The whole world, it seemed, came together on that strobe-lit dance floor in a way that seems inconceivable in this age of plague, political correctness, moral righteousness, and social fragmentation. Why so much fuss over a short-lived nightclub? Like James Dean in the 50s and the Beatles in the 60s, Studio 54 so embodied its time that it couldn’t last long. And writer Anthony Haden-Guest is working on a book about the disco era, titled The Last Party, to be published in time for the 20th anniversary of Studio 54’s opening. Next spring, NDR Television, the PBS of Germany, will air The Last Dance, a feature-length documentary produced and co-directed by Al Corley, who was a doorman at 54 before starring in Dynasty.
SOCIALITE STUDIO MOVIE
Stillman, whose first date with his future wife was at Studio 54, is currently writing the script for his next film, The Last Days of Disco, much of which will be set in “a fictional club very much like 54.” Sandy Gallin’s Sandollar Productions and producer John Davis also have a Studio 54 movie in development. “At the height of it, it was suddenly over.” “The life of 54 was cut abruptly short,” says Whit Stillman, the director of Metropolitan and Barcelona. “In reality it only lasted two or three years.” It was 33 months, to be exact, between the tumultuous opening-night party on April 26, 1977, and the tumultuous farewell party for Rubell and Schrager on February 2, 1980, two nights before they were to be incarcerated for income-tax evasion. “In my mind, I remember it as a 10-to-15-year period,” says Hollywood talent manager Sandy Gallin, who frequently flew from Los Angeles to New York to go to Studio 54. “We were the generation who happened to be young between the Pill and AIDS,” notes Von Furstenberg with a sigh. And yet those who regularly made it past the legendary velvet rope recall their nights there with an immediacy that makes that carefree, faraway time seem like yesterday. Barnum types from Brooklyn,” as a veteran New York scene-maker put it-opened Studio 54 in a former CBS television studio on West 54th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues and began their delirious reign as the absolute monarchs of Manhattan nightlife. Next year, two decades will have elapsed since Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager-“two P.
Remember the fountain that was a block away, in front of one of those big new office buildings on Seventh Avenue? We used to go swimming there after 54-we’d just flip off our shoes and dive in.” I’d duck down so they couldn’t see me, but they’d run after the car anyway! Oh, God, we had such good times. I used to go to dance, but then all these men would chase after you because you were dancing. Simpson made a pass at me at Studio 54,” says Barbara Allen de Kwiatkowski, a star beauty of the 70s. More often than not, you’d leave 54 accompanied.”
You could go in jeans or in black-tie, and if you were in black-tie you could still pick up cute boys in jeans. It existed in a time when it was hip to be glamorous. And I went there with all kinds of people, from clones to socialites. They re-created Peking, and people were carried about on palanquins-it was really over the top. “I remember the birthday party for Michael Chow there. “I used to go with Tina Chow,” says photographer David Seidner. If you missed a night, Andy would say, ‘You missed the best night.’ And if he hadn’t been there, he’d be on the phone the first thing in the morning, wanting to know who was there.” Andy would be ensconced on a couch with Bianca and Halston.
It was like going to another Factory, because you’d see everyone from the office-Fred Hughes, Catherine Guinness, Chris Makos-every night, all night. “And I’d just walk in, and it felt so good-all those people staring and waving and taking pictures of everyone who got in, thinking if you got in you must be somebody. “I loved getting out of a cab and seeing those long lines of people who couldn’t get in,” says Brigid Berlin, one of Andy Warhol’s Factory workers. “I would have dinner with my children, put on my cowboy boots, take my Mercedes, park in the garage next door, go in for a couple of hours, find someone, and leave.” ‘I had more fun at Studio 54 than in any other nightclub in the world,” says designer Diane Von Furstenberg.
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