the Velvet Rope politics, Studio 54 on the inside, like disco culture, was about inclusivity. Celebrities, working stiff, stockbrokers, firemen, whoever, it didn't matter as long as you were interesting and had something to offer. Young, old, gay, straight, drag, trans, you were welcome, provided you could get inside where you were granted access to a never-ending Shangri-La for freaks, weirdos, and outcasts, where even the most stigmatized members of society could rub shoulders, among other body parts,

with high society's shining stars. New York's underground queer community was at home at Studio 54 in a way that no suburban commuters could ever be because the square's imaginations just weren't big enough. But in this nighttime Zanadu on 54th, the shadowy corners of the outside, world, like bus station glory holes, became the main attraction in the club balcony, which was rubber-lined for convenience to make for easy cleanup after heat of the moment sex acts. And that was upstairs. Upstairs, the balcony at Studio 54 was for sure for blowjobs.

But if you were looking for something more, there were mattresses in the basement, grimy, filthy mattresses strewn upon the dingy basement floor of Studio 54 for those who just needed to fuck. The basement was sort of the unofficial backstage where pretty much anything was allowed. As if the open sex and blatant drug use going on upstairs wasn't hedonistic enough, downstairs was where the truly debauch got down. To gain access to the basement, you needed to be somebody, and Steve needed to believe you were somebody, and worthy of his attention,

and his drugs, cocaine and quailudes, lots and lots of cocaine and quailudes. A trusted bartender or security member would leave, you behind one of the main room's bars. There was a secret door. It would open, and you'd be guided down a dark, dingy stairway into a darker expanse. Instantly, you transcended from glitz to grime. A concrete floor, low ceiling, sticky, stained furniture randomly placed amongst old set props from the venue's past days as a television studio. And there was little light. The throbbed from the massive subs upstairs propelling those on the dance floor into primal motion bled through. You'd hear murmurs, random fits of Funhouse Mirror laughter amidst bottles being popped and blow being hoovered.

Debbie Harry grabbing the ear of Andy Warhol. Truman Capote sprawled out on a sofa and his bathrobe, champagne bottle dangling from his hand. Margaret Trudeau and Linda Ronstadt hanging off of a gin-soaked Ryan O'Neill, sweating subterranean sex appeal, and Steve Rubel hanging off of his every word. In the mattresses, they were set off to the side and makeshift cubicles for privacy. If the drugs allowed and if the blow didn't blow your top and if the quailudes didn't cut you down to size, you could steal away for a quick romp. During the daytime, the basement was largely avoided by Studio 54 staff,

but one morning, avoiding the effects of last night's party was no longer an option. The smell was too much, too strong. The doorman and money counters could barely go about their business. They swore a stray animal had climbed in and gotten trapped. The scent of rot was seized. keeping in through the air vents. Reluctantly, Steve had the air vents inspected. What they found was rattling. Inside the basement ceiling air vent, a dead man. Shunned from the velvet rope too many times to count. He'd donned his tucks and decided to sneak in Studio 54 through the

air vent. Something jammed him up. Who knew how long he'd been trapped in there? Screaming in horror, competing with the blasting music, the funhouse laughter, and the constant ecstatic din and hum of hedonism. He was dressed to the nines, dressed for the party, a party he'd never attend, dead in the air vent. Steve breathed the sigh of relief, the air vent, not the drywall. No need for the sledgehammers, no need for poking around and potentially exposing what was hidden mere feet from the dead man in the ceiling. Rows and rows of cash. The skim, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars hidden away from the IRS right there in the rafters and crawl spaces of Studio 54.

Fuck off. Fuck off. It was New Year's Eve and disco hitmaker Nile Rogers and his chic bandmate, Bernard Edwards, were at Nile's apartment a couple blocks away from Studio 54. fucking around on their guitars, totally dejected, angry,

pissed at doorman Mark Benicki for not letting them buy the velvet rope and into the studio's much-hyped, highly exclusive New Year's Eve party. To make matters worse, Nile and Bernard weren't just going to the club to party. They were going on business to meet with Grace Jones to discuss producing her next album.

So in effect, they were standing her up and fucking up their business in the process. They banged on their guitars in between chugs of worn champagne straight from the bottom. Fuck off. They were messing around, channeling their anger at Benneke. At Steve Rubell at Studio 54,

the house that disco built, while disco music was being built in part by Nile and Bernard. Fuck off. The more they played, the more it became clear that the sound of what they were messing around with was actually sounding pretty good.

As they dug in, fuck off, soon organically morphed into Freak Off. And then, freak out. And just like that, Sheik created a disco anthem. Born out of Studio 54's ridiculous exclusivity, Sheik's Le Freak will go on to sell 7 million copies and hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the first song to hit number one three different times over its lifespan of 25 total weeks on the chart. Nile Rogers and Mark Benicki are now friends, no doubt

because Mark's actions led to the creation of Sheik's massive hit. In part, the success of Le Freak led to Nile Rogers becoming an in-demand producer and working with Madonna and David Bowie, not to mention the untold millions of dollars the track generated for its songwriters. And the millions were stacking up elsewhere as well. In an interview in New York Magazine in 1977, on the success of Studio 54, Steve Rubel told the magazine,

only the mafia does better. That set off alarms at IRS headquarters. Clearly, Rebell was joking about the amount of money the club was making, but the joke must have been rooted in some sort of truth. Everyone knew, especially IRS agents, how notorious the nightclub business was for skimming. It was a cash business, so it was easy to skim money off the top of the nightly take and not report it to the federal government, and thus not pay taxes and business taxes in 1977, were a robust 48%. The IRS suspected Rebell was screwing uncle out of serious coin. So they got to work. Rumor was the IRS had a plant, a snitch, a disgruntled employee or regular, someone disrespected, angered by Steve Rubel, someone Steve treated like shit, either dressed down in front

of others kicked out of the club or more than likely refused to let pass the velvet rope. It didn't matter. Either way, the snitch was pissed, angered at being treated like shit. And so, he told the IRS everything he knew. The drugs, mountains of cocaine, and endless supply of quailudes, Steve kept it in his office, kept it hidden away in various spots around the club, kept drugs on him, especially when he had his big frumpy winter coat on. Then he was definitely holding. And more than drugs, the coat was big enough to stash stacks of cash as well.

Cash, Steve would hand out to friends, Warhol especially, but would also use it to bring back to his east side apartment, where he had close to 900 grand in small bills ensconced in his safe. Ian Schrager, Steve's business partner, was rumored to be driving around the city with 400 grand in cash in his trunk. Ian managed the nightly take, and most everyone who worked at Studio 54 knew every night at midnight, the receipts in the cash registers would be switched.

The cash register receipts from the earlier part of the evening would account for one set of financial books, and the cash register receipts from the second part of the evening. evening would account for a second set of financial books. Two sets of books that Ian Schrager kept meticulous records of. When 30 federal IRS agents raided Studio 54 in the morning of December 14, 1978, the books day on earthed and the raid made clear to them that on average, Steve Rubel and Ian Schrager were skimming about $70,000 a night. Over the course of a year and a half, All in, they'd taken $2.5 million off the top, into their pockets, tax-free.

In addition to seizing records, agents also seized trash bags filled with cash from the basement and five ounces of cocaine. Steve Rubel was arrested that day. He and Ian hired high-profile attorney Roy Cohn, a bull of a lawyer, former attack dog for the red-baiting disgraced Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy and future mentor to the aforementioned Queen's real estate. developer and future president, Donald J. Trump, Roy Cohn did not fuck around. He dug in and began to fight for Ian and Steve. And Steve Rubel, perhaps inspired by Roy Cohen's notoriously aggressive tactics with the press, in his most egregious act of hubris, decided it was a good public relations strategy to accuse White House chief of staff Hamilton Jordan of using cocaine in the basement of the studio earlier that year. That about sealed Steve and Ian's

The hubris, the elitism, the success, Steve, Ian, Studio 54, the high-profile crime and court case were in the papers almost every day by the time the sun came up on the party of the 1970s. New Yorkers, Americans, frankly, they were pissed off and tired of the elitist bullshit. Celebrities, embezzlement, designer drugs, these were high society, East Coast elite problems for a culture that was bending toward Ronald Reagan, conservatism, and an idealized regressive notion of what America should be. It was Schadenfreude when the judge gave Steve Rubel and Ian Schrager three and a half years in federal prison for corporate and personal tax evasion, a sentence that was ultimately reduced due to the duo's participation in helping the government convict four other New York City club

owners, competitors of Studio 54. What a swell couple of guys. The studio remained open under new management and eventually new ownership when Steve and Ian went to jail in 1980, but effectively with their departure in the turn of the decade, the party was over. Disco began with the spirit of inclusiveness, a music and a culture that encouraged and celebrated individuality, a culture that was welcoming, no matter where you came from or what your identity was. Male, female, gay, straight, trans, drag, rich, poor, young, old, it didn't matter. You were welcome, so long as you were welcoming yourself.

Studio 54 embodied the spirit of disco in a lot of ways, but not for everyone. That was the irony. Steve Rubel's exclusive velvet robe policy smacked of elitism and led to not only the demise of Studio 54, but of disco as a dominant cultural forest as well. 1989, July, aloft in downtown Manhattan. The remnants of a dinner party turned cocaine pregame turned night out at the club with more Coke turned after party back at the loft where it all started, with more lines and some grass to take the edge of.

Early morning, hanging out, semi-famous DJs, stockbrokers, a street artist and Grace Jones, still naked a decade plus since their days at Studio 54, smoking a joint in the corner. It's a relatively chill scene, despite the better part of the evening being in the rear view. Too high to go home, too tired to do much of anything but wait on the sun. Steve Rebell is sitting alone on the sofa. He's frail, 10 years removed from his heyday at Studio 54. His life since, a prison term, a quick career resurgence upon his and Ian Schrager's release. New clubs and hotel ventures and then the gut-punch reality of AIDS.

Steve was positive, HIV. And on that night, the night he effectively escaped Beth Israel Medical Center to party, He looked like death. Knowing that the writing was on the wall, that he only had a few days left to live, Steve had been drinking heavily and taking whatever drugs were put in front of him. And now, the coughing wouldn't stop,

much to the annoyance of the other guests in the loft. Steve knew it, and Steve knew he had to get back to the hospital. And through the fits of coughing, he tried to make the dial on the rotary phone work, but no luck. Whenever he'd get his bony little finger into the hole to spin the dial, he'd start coughing again, violently, and he'd have to start all over. The coughs were thunderous, despite coming from such a frail man and seemingly endless,

and driving the others in the loft to distraction, to annoyance. Steve tried to dial again, more coughing, no dice, again, more coughs. Steve's hacking was now drowning out not only the conversation, but the music coming from the stereo. Soon, he was likely to start waking the neighbors, something had to be done. The owner of the loft took it upon himself to let Steve Rubel know. He wasn't welcome. I'm Jake Brennan,

and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it.

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we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. David O'Yello. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addictive. or you just go straight for the guts.

Dennis Leary, Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes a suspect is found guilty before a verdict is ever read in court. On the Wicked Words podcast, I talk with the writers who dig deep into the cases that changed history, including Marsha Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction. It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder.

If you were at the scene at all, you're guilty of murder. Every week, the real story is revealed. Join us every Monday for new episodes of Wicked Words. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorway than Elizabeth Taylor? That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You,

the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.